On October 16, 2014, Jeremy Morris, dispatcher at the McHenry County (IL) Sheriff’s Office, was drinking Diet Coke with dispatcher Kelly Reid, his legs kicked up on the radio console during a relatively slow midnight shift.

At 1:16 a.m., the center received a relatively common call for a well-being check.

By 1:41 a.m., everything changed when dispatchers received calls that shots were fired and officers down.

That night, two deputies responding to the call, one male and one female, were shot multiple times in an ambush-style attack. A third took a defensive position and returned gunfire. Of the deputies shot, McHenry County Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Maness died 11 months later while in rehabilitation for his injuries.

Morris described the experience to APCO 2016 attendees during an emotional session Monday. He said that he and Reid looked at each other for a split second before adrenaline kicked in and they went into action.

Their tasks were numerous: To call local police departments for backup, call rescue for the injured deputies, field phone calls for shots fired, notify and activate the SWAT team, notify off-duty commanders of the incident, notify the chief of police for the town on the incident, call the ISP SWAT team, call the FAA to restrict airspace, and contact the offender’s cell phone company to get a ping on his mobile device. They also had to call Air One for support, coordinate a staging area to pick up the injured deputies, initiate reverse call back, field phone calls from the media and public, and call off-duty deputies to cover the road.

LESSONS LEARNED

McHenry County Sheriff’s Office, located in northeastern Illinois 65 miles northwest of Chicago, has a staff of more than 400 employees, with 17 telecommunicators, two supervisors and more than 80 deputies. The annual call volume is 63,000 calls for service.

The average number of incoming calls at the center from Wednesday night until Thursday morning in October 2014 from midnight to 8 a.m. was 47, which an average of 15 outgoing calls.

On October 16 during that same time period, there were 283 incoming calls (an average of 35 calls per hour) and 90 outgoing calls (an average of 11 calls per hour)—a 600% increase in call volume.

Looking back, Morris says that the communications center was not prepared for the event. They have since put systems in place for similar situations.

SOURCES OF SUPPORT

By far, the worst part was not knowing the status of injured officers or if the suspect was in custody, “because as dispatchers, our job is to keep everyone safe,” Morris said.

He is thankful that his supervisor didn’t let him come in the next day, because he was not emotionally ready.

“After the incident, support is key,” he said, advising that telecommunicators depend on family, friends, co-workers, supervisors and critical incident stress management resources to cope.

“It’s OK to be emotional,” he said.