Dispatcher’s priority is officer safety

Denny Denton was featured in 2015, at about this time of year, on the front page of the Adair County Free Press as a dispatcher for the Adair County Sheriff’s Office, explaining the right and wrong ways to use 9-1-1.

Four years later, Denton says his foremost role is to make sure he communicates with all emergency responders in such a way that they’re in the best position possible to be successful and go home safely to their families at the end of their shift.

Denton has played a large role in this process, especially lately. Sheriff Jeff Vandewater shared via press release recently that the sheriff’s office had been involved in four high-speed chases in 12 days. Vandewater was on at least one of those personally, and it transcended into other counties.

“Yesterday worked really well. When Jeff moved into Cass County they told me they had him in Cass County and he could hear that I couldn’t hear quite right, so [their dispatcher] took over the [radio] traffic with Jeff,” Denton said. “I’m listening to it, we’re watching it, [the State Patrol] had information they were giving, but we weren’t stepping on each other’s toes like can happen.”

Denton marked 34 years as a dispatcher in Adair County in January, and April 14 to 20 this year is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, a week that honors telecommunications personnel in the public safety world and the sacrifices they make to create a better, safer world for the public.

In order to better do their jobs, a full array of computers assists dispatchers in what they do all while answering the phone and taking in a gamut of information that is pertinent to whatever the emergency or situation is. This is all while the person on the other side of the call is oftentimes in great need or distress.

One monitor is the radio itself, which allows the dispatcher to utilize a variety of radio channels to talk to about any agency or page any agency within Adair County to an emergency. Another monitor shows each caller’s approximate location.

A map high above the dispatch console shows where county or state officers in the area are at all times. Different icons on this map mean different things and badge numbers oftentimes mark each officer’s location. This map has high accuracy for an area that covers much of southwest and western Iowa, though the entire country can be seen on this map.

“We hadn’t had this very long when the Des Moines officer and Urbandale officer were shot and killed,” Denton said. “When they found the guy, I just sat here and watched all these cars go out there south of Redfield. It was like a parade, and you knew where it was and kind of said that guy ain’t getting away now. There were like 20 or 25 cars out there.”

Two screens are used more than any others, and Denton describes them as his “workhorse screens.” One keeps all records entered into the system for future use. Another shows personnel on duty or off-duty and how they can be reached. It also shows the status of all county fire, EMS and first responder units.

When a call is received, another monitor shows the dispatcher which agencies are available to respond. Yet another screen allows officers to instant message dispatchers from their cruisers. One monitor even allows dispatch to connect to any agency in the world and look up wanted persons or vehicle registration information, even as far as looking up CDLs from Mexico. Vandewater used this system to send an instant message to the Iowa State Patrol thanking them for their assistance in one of the recent high-speed chases.

Denton looks back on his career and says things have changed drastically over that time.

“When I started there was just one monitor. The rest was paper, we used a typewriter for our logging. We logged anything and everything. In some ways it was simpler but in most ways it was more difficult. It was more time consuming than it is now,” Denton said.

While he’s monitoring phones and the individuals who who are keeping Adair County safe from the field, Denton is also given the task of helping to monitor prisoners and remotely controlling a sophisticated door system within the sheriff’s office. Key fobs employees have work on a few doors, but within the jail that surrounds the dispatch center, dispatchers are the only ones who can control them.

“I can see part of the outside world, but the cameras are mainly to watch the prisoners. They can only go as far as me opening doors for them. The only door that I don’t control is the very front door. That second door you went through, I could’ve locked it on you and you wouldn’t have ever gotten in unless you broke the window,” Denton said. “The rest of the doors are controlled from back here. If they want to go to the rec room, I’ve gotta unlock the door for them to do so.”

Denton remembers that for about the first year he was on the job in the new sheriff’s office, which opened in 2012, it was a trial period on certain things.

“We’ve worked out a pretty good system. It’s where we work together [that we’re strong]. Everybody knows what they can and cannot do,” Denton said.

Denton became a dispatcher simply because he needed a job. He was hired by then-Sheriff Fred Skellenger and says he received very little training compared to what is given to dispatchers today. He worked 28 years on the graveyard shift before switching to days.

“I was on in two weeks, and it scared the daylights out of me. The training’s a lot harder now because there’s a lot more to it now. It can be intimidating. But once you realize [the technology] works for you, that you’re not at the mercy of it, it’s at the mercy of you, you should be OK. You do your job, go home and make sure the guys go home safe,” Denton said. “That’s what I’ve told anyone I’ve trained — your number one priority is officer safety.”