NEWS RELEASE: OC Sheriff to Conduct Bike and Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operation
NEWS RELEASE: OC Sheriff’s Department launches motorcycle safety enforcement
NEWS RELEASE: DUI checkpoint planned for Dana Point this weekend
DANA POINT, Ca. (May 8, 2019) – The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will be conducting a DUI/Driver’s License Checkpoint on Friday, May 10, at an undisclosed location within the city limits between the hours of 7 p.m. and 3a.m.
NEWS RELEASE: OCSD holds San Clemente bike and pedestrian safety enforcement
NEWS RELEASE: Sheriff to conduct bike and pedestrian safety operation in Stanton
NEWS RELEASE: OCSD holds motorcycle safety enforcement in San Clemente
OCSD bids farewell to Police Service Dog, Noa
The Orange County Sheriff Department’s K9 Unit is saddened to announce the passing of retired Police Service Dog, Noa. The 15-year-old Belgian Malinois passed away Monday, April 22, after a long and successful career with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
PSD Noa received her initial training in Europe before joining the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to be a member of the Custody Detection Team.
Noa and her first partner, Deputy Anderson, were assigned to the James A. Musick Facility where they conducted more than 1,200 searches for narcotics and completed over 400 hours of training. When Deputy Anderson transferred to patrol operations in August of 2009, Noa was provided a new partner, Deputy Hodges.
Deputy Hodges and Noa remained at the Musick facility, where the duo made more than 20 observed felony arrests for narcotic possession at the jail, and were often called upon to help search the other jail facilities for narcotics. Noa also assisted patrol deputies on vehicle stops and probation searches in operations.
Deputy Hodges transferred to patrol in 2013 and Noa was assigned to a third partner, Deputy Raphael. Deputy Raphael certified with Noa and was in service at the Musick Facility and also assisted patrol in more than 325 deployments.
Noa retired in 2014 and was adopted by Deputy Zwirner, who was assigned to Musick and was looking to bring Noa to a loving home.
PSD Noa will be missed and remembered by her partners, Deputy Zwirner and the men and women of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
The tough stuff, the highlights and everything in between: How OCSD dispatchers help our community
There are the calls that test them.
Every dispatcher is guaranteed to receive that first call that challenges their resolve for navigating someone else’s worst imaginable day.
Dispatcher Katie Howard received one such call in her first week off training. A mother had inadvertently fell asleep on her seven-week-old baby, and the baby had died. It was one of three calls involving young children that OCSD dispatchers fielded that week.
As a mom to two young children, Howard knew calls like these would affirm her career choice or convince her to consider another path.
“Either you can handle the stress of these calls or you can’t,” said Howard, the daughter of a retired OCSD motor deputy who joined the department 14 months ago.
Radio Dispatch Supervisor Leslie Gallant, who trained Howard, has seen the stress of the job weigh heavy on new dispatchers.
“I have seen some make it all the way through training and then they get that one call and that’s it for them,” Gallant said. “Emotionally, this is a very hard job to do.”
Howard quickly learned she was cut out for handling the tough stuff.
“It made me more focused,” she said of working intense calls. “Then, at the end of the shift, I leave it all in the building.”
Dispatchers require an ability to stay calm under pressure and multitask. However, it is their passion for helping others that draws the more than 50 dispatchers and supervisors with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to their stations every day.
“This is the way of doing the job of a first responder without being a deputy,” said Gallant, who worked as an EMT for eight years before joining the Sheriff’s Department in 1998. “We are the first voice of contact, and we want to help. We want people to know that we are here for them.”
While tough calls are a guarantee, there are also the calls in which dispatchers know, for certain, their words made a difference.
Gallant’s call came some 18 years into her career.
A distraught victim of domestic violence called from a Lake Forest hotel for help. She was crying and didn’t know what to do next.
“She had left her situation and she was so scared,” Gallant remembers.
The woman called five more times that night, unsure she had made the right decision to leave. Gallant remained the calm, assured voice keeping the victim safe from miles away.
Days later, the woman called a final time.
“She told me, ‘You saved my life when you talked to me. I had the courage to leave and move to Los Angeles’,” Gallant recalled on a recent Thursday. “That is a call I will always remember.”
Stationed at the Emergency Communications Bureau, dispatchers field about 1,500 emergent and non-emergent calls every day.
“We never know what’s on the other end of that call,” Gallant said. “We always try to remember that when someone calls, whatever the problem is, it’s an emergency to them.”
Although, Gallant admits, there are times when it really isn’t an emergency at all.
There was the time a woman called 911 to report the strong scent of sizzling onions emanating from her neighbor’s home – a call Gallant fielded herself some years ago. Or there was the time an irate woman requested a deputy to settle an argument at a fast food chain over a poorly constructed hamburger.
“We only have so many 911 lines so we don’t want non-emergent calls tying up those lines and delaying help for someone who really needs it,” Howard said.
At the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, dispatchers are broken up into two groups: those who take the calls and those who dispatch emergency services and relay information to the deputies on the radio.
After six to eight weeks training to be a call taker, a new dispatcher will spend several months fielding calls before taking up radio training. Radio training then stretches between 16 and 18 weeks.
The radio demands clear communication skills and multi-tasking mastery. The information dispatchers provide deputies in the field dictates the initial response, so every detail matters.
“We have to control the conversation,” Howard said. “We need people to be descriptive. And we need people to know that being on the phone doesn’t delay help. As we’re talking, we’re also sending deputies.”
Getting to the crux of the emergency helps dispatchers relay the most accurate information to deputies in the field, and there is little room for error.
“We re-phrase what the caller is saying to the most necessary information, and we need to be specific” Howard said. “We want to keep our deputies safe.”
When the deputies arrive on scene that’s often when the call ends for dispatch --- an abrupt finale with no satisfaction of resolution.
Are the deputies OK? Did that caller survive? Did that child start breathing? What happened?
“We never know the outcome,” Gallant said. “But you can’t dwell. We just move on to the next call.”
OCSD remembers retired narcotics K-9 Luna
The Orange County Sheriff Department is saddened to announce the passing of retired Police Service Dog, “Luna.”
Luna, a 14-year-old Belgian Malinois, passed away Sunday, March 31, comforted by her handler, Deputy Jones.
PSD Luna was born in the Netherlands in January 2005 and was certified in the sport of Koninklijke Nederlandse Politehond Vereniging, or KNPV. After the certification process, she joined the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in 2009 and received her first assignment as a narcotics detection canine.
Luna was first assigned to now-retired reserve Deputy Doug Williams and the two worked patrol for several years until Deputy Williams was transferred in 2012 to the OCSD Mounted Unit.
In January 2013, Deputy Jones was selected as Luna’s new handler and the pair was assigned to the Theo Lacy Facility to conduct narcotic sniffs inside the jail. In addition, the team would assist patrol, probation and other partner agencies with narcotic sniffs and search warrants. Deputy Jones and Luna were deployed more than 400 times to search for narcotics.
The pair also starred in many public demonstrations, in which Luna showed off her ability to quickly locate narcotics odor.
In August 2015, Deputy Jones was transferred to patrol in the City of Lake Forest and Luna was retired from service.
PSD Luna enjoyed her retirement with Deputy Jones and his family by taking daily walks, showing off for family and friends and playing fetch at the park.
Luna will be missed and remembered by her partner, Deputy Jones, his family and the men and women of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department who had the honor of working with her.