Hanahan Police Communications
The communications
division is the nerve center of the Police Department. The five full-time
and two part-time dispatchers handle all incoming calls for service
and are responsible for dispatching police, fire, and EMS units. The
dispatchers are National Crime Information Center (NCIC)* certified
and are tasked with entering warrants, making wanted checks, maintaining
warrant files, running criminal histories and maintaining the City's
new computerized dispatch center. At any given time, a dispatcher can
have a Police Officer, fire truck and ambulance all out on calls and
a citizen at the walk-up window all at once.
The dispatcher
must at all times be the calm in the middle of the storm. They are the
reassuring voice you hear on the phone at three in the morning when
you call about the noise you heard outside your window. The dispatchers
will answer your questions or put you in touch with the person who can.
* NCIC is a computerized
index of criminal justice information (i.e.- criminal record history
information, fugitives, stolen properties, missing persons). It is available
to Federal, state, and local law enforcement and other criminal justice
agencies and is operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The most recent
generation of NCIC became operational on July 11, 1999 at the FBI's
Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
A recent hardware upgrade to the NCIC system is responsible for this
significant improvement in performance.
