Speed is Key For Communications Officers

If you drove 25 miles per hour from where you committed a crime and obeyed all traffic signals, how far could you get by the time a police officer arrived at the crime scene?

Cranford police communications officers train their new hires with this same question.

“We’ll tell them ‘you got all the crime info all right, but it it took you forever to get it to the patrols. Realize that at 25 miles per hour your prep search area is huge,’” said Sgt. Anthony Dobbins.

At a regular Wednesday night class, Citizens’ Police Academy students heard just how stressful a communications officer’s job can be on big days like the Fourth of July or during the flood season.

“We’ll have six people in the center and the calls will be nonstop for five or six hours with people asking when the fireworks will be set off. We could just pick up every phone and immediately say ‘after dark' over and over again,” he said.

Cranford communications officers monitor four police, three fire, mutual aid, and a slew of other assorted digital channels. They also receive 911 calls, fill information requests, monitor patrol statuses among other duties.

“We could be getting 20 calls for a Garden State Parkway accident on top of everything,” said Dobbins.

When it comes to this job, speed is essential.

“They used to say ‘what is your emergency’ but changed it to ‘where is your emergency,’” he said. “If the phone call gets disconnected we’ll send police to that location and figure it out from there.”

Officers refer to guide cards when dealing with 911 calls. They must read the directions exactly as written to the caller and can stop as soon as an emergency response team arrives at the scene.

“If you’re reading the guide card and you’re ad-libbing or you leave something out, forget a step, you’re holding the bag,” said Dobbins. “If you have a chest pains, there’s a chest pains card, there’s a bleeding card, a breathing card…”

Two officers must be in the communications center at all times. Communications officers take two 40-hour classes in order to receive certification. About 80 percent of the patrol division is trained to work in the communications center if needed.

“I’ve had people come in and I ask them why they want this job,” said Dobbins. “Some moms say they want to get back into the working field and that the job sounds interesting. Then they say 'I have to work holidays and weekends?!’”