BROOKHAVEN, Ga — A police agency in Georgia is singing the praises of a new Live911 system that allows patrol units to hear directly from 911 callers, cutting response time and better equipping field officers with direct information.
The Brookhaven Police Department began using the state of the art technology last October. At last check, their agency was one of just 78 police or fire departments nationwide to use Live911 in the field, Lt. Abrem Ayana said.
Lt. Ayana said the new live streaming technology Brookhaven officers have in their patrol units could save lives and help them make arrests, not to mention it can also help keep officers and citizens safer, WSB-TV reported.
Since officers in the field hear 911 calls as they come into the call center, precious time is saved that might otherwise be consumed through the ordinary dispatch process. It also helps officers interpret desperate pleas for help that would ordinarily go through the dispatcher.
“We no longer have to wait to be dispatched to an incident,” Ayana said. “The officers can hear it live, determine what resources are needed and we can start moving those resources to an incident.”
Moreover, officers in the field can see live where the call is coming from and how close they are to the need for help, the lieutenant said.
Mark Winne, a reporter with WSB-TV, rode with Officer Charles McCoy of the Brookhaven Police Department. McCoy noted the first day he used Live911, it made a difference, getting him to a scene where a man with a bat had threatened an apartment worker.
“We were there in easily less than a minute,” McCoy said. “We came off the elevator as he was actively holding the baseball bat in an open aggressive manner.”
Thus far, Brookhaven is the only police department in Georgia that has this technology. Ayana hopes other law enforcement agencies will follow suit.
“It is our hope that other police departments and not just police departments but fire departments will have this technology,” Ayana said. “The old adage in law enforcement was when seconds count we’re only minutes away. Through this product, we’re able to have our personnel on the scene of an emergency in seconds when seconds count.”
The city of Brookhaven is in the northeastern suburbs of Atlanta, situated in western DeKalb County, Georgia.
