Several years ago, I wrote an article about dispatchers who leave the floor and head to the field. During my time with a metropolitan department several employees traded their headsets for a gun. When the remake of Charlie's Angels came out my co-workers and I talked at length about how cool it would be to get up out of our chairs and get out there. We envisioned ourselves kicking butt, karate moves and all. Of course none of us knew martial arts, but that's the joy of fantasy - and fantasy was all it ever was. For one reason or another, we never left the radio room.
I know perfectly well why I chose to stay. The fantasy quickly faded into the back of my mind during a ride-along. The officer had just put the suspect of a trespassing and disturbing the peace in the back of the car and was outside finishing up with one of the witnesses. It was cold out, so being the pampered dispatcher I was, I sat inside the car with the heater on. I was trying to ignore the belligerent comments spewing from the intoxicated man in the back, when the most disgusting odor filled the car. "I have diarrhea," the man told me. I promptly got out of the car.
Once we got the odoriferous gentleman to the jail, I decided my job was much more sanitary, as the officer tried to clean what he could off the back seat with those tiny, antibacterial wipes. "You want to help?" he asked. "Nope. I am merely an observer," I replied, trying not to add to the mess by throwing up. My fantasy about being a butt-kicking police woman ended because it did not include cleaning up poop. Since that time, more stories have popped up that reaffirmed my decision to remain firmly planted in my dispatch chair.
Paying Attention
As a dispatcher, I am required to pay attention. I listen closely to callers and the background noise. I listen to officers with the added ability to notice stress in an otherwise calm voice. But, one thing I’m glad about is as a dispatcher I do not have to supervise urinalysis testing or pay attention to whether the subject is using a prosthetic penis. I never want to have to see anything called the "Original Whizzinator" or the dried urine which comes with it. Many officers who are in charge of keeping these tests clean get the privilege of analyzing the member. I as a dispatcher will never be required to do this.
Gross Things
Then, like during my ride along, officers deal with the gross things. In the Briefs section of the December 28, 2007 issue of The Daily Mining Gazette (Houghton, MI), the write-up begins, "Sometimes you need a police officer: sometimes you need a tissue. Confuse the two, and it could cost you." Anything that begins with sentences like that cannot be good and get added to my reasons to stay on my side of the radio. Apparently, a 36 year-old woman in Dunbar, WV decided it would be a good idea to wipe her nose on the back of the officer’s uniform shirt when he came to arrest her for domestic battery. I would hate to be this officer’s spouse. You just don’t want to hear "Honey, can you scrub the snot off my shirt by shift tonight?"
Another problem that turns up in the law enforcement profession is people being unable to contain their bodily fluids. Apparently officers in Australia are not exempt from this. In an April 4, 2006 issue of the Hobart Mercury a prison guard was passing by a cell when "he was hit in the face with liquid that smelled and looked like urine." The inmate countered by stating, "I'm not a filth monger. I wouldn't throw piss." I think I'll stay where I'm at and avoid even the chance of having urine tossed on me.
I also do not want the experience of having poop on my shoes. Much like during the ride along, a story my husband told me included a suspect being unable to contain himself and the result; brown shoes which used to be black. Just gross.
Really Gross Calls
Along with having those in custody doing nasty things to officers, there are calls which I may have to take and dispatch, but I do not have to go to. Some things you just don't want to see, such as the one described in the December 12, 2006 issue of the National Post a Canadian paper.
The report states, "almost every other day for the past seven months, two 2-litre juice containers filled with urine" have appeared on the corner next to Dovercourt Junior Public School. But, the problem has gotten worse. Now the person is leaving feces in the same type of bag containing the urine bottles. The smell prevented children from a nearby daycare from playing outside. As a dispatcher, I will never have to respond to this type of call, confirm the contents of the containers or attempt to locate what kind of person would do something so weird.
On a final note, as a dispatcher I would never encounter the following event that Durham, NC police officers had the joy of experiencing. Earlier this month, a drunk driver decided to park his vehicle in another resident's yard. Unfortunately for our drinker the yard was the dumping ground for four dogs. The police got a foot print, as well as, the ability to follow the dog poop trail up the street where they located the man with the evidence all over his shoes.
In the radio room, dispatchers are not in danger of being spit on, having bodily fluids flung at them or going to really gross calls. We don't have to shovel the remains of animals hit by cars onto the side of the street so dead animal pick-up can get them in the morning, and we can click off and make sarcastic remarks and the officer is none the wiser. Yup, emergency communications is much less gross.
