Annals of Emergency Dispatch & Response Logo

Police Dispatch

Characterization of Call Prioritization Time in a Police Priority Dispatch System™

David Warner, Shawn Messinger, Chris Knight, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Jeff J. Clawson, MD, Isabel Gardett, PhD, Tracey Barron, BS, Mark Rector, Brett Patterson, Lazaro Guerra, Angela VanDyke, Christopher Olola, PhD

Aug 10, 2014|AEDR 2014 Vol. 2 Issue 2|Original Research

Time-to-dispatch in a 911 center continues to be a topic of much discussion in public safety. This study represents a first attempt to classify a subset of time-todispatch, call prioritization time, the time required to gather critical information prior to dispatching the call. The study characterizes call prioritization time in two Police dispatching agencies by determining overall median call prioritization time for all Chief Complaints (CCs) in the agencies studied, then by determining specific call prioritization times for the top five most commonly-used CCs...

Read more

Research and the Realities of Police Dispatch

Chris Knight

Aug 13, 2013|AEDR 2013 Vol. 1 Issue 2|Perspectives

The reality of police dispatching is that there is nothing routine. Police calls change frequently simply due to the type of business. A perceived cold call of "breaking and entering" into a property can quickly turn into an in-progress "robbery" when it is discovered that a suspect is on the scene and has a weapon. A report of an "assault" can quickly turn into an "active assailant (shooter)" situation, one of the most dangerous and complex types of incidents. The constantly-changing police world is just never routine. Because of the constantly-changing nature of policing and police...

Read more

The Distribution Of Emergency Police Dispatch Call Incident Types and Priority Levels Within the Police Priority Dispatch System

Shawn Messinger, David Warner, Chris Knight, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Mark Rector, Tracey Barron, BS, Angela VanDyke, Lazaro Guerra, Isabel Gardett, PhD, Brett Patterson, Jeff J. Clawson, MD, Christopher Olola, PhD

Aug 03, 2013|AEDR 2013 Vol. 1 Issue 2|Original Research

911 centers receive a wide variety of calls for police-related incidents. Using the Police Priority Dispatch System (PPDS®), a 911 Emergency Police Dispatcher (EPD) categorizes each incident with a specific Chief Complaint (CC) and prioritizes the case using a systematic alpha-numeric coding matrix. The wide variation in CC types and specific codes assigned can profoundly affect staffing and resource deployment decisions made by law enforcement agencies. However, the frequency of specific call types and priority levels in the PPDS has not been studied formally to date. The objective of...

Read more