Re: 911:: Ethics question

[Guest guest]

Angie,

As to punishing officers, I believe I probably do it, intentionally or not.

I have some free roving officers who believe they can do as they like, and

if a toss up between officers, I will send them on a dog barking call or

whatever.

As to the suspicions, assuming you are computer based, you might check with

the administrator of your computer system, and have them install a key

logging program. It runs un-detected and will log all key strokes made on a

computer. This would give you hard evidence if someone is doing something

they shouldn't. Usually, once installed, most administration would probably

keep it.

Good luck on your situation.

Larew

NC911@...

Troutman, NC

Cornelius/Huntersville/son College Police Communications

Iredell County Emergency Communications

" A word to the wise isn't necessary, it is the stupid ones

who need all the advice. "

- Bill Cosby

[Guest guest]

Excellent answers prior to me responding, reference the log/in, keystroke

computer function. I also concur reference the bad vibes comment another fine

one made here.

If one doesn't " cut the mustard " ...get rid of the dog now.

From experience where I work....when you keep the dogs...they come back to

bite you in the " ass-ets " ahmmmmmm.

Happy day...be safe~~

Cin in good ole Ohio

[Guest guest]

I feel I may have mis-stated what I meant by punishing.

I may have a choice of 3 officers working a zone. I have some officers that

are aggressive, but I don't dislike them. I have found it is easier to give

them the first call in their zone first to keep them occupied. This call

for service may be handled by another officer if closer if that officer

elects. We have been told to give the calls to the rookies because the

older, more experienced officers have cases that they were working on. If

we get a serious call, the more experienced officer is primary and the

rookies become secondary.

By keeping this officer occupied with the less serious in nature calls, they

gain experience. We have wrecked 4 cars this year by rookies exceeding

their experience while driving. Most have been minor enough and no injuries

have occurred.

I keep finding officers appear to be more the minimum age of 21 that we

hire, and are very impulsive. They will walk into a situation with no

backup, gun drawn. I feel if they were given a little more time, he/she may

see the wisdom in waiting for a back up unit. Our town is not that big,

that the average response time is 1 1/2 min to just about any call. After

about 3 years, most officers have gained that experience.

Larew

NC911@...

Troutman, NC

Cornelius/Huntersville/son College Police Communications

Iredell County Emergency Communications

" A word to the wise isn't necessary, it is the stupid ones

who need all the advice. "

- Bill Cosby

[Guest guest]

Well, the situation has changed slightly. We now know that the way

the traffic citations were deleted would have required a little more

knowledge than this girl currently possesses. Happily (?), she

hasn't put enough effort into her training to understand the database

system that well. I would be seriously surprised if she was the one

responsible for that. Sadly, the backup of our database didn't

entirely take, so we're now entering (I'm not kidding) a month and a

half's worth of citations by HAND. Probably close to two hundred

citations, all with associated actions (traffic court appeal, etc).

Sucks majorly.

And it also looks like it is possible the database has a glitch in it

that may have allowed the log to be deleted. It's still possible

that it was deleted manually, but there's no proof of either way.

Yes, to those who are probably asking themselves, we have called our

computer tech in on this. She's working on figuring out what

happened, not just to possibily find out who, but also to keep it

from happening a second time.

But we're still left with how we have caught her in areas she's not

authorized to be in. More than once. And we've frequently found

calls that she didn't log. If they were uneventful patrols or

something, then we might just nag her about it. But these were

things like letting people into areas after-hours. Then the logs she

does write are missing times because she didn't bother to ask for

them from the person working the radio (me).

Worst of all is the way I don't like her. On a personal level, I

find her annoying and I get bad vibes. Professionally, she's sloppy,

careless, and doesn't seem inclined to improve. I mean, I remember

making some of the mistakes she's making, but that was when I had

less experience than she did and I worked my ass off to improve. She

doesn't seem to think it's even a problem.

