Sheriff’s Computer Failures Slow Dispatch of Deputies

The Sheriff’s Department’s computer-aided dispatching system is greatly overburdened, regularly suffers unexplained failures for up to 20 minutes at a time and has lost information about emergency calls, according to an internal report completed this summer.

The report on the Emergency Communications Bureau also noted that dispatchers and others who take information from callers have vented their frustrations over equipment malfunctions on callers.

Some dispatchers were quoted in the 55-page report as telling callers, “I don’t have time to talk to you, just tell me what you need,” and “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

As a result of a lengthy study that preceded the report, sheriff’s officials established a new goal of 2 minutes for dispatching deputies to a Priority One or emergency situation, instead of the 3 minutes and 20 seconds that the study found typically transpired between the time a call was received and the dispatcher sends a deputy.

Lt. Ron Wilkerson, the head of the Sheriff’s Department’s emergency communications operation in Santa Ana, said Monday: “The report itself is designed to take a good, honest look at the Emergency Communications Bureau. . . . It’s not intended as doom and gloom. What we’re saying is ‘Hey, we’re stretching these people farther than they should be and stretching the system more than it was designed to handle.’ ”

Although no timetable was given, the report recommended several options the department could follow to help their dispatchers handle the steadily increasing number of calls for service. The recommendations range from a minimal upgrade of existing software, to the purchase of a new computer-aided dispatching system, which would cost an estimated $1.5 million, the report said.

Sheriff’s officials insisted the problems with the system do not point to a breakdown in service.

When the computer fails unexpectedly, “we are able to record information on dispatch cards in a timely manner,” which is what dispatchers did before the Sheriff’s Department purchased the computer-aided system in 1988, said Lt. Joe Davis.

“It’s the case where we have to revert to a manual system,” in which call-takers jot down information on cards that are then passed to dispatchers, Davis said. “When you are down 5 to 20 minutes, we can handle that. We can maintain the level of service,” Davis said.

The Sheriff’s Department, which received about 450,500 calls for service last year, began analyzing the dispatching system several months ago, Davis said.

The department wanted to know what problems existed with the current system to see how well it might work when coupled with a new communications system that county officials might install, sheriff’s officials said.

Also, the study was seen as helpful in deciding the fate of the San Clemente dispatch center, which used to handle that city’s Police Department calls before the Sheriff’s Department took it over this summer.

The study was also prompted by an incident last year in Laguna Niguel, where a woman who called for help after a robbery had to wait nine minutes for deputies to arrive.

In November, a gun-wielding robber tied up Hil Tavernetti, 59, in her flower and gift shop in the 30000 block of Crown Valley Parkway, a few blocks from the Sheriff’s Department substation. He stole about $35 from the cash register, and a bank card from her purse.

After the assailant fled, Tavernetti, who was not injured, dialed 911 and then waited five minutes, but no one showed up, she and sheriff’s officials said.

“I called again and the lady said, ‘You already called once,’ ” Tavernetti recalled. “I said, ‘I’m sorry but I’m scared.’ ” About four minutes later, deputies arrived.

“They have to do something about this, this is awful, this response time,” Tavernetti said.

Sheriff’s officials agreed that deputies should have arrived sooner and said the report on the Emergency Communications Bureau will help them avoid such incidents in the future.

“It’s a base document, a beginning place” for the Sheriff Department to help map out what might be done in the future, Davis said.

“The computer-aided dispatching system is a piece of equipment that works well,” Wilkerson said. “We pushed it beyond its parameters and it’s time to see what else is out there we can do before we start having problems we can’t handle,” he said.