Perhaps the unsung heroes of emergency response, dispatchers are the eyes and ears of local law enforcement, firefighting and ambulance organizations.
“They’re vital in giving us that real-time information when we’re responding to these potentially dangerous calls,” said Hanford Police Department Sergeant Jason Gustin. “They help better respond to those calls."
In the basement of the Hanford Police Department, one can find a dark room — small but comfortable — with walls covered in monitors and screens that show various maps of Hanford and Lemoore. At the half-dozen or so desks are more monitors — four or five screens with more maps at each station.
It is here that Hanford and Lemoore’s eyes and ears keep watch.
Housed in the HPD offices, dispatchers take emergency calls for Hanford and Lemoore police as well as the Lemoore Fire Department.
“Dispatchers are, in my opinion, the bloodline for the officers,” said dispatcher Jillian Shipp. “In addition to their own safety training, we help keep them safe. I believe we play a part in making sure they get home at the end of the day.”
Shipp has been a dispatcher since November of 2020. Not yet old enough to join the police academy, she opted instead to get her foot in the door of law enforcement by becoming a dispatcher.
“This is the best preparation I could ever get,” she said.
In about six months, she’ll be 21 and will be able to join the academy. She plans to transition to becoming an officer.
The dispatchers also assist officers responding to calls by providing backup by way of information. Running an ID check on a suspect who, for example ran a red light, brings up nearly a dozen separate files. These files, ranging from criminal records to mental health information, must then be evaluated for any information that can assist the officer in their task.
The center also takes 911 emergency calls. As Shipp noted, the dispatchers are tasked with assisting those callers on what may be the worst day of their lives.
“It’s about being able to make a difference in someone’s life and to get the necessary help to save someone’s life — that’s always the motivating factor,” said lead dispatcher Janet Gibbs.
“I feel like I’m doing something that makes a difference,” said trainee Payton Westcoat.
Switching back and forth between these tasks across three departments in two cities requires not only an acute attention to detail, but the ability to multitask.
“We’re multitaskers to the extreme,” said Valerie Flores, who has been dispatching for about 21 years.
In addition to the multiple tasks at hand — most of which have the potential to come during response to a stressful and life-threatening situation – the dispatchers deal with long hours and days off coming few and far between as the center is usually short-staffed.
For each 12-hour shift, the center needs a minimum staff of three dispatchers to operate.
Throughout the COVID pandemic, keeping a full staff was difficult as not only was labor hard to come by, but established dispatchers would need to be kept out of the center if they were infected, or had come into contact with the virus. This would mean longer hours and more shifts.
Some officers have even volunteered to be cross-trained to work the radios and take emergency calls to fill holes in the dispatcher schedule, Gustin said.
“I think a lot of people, once down there, realized how stressful it really is,” he said.
To help mitigate the stress of a heavy workload and long hours, along with the emergency-centered nature of the work, the dispatchers rely on each other for peer support. They also try to have occasional birthday parties and potlucks to increase morale and camaraderie.
In recognition of the work dispatchers do, Assembly Bill 1945 reclassified them as first responders in 2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislature into law with unanimous bipartisan support.
“When that actually came about, it was recognition for something we always knew we were,” Gibbs said. “We always felt we were first responders. Receiving that acknowledgement meant a lot, personally. I’m not sure everyone felt that way. For some it was like, ‘OK, good’ because it should have been that way from the beginning."
The bill was authored by Assemblymember Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield). According to a 2020 Sentinel story, the idea for the bill was originally brought to Salas by a local dispatcher from Kings County, Maribel Stinson, who emailed him directly suggesting the potential legislation.
“This is a historic day for the thousands of emergency dispatchers who call California home,” Salas said in a media release at the time of the bill’s passage. “For years, dispatchers have been misclassified under titles that do not reflect the importance of the life-saving work they perform every day. As wildfires ravage our state, the work of dispatchers coordinating our emergency response has never been more critical.”
California dispatchers answer approximately 27 million 911 calls per year.