I guess the reason I'm telling y'all this (aside from venting in a

direction that is least likely to cause harm, unlike gossiping at

work), is that I'm trying to decide if I should publicly complain.

To answer a question asked about my position in the department, I'm a

student dispatcher, close enough to being through with training that

it's a matter of me asking to be tested by the director. I have no

official authority over anyone at all. However, our office is

largely run by consensus. There are only 11 dispatchers, counting

me, and 8 officers. If the majority of dispatchers and officers

agree on an issue, the director does his best to comply with our

opinion. (That's the great part of being a small department.)

Let me explain the situation a little more:

1) We're short-handed, so we need pretty much every warm body we can

get. But by the same token, we don't have anyone who can pick up the

slack for a dead weight.

2) We're small. We absolutely have to get along with each other

because there is no way to avoid people you can't work with.

3) We're small. Rumor is powerful. All it takes is an easy-going

person (which I have a reputation for being) to complain and things

get done fairly quickly.

4) It's possible for a trainee to be fired for some pretty simple

things. This girl was nearly fired about a month ago because one of

the officers overheard her telling one of her friends, " I don't need

this training crap, " referring to her dispatcher training. (Yes,

honey, you do. You suck at your job.)

5) I have not formally complained about anything she has done, but I

have not hidden my opinion of her from people who ask. Everyone I

talk to (which is almost all of the dispatchers) shares my low

opinion of her. General consensus seems to be that she's either a

slacker or has a bad attitude. There is doubt about her ethics,

which is not a complaint I've heard voiced about anyone in the time

I've been here. 90%-serious complaints about someone being a

slacker, yes. Joking complaints (or half-serious) about someone

being an idiot, yes. Concerns about someone deleting logs or

covering up for her friends? No.

6) The officers, in a change from their usual, are almost unanimous

in their dislike of her. Normally, they go by personal preference,

but I think her negative training comment in front of one of the

officers really shocked them.

7) On a personal level, I don't think I want to be responsible for

getting her fired because she's a friend of a friend. I want her to

be fired, I just don't want it to be me... It feels kind of an

emotional cop-out, I guess. If I had to give each of these points a

number between one and ten with ten being the most important, that

would be down around a two.

Wow, reading over all of that, it certainly paints a nasty picture.

I guess my only real concern is that I'm basing my opinion of her too

much on the rumor mill and too little on direct experience. Except I

have seen her forget logs and blow off the seriousness of mistakes.

I dunno. Guess I'm a little confused on this whole issue. Opinions

welcome...

Angie

[Guest guest]

Okay....As I read this, I had flashbacks of a similar

situation that happened in our department. Nice guy,

but rubbed people the wrong way. Nothing we could

really put our finger on, but made comments that

really tickled those little hairs on the back of the

officers neck. (Like when we described a problem

mental student who was a nuclear science major and how

we were handling it, he felt that the university ought

to do more to keep the guy in school....okay, he's

wearing sweatsuits, gloves, and ski masks on 100

degree days in August - jumping out at girls between

parked cars in lots. Making bombs in his

apartment...among other things.)

He also did not understand the need for keeping a

radio log and writing down traffic stop

information...like LP and location....correctly on the

log. He would change words between what the call

actually was and what he dispatched it as....like

smoke in a building to a Fire Alarm. Also, held a

call of a violent person in a building - then

dispatching it as something benign. (I can't remember

what it was) He didn't see problems with these

either. It was like he was missing the whole point of

what we did.

He was in training and we were documenting all these

things. The director was going to fire him, until he

found out that he had a wife and child and his wife

was pregnant...and it was right before Christmas.

Okay, so this guys wife and children are more

important than our officer's wives and children? I

finally started making tapes of his calls and played

them for the director SHOWING the problems we were

having...but still he wouldn't get rid of him.

