[Joe F.]

Can anyone provide me with some insight to the idea of eliminating the levels of priority in a 911 response? I understand that some departments follow a protocol of one level of response for all 911 calls. What are the benifits and pitfalls dispatching all calls under one priority.

Regards.

 

[MrJim911]

Each agency is going to handle prioritization differenty, there is no uniform policy. Usually only larger metropolitan agencies have coded response/priority types... but not always. At my agency we give all calls out immediatley upon receipt. If all officers are busy then we stack the call on the beat unit and the Sgt. Thus taking the liability of me the Telecommunicator. And let's remember that it's not the Telecommunicator telling you how to respond it's the policies agreed upon by police and 911 administration. They are not making the decision themselves and has nothing to do with them working the street.

You'll have to decide what will work for your department. What works for others may not be for yours. I think the size and level of "busy-ness" in your agency has alot to do with it. Are your calls always backed up? Do you usually have units free? You might have to experiment to see what works best.

 

[Guest]

in my department, we have 3 levels of calls...priority 1, 2 and 3...most black and white calls will be the extremes, absolute non-emergencies and no injury accidents and such would be dispatched prioroty 3 (no lights and sirens), and extreeme emergencies obviously would be priority 1 (pull out all the stops, do what you gotta do, if your not doing anything pressing your going clear and responding in as well) and all of the grey area calls (which there are many) are dispatched as priority 2 in which you are allowed but not required to use your lights and sirens. usually we have 2 or 3 calls pending but i know if i go 10-8 i usually ask if there are any calls pending and i'm more than happy to help out an officer on another beat if its possible. i think the system works great.