Comments on: CDA Audit Raises Questions About Director’s Decision to Terminate Dispatchers

By: Village Idiot

Village Idiot — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:34:51 +0000

Steve, Don’t the officers and deputies have the same computer system in their cars that the dispatchers have? If so, can you find out if any of the responding law enforcement officials checked the premise hazard? I’m guessing the responding units don’t often check them either, if only 2% were clicked, or was that only applicable to the dispatchers. A retired police officer told me they were supposed to check these hazards when responding to a call, even high priority calls, but he retired before they went to the consolidated dispatch center, so I’m not sure if the process is still the same as when he worked there.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:02:43 +0000

The premise hazard is the result of faulty reasoning by CDA management as well as their inability to know the difference between a “premise” hazard and a hazard on the premises. We should be asking why functional illiterates are in positions of power instead of scapegoating those doing the hard work.

By: Hope

Hope — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 08:28:52 +0000

In reply to Who Knows. LCSO could have prevented the entire ordeal and Portman's article was the truth.

By: No Such Thing as Routine

No Such Thing as Routine — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:05:53 +0000

What stands out is that the CAD system did not appear to identify “officer safety” premise hazards any differently than other premise hazards. With 112,831 incidents with attached premises hazards of some type (out of 169,611 total incidents [pg. 111]) and the CDA unable to provide a specific number of those related to officer safety (pg. 134), it appears almost as if it is routine for a premise hazard of some type (alarm/gate code, animal) to exist for a given address. That’s two out of three calls that generate an incident in the CAD system flagging with a premise hazard. At the same time, premise hazards were opened less than two percent of the time. With both the dispatcher and responding unit(s) needing to follow a two-step process (pg. 133) to read a premise hazard regardless of type, it was only a matter of time before critical information was missed. This is both a failure of the CAD system (non-mandatory opening of premise hazards) and CDA management (failing to identify flaws in premise hazard process). It is appalling for CDA management to think this process was acceptable. At the very least, an officer safety premise hazard should alert automatically for a responding unit.

Sheriff Campbell had long been pushing for consolidated law enforcement, and unfortunately this effort cost him the life of one of his deputies.

By: Frank Doolan

Frank Doolan — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 01:38:01 +0000

Dispatchers gather information and distribute it to Police Officer’s in seconds. They depend on properly functioning state of the art equipment and training which is job specific and relevant to the work environment. It seems as Mr. Lee removed himself from the responsibility for properly functioning equipment and quality training of the dispatch personnel. Mr.Lee if the dispatchers did somehow fail at their job it is clear that you and your management team were the primary cause for the failure. If the facts are as listed in the article there is no doubt that either you Mr. Lee should be held responsible and fired from your position or The dispatchers that were terminated should receive immediate reinstatement to their former positions (if they could bear to work for you) along with back pay. You cant have it both ways Mr.Lee

By: Who Knows

Who Knows — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 00:06:04 +0000

Not that its a huge deal but it’s spelled Caracus Ct. Also, Jennifer Portman wrote her article very one sided. Seems like she left out the part where LCSO had a plan in place to handle the situation. There was a breakdown in communication on many levels. The CDA has had nothing but trouble since they switched to Motorola. They need to drop that company and find a new one. Hollys family is also to blame. They didn’t want to lable him as ‘crazy’ so they wouldn’t go thru with getting an ex parte order. While LCSO had an idea that Holley was trouble there’s only so much they can do without a formal report, corporation from anyone or a court order. Don’t believe everything you read in the Mullet Wrapper, often times there’s morw to the story than what they publish.

By: Grace

Grace — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 23:13:24 +0000

As we dispatcher say, “Sh*t rolls down hill and we’re always at the bottom.”

By: Frank Collins

Frank Collins — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 15:14:07 +0000

Unfortunately, these veteran dispatchers can NEVER get their reputations and credibility back.

The members of the CDA board, and Tim Lee in particular, did everything they could to blame these dispatchers for their own management failures.

For destroying their reputations and credibility, the members of the CDA authority should be penalized and disciplined as much as possible, and these employees deserve monetary compensation for the financial hardships they’ve had to endure because of their unfair terminations.

By: Dee Christensen

Dee Christensen — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:22:38 +0000

Good article. It’s really too bad we can’t fire the mayor, city and country commissioners with a simple phone call.

By: Hope

Hope — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 10:25:30 +0000

Not surprising that the real problems stem from LCSO already had info on the situation and DID NOTHING (as reported recently by Jennifer Portman at the Tallahassee Democrat). Even though there were numerous failures and breakdowns, the Leon County Sheriff, the County Administrator, Director Tim Lee, city and county commissioners, and Executive Editor Bob Gabordi did and said nothing.

The above inept self serving individuals further showed their ineptness and cowardice regarding public safety by blaming the rank and file and failing to hold themselves accountable.

The wrong people were fired and the only truths we have on record so far are the reports by Steve Stewart and Jennifer Portman.