In Canada, there are over
17,000 RCMP police officers these officers are posted in some of the most challenging locations in the country. In Alberta
or K Division there are over 2800 officers posted from the border of the United States to the border of the Northwest Territories
No matter who they are or where they serve they all have one thing in common
RCMP. Bonjour...
This is the operational communication center or OCC
There is a centre in Edmonton responsible for Edmonton north and a centre and Red Deer
Responsible for everything south. There are a few detachments that have their own local dispatch
but for the vast majority every call that any officer responds to will start in these two locations.
On this shift we catch up to Jenn. She is in the middle of her ten-hour shift in the Southern Alberta Operational Communication Centre
It has been a regular day with regular Call volume.
However, the policing environment is one of instability and can change in an instant.
I'm currently at the Southern Alberta Operational Communication Centre in Red Deer and on an average day here
We're actually a pretty busy place. We handle 63 detachment areas
So to give you an idea of geographic area, that would be from Wetaskiwin all the way down to the U.S. Border and then BC
to Saskatchewan border out of this one Center for the RCMP. So if somebody is calling for the RCMP
911, or non- emergency lines for any of our detachments in that area, we take them here
So, my name is Jenn and I work at the Southern Alberta OCC for the RCMP telecommunications
I have been an operator for ten years over ten years.... as Jenn is being interviewed a
911 call comes in that she has to take. He is my neighbour those two down two houses down from my house
And I'm pretty sure he has a warrent out for his arrest.
Okay, what's the address to your house? This time around the call was routine, but as Alberta RCMP officer Dalton, Rouse explains
Not all calls are a simple open-and-shut case
The OCC is just absolutely imperative to what we do on the road as first responders as general duty police officers
Because when somebody phones the police they're in the time of crisis, and they may have never phoned the police before ever
When they do phone in, the person who
Takes the call has to get some very key information very quickly. The person who's making the phone call
the complainant is generally in some degree of panic and the operator or the call taker is
Going to have to calm that person down so they can get us logical information. They can get us
Quality information that we can do background checks on we need to get accurate addresses
We need to know what's going on
At the scene so we can deploy the proper resources and prepare our members so we can be safe
but so we can also respond to the complaints in a
An appropriate fashion, you know, whether it's with our lights and sirens whether it's no license sirens
There's a hundred different scenarios. Just as it seems that things are looking like a regular shift
The OCC takes a call dealing with a drive-by shooting in Elk Point. 10-4 Do we have other members with you?
Okay and member that's the primary car can I get your unit number please
Stay off the air because I think they're on foot. Members confirm.... Did they hit the belt?
And they're on foot
Ten-four and who's my primary please?
Ten-four and what's our speeds and give me a rundown what's going on?
Guys just make sure that vehicles secure in case the firearms in there
This is the type of call that OCC brings in a police officer for. The OCC has on every shift a uniformed police officer
Who can take control of emerging or exigent circumstances.
Staff Sergeant Rod Koscielny has been an officer for 28 years and tonight he finds himself being brought into the call
Yeah, so the K Division Member Operational Support Section is from A to Z
We are there for the support of the districts all the members of the detachments and pretty much all the sections in the province
And again we can get a call about as you just saw a pursuit after a shooting in Elk Point
where all hell breaks loose - something as simple as a member wanting to charge somebody and asking a question about documents or
Him the member and I going through the criminal code together and talking about
Exactly what they're looking for
- whether I call members out or not -
Coordinating cars if I've got a major event, I will call cars. I look at my map and I will call cars
to start
infiltrating an area to help out so
It's everything we're the ones were the first stop. We're the ones that
Triage most everything coming in here and decide. Who are we gonna call? Is it going to be an aircraft? Are we gonna call?
Somebody at a higher level at a district because a major events going on
Thankfully this situation was resolved quickly and without injury to the public and any members involved
Tonight the OCC took over 600 calls for service
Working together with the public the officers and the OCC team. The night is considered a success. I love my job
I absolutely love it. Um, I
Really like knowing that I every day I go to work. I'm gonna help people and
What I do is really important and it kind of has that very fulfilling aspect that you know, you're making a difference and
It's really nice to have a job where you feel like you're making a difference because you know
Then you can kind of slough off the rest of your life
As far as what we should expect as far as how busy it goes we will find each operator will take approximately
300 to 400 calls a day in a 12-hour shift and then out of those calls that'll result in about
100 to 150 files each would then gets dispatched out by our dispatchers
That are on the side here out to the officers themselves and sometimes through radio sometimes electronically
but always out for their response as needed
Essentially are a lifeline for us because sometimes we're at scenes by ourselves. They do
Checks on us on the radio and certain periods of time when we're on scene
If we don't answer the radio
Then they'll be calling backup for us to come check on us if we're there by ourself for whatever the reason is
Really important to maintain that good communication that good relationship with them and
It's just a vital they're just a vital part of what we do here as frontline officers
One thing that we find that the public
may not be aware of is that they may actually get transferred quite a few times before they get to the
Appropriate location that's going to handle their call
So for example when you first call 9-1-1
they're gonna ask you if it's police fire or ambulance and trying to determine whether or not their resources need to be dispatched and
If it is police related
It's going to come to us but you might have to tell your story a couple of times in different ways
We ask different questions an ambulance personnel will need to know very different information than what perhaps the police
operators that we have will
So we ask a lot of questions
It almost feels like why do we need to ask all these questions just come?
But unfortunately by us doing a lot of pre-screening and understanding of what's happening on scene
It allows our officers to be able to make the best response. We can decide how many people go
is there any special equipment that needs to attend with us and
All of those questions that were asking that might seem like it's delaying the response, it isn't it's all happening simultaneously
so we can actually be taking all the information that you're giving to the call taker and it's actually
electronically being sent over to the dispatcher at the same time and they can be putting that information out to the officers
Absolutely with no delay. So we do our best to educate the public when they're even calling us
We might say to them, you know, it's okay me asking questions is not going to delay us getting there
In fact, it's going to help us