Fatigue of 911 Operators Raises Concerns

Ventura County’s police dispatch centers have an emergency of their own--long hours, high stress, limited pay and poor morale.

These factors have combined to decimate the ranks of the women and men who respond to the county’s 911 and law enforcement calls--to the point that some dispatchers are working 80 hours of overtime a month.

Supervisors at the county’s eight centers worry that dispatcher fatigue is leading to slower responses and missed calls.

Suspects in a recent burglary got away because a Sheriff’s Department operator--at the end of an extended overtime shift--just didn’t see the request to dispatch an officer pop up on her screen, said Danita Crombach, manager of the sheriff’s dispatch center.

Diana Johnson, a dispatcher for the Ventura Police / Fire Emergency Dispatch Center, also feels the pinch. “We’ve been so short sometimes we’ve had to close our second frequency,” she said. “I’m reaching the burnout point. I’ll get through it, but we need more bodies in here.”

Ventura, along with Santa Paula, has to occasionally take sworn officers off the streets and put them on the phones to meet the demand.

Ventura County’s dispatch managers are awaiting the findings of a task force sponsored by the Florida-based Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials, hoping it will yield some usable solutions.