After two decades in the corporate world, author Phillip Tomasso found himself tossed into the realm of public safety. He went from handling legal employment issues to working for a busy 911 Center. In this collection, Tomasso shares impactful stories from thirteen years of dispatching on the overnight shift. The work is salted and peppered with funny, heartbreaking, quirky and bizarre renditions of actual 911 calls, interactions of dispatchers between calls, as well as life and the attempt to find and sustain balance outside of a 911 Center.
When Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos left the classroom to become a cop in Baltimore's Eastern District, he was thrust deep into police culture and the ways of the street--the nerve-rattling patrols, the thriving drug corners, and a world of poverty and violence that outsiders never see. In Cop in the Hood, Moskos reveals the truths he learned on the midnight shift. Through Moskos's eyes, we see police academy graduates unprepared for the realities of the street, success measured by number of arrests, and the ultimate failure of the war on drugs. In addition to telling an explosive insider's story of what it is really like to be a police officer, he makes a passionate argument for drug legalization as the only realistic way to end drug violence--and let cops once again protect and serve. In a new afterword, Moskos describes the many benefits of foot patrol--or, as he calls it, "policing green."
Master the Public Safety Dispatcher/911 Operator Exam provides everything you need to succeed on the exam, including two full-length practice tests, thorough review of every question type on the exam, proven test-taking strategies to help you score higher, and comprehensive information for beginning and advanced-level emergency personnel. Also, expert tips on how to best analyze job announcements and interviewing successfully are included to give you an edge over the competition.
9-1-1 telecommunicators are heavily exposed to traumatic stressors in the line of duty as our nation's Very First Responders. They struggle with PTSD at a rate believed to be four to five times higher than the general public. These 9-1-1 Professionals and their leaders must be equipped to protect their own well-being, and to safeguard the performance of our 9-1-1 centers facing an ever more demanding future. The 911 Training Institute is proud to announce the release of a book that will finally meet this need: The Resilient 9-1-1 Professional: A Comprehensive Guide to Surviving & Thriving Together in the 9-1-1 Center. This volume, edited by Jim Marshall and Tracey Laorenza, brings together an unprecedented group including 9-1-1 frontliners, their managers, joined by subject matter experts in public-safety, mental health and public administration. Together they deliver powerful stories and fascinating science revealing the health risks faced by "9-1-1Pros" and a full spectrum of solutions to manage these risks and optimize the personal and organizational well-being in our 9-1-1 centers. This book stands alone in the 9-1-1 industry and serves as essential training for all front-line dispatchers, supervisors, and managers/directors. It is also imperative reading for all those who influence and benefit from 9-1-1 emergency services: field responders, government officials, mental health professionals; all organizations that aid public-safety agencies; and, all those family and friends who love a dispatcher. Dispatchers face very high stakes every day. Our investment as a nation of 9-1-1 stakeholders in supporting and empowering them must be equally as high.
Burnout is the state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It happens when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. You begin to feel like you have no real control over your job...or your life. Sound familiar? This is an all-too-common experience for dispatchers, but it doesn't have to be that way. In this book, Adam Timm, former LAPD dispatcher, and I outline ways you can turn your life around faster than you ever thought possible. When you put the tools and techniques from Dispatcher Stress in place, you will: -Feel relief from tension, frustration, and insomnia -Be free to do the things you really want to do -Relax in the midst of the toughest challenges -Experience clarity and peace of mind again
With one call, her daughter’s life is on the line. Laurie Ahmadi has worked as a 911 police dispatcher in her quiet Northern California town for almost two decades, but nothing in her nearly twenty years of experience could prepare her for the worst call of her career—her teenage daughter, Jojo, is on the other end of the line. She is drugged, disoriented, and in pain, and even though the whole police department springs into action, there is nothing Laurie can do to help. Jojo, who has been sexually assaulted, doesn’t remember how she ended up at the home of Kevin Leeds, a pro football player famous for his work with the Citizens Against Police Brutality movement, though she insists he would never hurt her. And she has no idea where her best friend, Harper, who was with her earlier in the evening, could be. As Jojo and Laurie begin digging into Harper’s private messages on social media to look for clues to her whereabouts, they uncover a conspiracy far bigger than they ever could have imagined. With Kevin’s freedom on the line and the chances of finding Harper unharmed slipping away, Laurie and Jojo begin to realize that they can’t trust anyone to find Harper except themselves, not even the police department they’ve long considered family . . . and time is running out.
Every successful team includes a critical player, the Synergist, who can take dreams, realists, and systems designers, and knit them together into a dynamic team. McKeown shows how any individual can fill this critical role, whether or not they're the formal leader of the group.