http://www.crimesceneblog.com/?cat=24

I work with Pam and CS Tech Supervisor Barbour. They're good people, and damn good at their jobs. They've both been with the department for a long time, heard/seen a lot of bad things, but this is the worst.

When I came into work that day I rode in the elevator as usual, but oddly there were two kids, a boy and girl riding up with a Matthews Officer. They looked rather grim, and I assumed that they had done something pretty bad and were going to the investigation offices to talk with detectives.

Later that day I found out those were the siblings of the victims.

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Yesterday a woman called in from a small town next to our city. Her husband hadn't been heard from in a while and she wanted to know if he had been in a car accident. I told her we don't have a way to search accident victims, just call the hospitals and the jail and if he isn't there come into the city and we'll send an Officer out to make a missing person report. This happens at least a few times a day, it's a standard response.

Well she came uptown to where he was last seen (leaving work) and called in. The call was put in, and the district Sergeant caught it and had our supervisor call the lady and have her come to the HQ building.

As it happens her husband was killed in a car accident, he was riding his motorcycle to meet her for dinner.

Sometimes it's easy to get detached. 'Well he was driving like a dummy'. 'People die'. Sometimes it's neccesary to be detached. But this time she was downstairs sobbing and wailing over the loss of her husband of 4-years...

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-Listening to Officers sob as they held a dying 2 year old, transmissions of 'there's too much blood to do CPR'. 'He's gone'.
-Listening to a man shoot his wife with a shotgun while on the line with 911.
-The extreme fear and apprehension of waiting for the word on an Officer shot in the head... feeling like a brother (because he is in a way) might be lost... Having to talk to the scumbag that did it on the phone while the negotiator takes over.
-Listening to mothers weep as their children died, as they lost babies to miscarraiges.

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Don't look at this job as a step towards becoming a Police Officer. Or just something to do.

This job is real, lives depend on your being able to make quick decisions, interpret garbled transmissions and phone lines.

What will you do when you hear your Officer's voice go up that giveaway octave? Will you freeze up? Will you be paying attention?

Will you be able to keep up when they are chasing a vehicle? Chasing someone on foot? Will you be able to keep calm? Will you remember which Officer marked out in the perimeter so when they start yelling you know where everyone needs to go?

I've had my Officers thank me several times for being 'that calm voice we know we can depend on'. Well I might sound calm on the air but I'm anything but up in the room. A phone on one ear, headset on the other, Supervisor asking questions. Monitoring the main channel, the helicopter channel.

Officers are suprised when they come up and see how busy we are sometimes. 'I had no idea you were doing all that at once'.

If you get excited you make things that much worse for them. In a way the two aspects of the job aren't that different. You're there for when the citizens need help, need a calm voice to get them through things. You're there when the Police need help, need a calm voice to get them through things.

To get help to them. Because that's what we are there for.