We had been discussing the problems with this trainee

for some time. Our training program was 9 weeks, but

we were already approaching 16 weeks of training for

this guy. I finally told him (I'm paraphrasing

because I wasn't this blunt) that he wasn't improving

and that I would never approve his getting out of the

training program, so you might want to start looking

for another job. I felt bad, but I would have hated

to know what the consequences might have been if I had

relented.

We were also shorthanded, but not direly. THAT would

come later.

annette hallmark

tamu utilities (formerly UPD)

--- scully_dana_k wrote:

> But we're still left with how we have caught her in

> areas she's not

> authorized to be in. More than once. And we've

> frequently found

> calls that she didn't log. If they were uneventful

> patrols or

> something, then we might just nag her about it. But

> these were

> things like letting people into areas after-hours.

> Then the logs she

> does write are missing times because she didn't

> bother to ask for

> them from the person working the radio (me).

>

> Worst of all is the way I don't like her. On a

> personal level, I

> find her annoying and I get bad vibes.

> Professionally, she's sloppy,

> careless, and doesn't seem inclined to improve. I

> mean, I remember

> making some of the mistakes she's making, but that

> was when I had

> less experience than she did and I worked my ass off

> to improve. She

> doesn't seem to think it's even a problem.

>

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Thanks so much for the laugh... I needed that...

Advice I might be taking, too.

:oP

Angie

--- " Felice " <jaybuck1@f...> wrote:

> Ok in the modern style of survivor.

> You are voted off the Island. Don't take

> it personally though. that is my answer

> end of discussion.

[Guest guest]

Well, I suppose that's one good thing about all of this: our director

is willing to support us in many ways. He actually tried to fire her

a month ago, but two of the dispatchers pleaded for her job. (Yes,

they now regret this.) I have a feeling that if we were to come to

him with a list of what she's done wrong (or failed to do), she would

probably get fired that day. That's one of the things about the

university... Not a lot of paperwork involved in firing a student.

But I think I'm going to start documenting the verifiable stuff to

see if it's really as bad as I think it is. I have a reputation for

being fair and honest, so chances are I will be listened to if I

complain. I want to make sure I don't do that until I'm positive

there's more reason than that she has a personality that's

incompatible with the office.

:oP

Angie

--- Annette Hallmark <mahallmark@y...> wrote:

> He was in training and we were documenting

> all these things. The director was going

> to fire him, until he found out that he

> had a wife and child and his wife was

> pregnant...and it was right before Christmas.

> Okay, so this guys wife and children are

> more important than our officer's wives

> and children? I finally started making

> tapes of his calls and played them for the

> director SHOWING the problems we were

> having...but still he wouldn't get rid of him.

[Guest guest]

<< Organizational regulations notwithstanding, is it

(un)ethical to " punish " an officer by sending them to all the worst

calls? >>

What you think of as a totally horrible call may actually be a call that

someone else loves to take.

[Guest guest]

New info on the problem trainee: She's finally done something big

enough for us to document and nail her for. She logged a SEARCH

WARRANT as a " routine patrol, " left out *ALL* of the important

information, and didn't even mention why the officers were where they

were. I'm completely floored that the training officer with her

didn't correct it, but she also shouldn't have to be double checking

all of this trainee's work this far into training. She's been

training long enough that she should know what the relevant details

are. The other dispatcher that I showed the logs to is so amazingly

pissed off that he's writing a memo to our head honcho. Knowing our

boss, she's likely to be fired for this, especially because she is

not improving noticably and has a tendency to be suddenly sick when

she's assigned to " unpleasant " shifts like graveyards.

It's odd, but I really want her to be fired. I have never wanted

someone to lose their job before and I don't know why I dislike her

so intensely. All I know is that I will breathe easier when she's

out of this office and someone else's problem.

*tired sigh*

Angie

--- Annette Hallmark <mahallmark@y...> wrote:

> Okay....As I read this, I had flashbacks of a similar

> situation that happened in our department. Nice guy,

> but rubbed people the wrong way. Nothing we could

> really put our finger on, but made comments that

> really tickled those little hairs on the back of the

> officers neck.