Union

In response to Dispatcher and Her Officer's comment on my last post I will update the situation and again break my rule (Seems to be becoming a habit for me).

I attended the meeting with my boss about my write-up bringing along the union president to watch my back during the nastiness that was soon to begin. The first question he ask about the write-up was "Is this a write-up because it's not in his personnel file at city hall" Her response was about how it wasn't a write-up just a signed paper that we had a verbal discussion. The rest of the meeting was her re-pounding on how I should be paying attention to our channel and not having Desert Agency's channel un-muted. My union president sat back and let her go. After finishing the discussion on my issue she then ask if she could bring some things up and stated two of which would be official write-ups.

I have now been written-up for "leaving my post without permission" and "delaying the response time of officers and failing to gather information." I will explain a bit on each but right now I'm looking at a disciplinary meeting and two days suspension with-out pay for one of the two. The second one about delaying response and gathering information I am guilty of. What dispatcher hasn't sent the officer to the wrong address by accident? Also what dispatcher hasn't forgotten to ask for the description of the person the officers are looking for? It just so happens that both of those hit me on the same call. Now the first one is getting it's own paragraph to explain the events that unfolded that night.

Our dispatch center is a small center and we keep a minimum of two dispatchers working at all times. This night there were three of us working due to it being a weekend. I received a call from Larger Agency about a 911 call they had received on a male in the desert that had been shot. The caller called on a cell phone which displayed the GPS coordinates of the caller's cell phone. Larger Agency gave me the coordinates and said they had their officers in the area looking for the injured male. I began an online search on the coordinates to see if it was within our jurisdiction and was unable to get a good location. I then remembered I had a handheld GPS that I keep in my car for emergencies. I retrieved my GPS and plugged in the coordinates to find that sure enough it was our baby and he was in our town. I then contacted the shift supervisor to notify them of the call and situation. I then ask the shift supervisor if he would be OK with me leaving the dispatch center with an officer to attempt to locate the male. Our officers don't have GPS systems or devices. He told me to clear it with my supervisor and I acknowledged. Before I could pick up the phone to call he told me that if there was an officer in the building to go with him. I understood this as a go ahead an go. I left with the officer to meet everyone else and try to find the male. We searched thoroughly to find him with no success. After I returned to the dispatch center I sent out the e-mail notification that goes to the admins' cell phones to notify them of the event with the ending reading to contact dispatch for more info. When the system was put in to send the e-mail I was under the understanding that we would no longer have to call people on the phone to notify them. My boss has written me up for attempting to save a man's life because I didn't call her and ask permission to leave the dispatch center. I was the only one on shift among dispatchers and officers that had experiance with a GPS device and the way the system works. I felt I would be more of an asset in the field on that incident than to try and describe any satalite photos of the area to the officers. We'll see how this disciplinary meeting goes I've got several people assisting me in writing a statement to read for my defense.

Will-Tone 10-7