Bishop PD Transferring Comms to Corpus PD
STCN Staff
In the new world in which we are living, and with the most recent surge in positive coronavirus cases, America’s workforce is really feeling the pressure. Our local first responders are no exception, as the Bishop Police Department is finding out; a recent outbreak of potential positive COVID cases within Bishop PD’s dispatch staff has forced them to enact a contingency plan involving outside help, in order to continue normal operations. The Corpus Christi Police department will be assisting Bishop PD with dispatch services beginning Tuesday, January 11, and will continue until Bishop’s dispatch staff can fully resume their duties. There will be no disruption of services during this time.
The Bishop Police Department has four full-time dispatchers and one part-time dispatcher, so any kind of unplanned time-off from staff can present logistical challenges to their daily operations. It is also a very difficult environment in which to contain the spread of a virus once it has found its way among the staff. One dispatcher is currently hospitalized with COVID, and other dispatchers have begun experiencing symptoms of COVID.
Bishop Police Department Chief Edward Day
“I just want the public to know that the operations of the department will not be affected, they’re going to continue to have a public safety response; and Corpus Christi Police Department is working with us to ensure that that’s a seamless transition. And we just ask for the prayers of the community for our dispatch staff.”
Bishop Police Chief Edward Day relayed to STCN the situation currently facing his department:
“Our dispatch supervisor started having chest pains last week during the shift change, so they called EMS (and) rushed her to the hospital. At first, they said it was a heart-attack; and then we learned this morning (Monday, January 10) that they moved her to ICU… she’s got COVID and it’s attacking her heart.”
“We had a couple of other dispatchers who just happened to start having symptoms yesterday and today… so we called in a crew to sanitize the police department…”
“I’ve been in contact with Corpus Christi PD today; they’re going to take over our dispatch operations starting tomorrow. It’s not going to affect anything as far as when people call in. They’ll still call the same numbers, the lines will just be forwarded to MetroCom, which is CCPD’s dispatch… we’ll be working off of their radio channels and they’ll dispatch us… it’ll just be a Corpus Christi PD dispatcher instead of a Bishop PD (dispatcher) for a little while until we get our dispatchers back in.”
Chief Day says that “this was a contingency all along due to the fact we’re a small agency; I was just hoping we would never have to put it in place. We’re hoping that some of the dispatchers at least will come back negative, then we’ll be able to utilize them so that we don’t have to do this for too long. But at the very most, it shouldn’t be more than fourteen days that we’ll have to do this. It’s definitely not something we wanted to deal with, but in the time of COVID it’s unfortunately one of the new realities that we have to face. My biggest concern was, I didn’t want it to affect our response to emergencies, and luckily Corpus Christi PD stepped up; and they’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen, so we’re very thankful for them, for that.”
Chief Day has a message of reassurance for the citizens of Bishop. “I just want the public to know that the operations of the department will not be affected, they’re going to continue to have a public safety response; and Corpus Christi Police Department is working with us to ensure that that’s a seamless transition. And we just ask for the prayers of the community for our dispatch staff.”
