Guest Column: Police Department answers calls for service as quickly as possible

For starters, it is essential to note that each call received by our dispatch center is assigned a priority level.

Priority 1 calls for service require an immediate emergency (lights/sirens) police response, and a Priority 1 call generally signals that someone is in immediate danger of significant bodily injury or death. Incidents can range from an injury traffic collision to someone armed with a weapon threatening the public.

Priority 2 calls for service require an immediate response for an “in-progress” incident. Police departments generally refer to “in-progress” as an event occurring at the moment, or about to happen, even as the caller is on the phone with dispatch.

An example could be an alarm company reporting an audible burglar alarm or a non-injury traffic collision where vehicles may be blocking a roadway. 

A Priority 3 call for service typically arrives in the dispatch on the non-emergency phone line (924-9574 or 924-5333). It may not require an immediate response. For example, a theft may have occurred, but some time has passed, and a suspect is no longer on the scene. Or there may have been a traffic accident, and no injuries reported.

When the dispatch center receives a call for service – either by 911 or via the non-emergency number – the  “call taker” is the first person one typically talks with. The call taker generates the call for service in the computer, assigns a priority level to the call, and then relays it to the “dispatcher.” The dispatcher views the call for assistance and, depending on the priority level, decides when to dispatch the call to an officer.

Sometimes the call is placed on hold until an officer assigned to that area of the city is free, and the dispatcher advises the watch commander of the holding call. The watch commander decides whether to hold the call, take it him/herself, or assign it to another officer. Priority 3 calls are the only calls held for an extended amount of time.

The Lemoore Police Department’s 2019 Annual Report is available online at lemoore.com. While thumbing through it, the reader – on page seven of the report – will find the response times for each priority level call – and they are impressive.

In 2019, a Priority 1 call for service took an average of three minutes and 52 seconds from the time the dispatcher informed the officer of the need to the time it took for that officer to arrive on the scene. Priority 2 calls took an average of 5 minutes and 3 seconds while Priority 3 calls took an average of 6 minutes and 46 seconds.

The Lemoore Police Department reminds all callers that need the department’s services to please remain on the line until the call-taker ends the call. Staying on the line is an essential part of the process because the dispatcher does his or her best to gather all the pertinent information needed to relay that information to responding officers.

A common misconception is that this may delay the officers’ response times, but rest assured, the call taker has already forwarded enough information to the dispatcher.

Information provided by the person calling in to dispatch continuously is entered into the computer and promptly forwarded to the responding officer even as the caller remains on the line.