2012 Kansas Telecommunicators of the Year

This year, the TCOY Award was a "Team Award".  The winner was

Shawnee County Emergency Communications Center

(Because EVERY member of their department was nominated, it was impossible to pick one person to be more deserving than the others. As the TCOY chair, I decided we should recognize them all. We are now in the process of reviewing our award designations to add this category as a permanent option).

Shawnee County currently has 35 full-time employees which are comprised of one floor supervisor, five shift supervisors, five Communication Specialists II, 24 Communications Specialist I (four of which are trainees), and four intermittent employees. In 2012, they answered approximately 500,000 911 and administrative phone lines and dispatched more than 213,000 incidents.

The team’s time on the job range from 27 years to two months. Two employees have previous experience in emergency service communications, but most started their careers at Shawnee County. As is the case with many dispatch centers, Shawnee County Emergency Communications is constantly in the hiring and training process. For the latter part of 2012, their staffing levels were less than optimal and their employees had to cover more hours in overtime than most would prefer. In spite of that, they continued to fulfill the requirements of their job the very best they could. Without exception, they know emergency services communications is important work; they take that work seriously, and they care deeply about the safety of the law enforcement officers, firefighters, and citizens of Shawnee County. They attempt to instill that resolve and attitude of responsibility into every trainee hired.

 On December 16, 2012 at 18:09 hours, Lacey Mulford dispatched two Topeka Police Department officers to a suspicious vehicle call. An officer at the scene reported “shots” fired at 18:13 hours and “officers down” within a few seconds. As we all now know, the officers were killed during this incident. Despite only being with the department for 18 months, Lacey sounded calm and clear throughout the incident while it was on her frequency.  She followed all simulcasting and toning guidelines in announcing officers down and officers in danger, and clearly reported updates as they were received. She efficiently and in a detailed manner added responding officers to the CAD call and repeated information transmitted from the field, including quickly-changing suspect locations and reports from area citizens that might have been related to the shooting.

 The primary call was moved to an alternate frequency at 18:19 hours, at which time, Kim Ragan, who was working overtime, took over the call and the remained on that frequency throughout the night.  The suspect’s actual location was determined by a call from the resident just after midnight on December 17. Kim continued to monitor the frequency assigned to the “standoff” until the suspect was secured at 06:10 hours. Kim is an excellent, experienced dispatcher who closely tracked officers at the initial crime scene, coordinated with other dispatchers tracking officers staged at possible locations for the suspect, responded to requests from the field, and handled the call of the confirmed suspect location. It was an ongoing, complicated situation, and Kim did a stellar job handling the primary call frequency for almost 12 hours.

 The Shawnee County supervisor on duty during the homicides, Sara Roberts, reported outstanding work by everyone in dispatch.  In addition to Kim handling the main call on an alternate frequency, Melanie Mills-Bergers was on a frequency with a search at another location, and Sara was on a frequency with a search and possible standoff at yet a different location.  She reported that, even with three extra frequencies being monitored, everyone still managed to keep up with the almost overwhelming number of phone calls that always occur after high priority calls. 

Sara’s summary indicated that members of Communications were a “step ahead” at all times and performed tasks before they were requested.  Amber Gold stayed to assist after her scheduled overtime ended; Michelle Barnes, remained at work for 18 hours until after midnight and then returned at 06:30 hours the next morning; Trista Roberts and Liz Scott showed up without being called to help, a dispatcher brought in food for everyone, others called to volunteer to come in if needed. Sara mentioned that one of their intermittent employees, Loren Lossman, was a huge help in ways too numerous to mention.

 Lt. John Ostenson arrived at dispatch shortly after the shooting and stayed several hours.  Captain Lance Royer was in dispatch from about 18:30 hours on Sunday to about 00:30 hours Monday morning. They “ran interference” for communications employees so that they could do their jobs with fewer interruptions. The Captain and Lieutenant relayed information among coworkers, answered questions from officials, and assisted wherever they could. Captain Royer said that, both from personal observation and information he received from others after he left dispatch, that all dispatchers on duty continued to rise to the occasion all night long, as they always do, and all were as helpful as possible in any way they could be. From the initial event throughout the night, each dispatcher jumped to assist whenever requests came from the field, researching tags and information received, calling chaplains, notifying other agencies, handling many condolence calls from citizens and others, passing on intelligence to investigators, in addition to “taking care of business” at their assigned positions.  Some Shawnee County employees arrived to help that were off duty.  All of these dispatchers performed their duties professionally in spite of most of them personally knowing the officers who were killed and themselves being in the midst of shock and grief.  All Communications personnel continued in their effort to intricately record every call detail throughout the following week, when investigations continued and crime scenes were held and guarded.

The officers’ funerals were planned for Saturday, December 22, 2012 at 10:00 and 14:00 hours at a large arena that holds several thousand people. Outside agencies offered to provide call coverage for sheriff deputies, police officers, and communications personnel.  Communications was unable to take advantage of those offers because of computer-aided dispatch and other computer-related concerns--getting logged on to CAD and KCJIS, knowing the area geography, and many other factors.  Once again, Shawnee County Emergency Communications personnel stepped up to provide coverage and still allow those who wanted to attend one or both funerals to do so.  Lt. Ostenson and Melanie Mills-Bergers worked for three days prior to the funerals to coordinate hours of work and ensure that communications had adequate personnel on duty throughout the day. Lt. Ostenson arrived early the day of the funerals and stayed late into the night to assist in communications and inventory radios returned by outside agencies.

Dawn Frey and Jamie Ratzloff accepted the challenge of broadcasting the “Last Call”, one for each officer.  They handled the difficult responsibility with professionalism. The department heard numerous accolades from officers and others at the services in appreciation of the professional, yet compassionate, manner in which they performed that revered tradition. 

Not only did the Shawnee County Emergency Communications personnel pull together to support each other, both professionally and emotionally, a few have initiated or joined fundraising efforts for the fallen officers’ families.  Michelle Barnes has raised more than $10,000.00 for their fund from memorial t-shirt sales. Trista Roberts and Angelica Huber raised more than $1,000.00 in memorial vehicle decal sales.  Others have helped publicize fundraising efforts by the Topeka Police Department and Shawnee County Sheriff’s Department.

Sara Roberts, Justin Roberts, David Dostaler, and Trista Roberts initiated a “paying it forward” effort. Shawnee County Communications received a “care package” from a communications center in St. John the Baptist Parish, LA., meant to provide some cheer. It was much appreciated, and Roberts replenished the contents and has sent it to Riverside, California in response to their two officers being killed. They also started a state initiative to do likewise in the State of Kansas. They sent a “care package” to Sedgwick County 911 after one of their deputies was shot in the line of duty.  It was much appreciated by the dispatchers and they have it ready to pay it forward should another agency face a crisis.  Roberts, Roberts, and Dostaler sent condolence cards to other communications centers that lost officers shortly after the Topeka officer’s deaths.  Roberts has made it her personal mission to continue sending sympathy cards to outside agencies as needed.

Citing the contributions made by every member of Communications during the tragedy on December 16, in the aftermath, and in the following week through the funeral services would require many hours to recount. Each and every employee of the Shawnee County Emergency Communications should rightly be honored for their teamwork and their efforts.  Every member acted in dedicated manner in spite of their shock and grief, assisting in any way they could, and were determinedly dedicated to our profession of emergency services communications.