It was International Control Room Week last week – so we talked to one of our Command and Dispatch (CAD) officers to help explain more about their vital role in the RGP.
Have you ever wondered who is on the other end of a 999 emergency call?
Meet Police Constable Jayron Walker, one of the RGP's more experienced CAD officers.
It’s one of the most high-pressured jobs in the Royal Gibraltar Police force.
Yesterday (28 Oct) for example, the RGP Control Room received 178 calls – many of them 999 emergencies. And in the past seven days, the Control Room received 1,007 calls.
These calls can be about anything from a domestic argument or a serious road traffic accident, to concerns for someone’s mental health or a fight involving weapons.
Working in CAD, they have to dispatch the appropriate officer(s), often making quick decisions, to the callers who are most in need of help.
This is while they assess all other incidents waiting for police attendance and make sure the risks involved are not increasing.
PC Walker, who has been in the RGP for over five years, is one of over a dozen specially trained CAD officers, who man the Control Room 24 hours a day.
The 29-year-old said: “I enjoy working in CAD. Like everything, it has its ups and downs. Some days you will feel really frustrated, because everything that can go wrong appears to have gone wrong, whilst other days you feel on top of the world, such as when you do your bit to help people who really need it.
“I remember a night when I took a report about a missing child. The mother was understandably distraught but, by getting her to calm down and talk to me, I was able to work out where the child might be hiding. Officers went to investigate and found the child where I’d thought he might be. I got a good feeling from having done my bit to find him.”
The Control Room is manned by two Constables, 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the Controllers working on a three shift pattern, ‘Mornings,’ ‘Lates’ and ‘Nights.’
PC Walker continued: “The easiest way to visualize the control room is like being the brain of an octopus and the officers on the ground are the arms. In the Control Room we manage and deploy officers if any are needed and decide how many officers we need to assign to any incident. If you would like to work in the Control Room or think you would be good at this role, you need to be a good communicator, speak multiple languages, be able to stay calm under pressure and be able to quickly obtain, process and summarise information.
He added: “We allocate a Grade to every incident: a Grade 1 is an emergency which must have an immediate response but it could last for some time. I was on duty when a man threatened to end his life and that took several hours and a lot of police manpower to resolve. At the other end of the scale we might allocate a routine event as Grade 3, which will be followed up when time permits.”
These decisions are quickly made by the Controller without any reference to a more senior officer.
Mornings shifts are characterised by lots of administrative matters. Members of the public tend to make enquiries about lost property or they call to ask for details of ongoing investigations. The night shift tends to have fewer incidents but often they can be the more serious ones – burglaries, assaults and drink drivers.
PC Walker explained that a typical Friday or Saturday night tends to be busier.
He added: “It could be an uneventful night, but the likelihood of more serious incidents within a relatively short period of time does definitely increase. Especially given that alcohol is most likely involved on these nights and this tends to exasperate any incidents.”
Most people will never need to call the RGP Control Room, but if they do, we hope that, they understand that the officer on the other end of the line may also be dealing with several other important issues and with various people all wanting their problem to be dealt with, immediately. That public awareness is one of the main aims of International Control Room Week.