In light 5-8s and a controversial new contract that has split junior officers from their more experienced counterparts, you'd think that the brain trust on the 5th floor would have waited a little while before installing a new Computer Aided Dispatch system, particularly one that seems to have an incredible number of unforeseen problems.
A few weeks back APD installed the Tiberon CAD system. We don't know what the reason for replacing the old system was and frankly we don't care (unless of course they happen to be large donors to certain politicians). However, since APD plays a pivotal role in our safety we expect the system to work.
Our Eyes behind the badge tell us that there have been a huge number of problems with the system ranging from training to support to technical problems that make the system in its current state dangerous.
Last week Chief Schultz told Bob Clark that the reason that the system was having some problems is that officers didn't pay enough attention during training. Whenever an organization makes a technological transition there are always training issues. A lot of them come from the simple fact that most of us hate change - particularly when it involves a piece of technology. Of course the training officers would need to have a password for the new system before attempting to train other officers - which our Eyes tell us, did not happen in many cases.
The problem is that in this case there are a number of functional problems with the new system that have nothing to do with training. For example, our Eyes tell us that their old system would display in their vehicle all of the pertinent information on a particular license plate when that information was radioed to dispatch during a traffic stop - things like the type of vehicle and whether or not the vehicle had been stolen or not.
In short, an officer knew instantly the kind of situation they were getting into before they approached the vehicle. With the new system, the officer is required to run a search on the tag in the field after they have made the stop. Meanwhile, the subject has plenty of time to, well... arm themselves should they decide that they don't want anything to do with the law.
Other functional problems include license plates, warrants and court dates failing to come up. In addition, the system will log off officers for no apparent reason. Our Eyes tell us that when contacted about the problem Radio will make every attempt to log them back in but when their attempts fail they tell officers that the problem is a lack of bandwidth.
Basically, officers are placed in a situation where they are relying completely on their radios to get vital information. Now that's OK if it's an emergency or if it's law enforcement 1973, but today it simply puts officer's lives at risk.
The other complaint that our Eyes behind the badge have is a lack of technical support on weekends. Law enforcement is a 24 hour 7 day a week business - we never close. Installing a new Computer Aided Dispatch system with technical support that's closed on weekends and holidays doesn't exactly make sense. We'd think that the folks at Tiberon would understand that concept.
No one can foresee every difficulty when making a change to new technology. However, there are things that can absolutely be predicted. First, the amount of bandwidth necessary for the system to operate properly. Second, the fact that no matter how much mandatory training is required before the system is installed there will be problems and those problems won't always happen at a convenient time of day.
Third, there will be a disconnect between the people who choose the system and those who have to operate it. New systems need to not only provide better functionality - they must provide the same functionality that officers are used to.
When you get right down to it, it's just as important how you implement a new system as what that new system can do. In this case, part of the equation is when you decide to transition. We're also concerned that the Tiberon system wasn't adequately evaluated for technical specifications (bandwidth requirements), ease of use (compatibility with the previous system), and proper technical support.
In the end, APD has found itself with a CAD system that is not only going through implementation problems, but may not have the ability to meet the requirements of the department in the first place. A few weeks back, the system crashed and dispatchers found themselves using radio and 3x5 cards.
In the final analysis, we don't care what system APD uses for dispatch as long as it works, and has proper training and support for the officers who have sworn to keep the rest of us safe. The current CAD Chaos is intolerable and dangerous for all of us.
39 comments:
This new system is simply dangerous. Tib is already failing to perform now when it is still slighty slow. I dread the coming Summer months when calls come in right after another non stop. I foresee Dispatchers having to use those 3x5 cards quite frequently.....scarey thought ..those cards might actually be safer than Tib.
Guess all those old timers that remember what it was like not to have KDT's in their cars are coming in handy now huh? LOL
And I think I need to start casing some banks, they'll never take me alive, hell, they'll never even get the call.....
EVERYTHING this PD and this administration purchases or impliments from an outside source has kickbacks and political contributions(graft) behind it. It's seems common practice to sole source stuff for the sake of some back door money. Forget going out to bid or the best system or service for the taxpayer/ citizens.
It's just like the RED Light program. Surely there were other vendors out there to put in the system, however, none of the others were willing to pay Marty for the privlege to service the city. In the end vendors will have to render to Ceaser his fair share in order to be allowed to sell to the City. What we wind up with is dysfunctional, shoty crap at the expense of the citizens, not only financially but public safety as well.
Look at the players involved with running this city and you will soon come to realize that they are no better than schemers trying to make some side money. (there over paid salaries are not enough)
AND WE WANT ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF THIS AND THE SMUG MINIONS THAT WORK FOR THIS MAYOR.
Ray Scultz is an idiot and does not know how to reseach before he buys a product! This Chief is the same guy that purchased the APD state of the Art chopper that can't flyvery long in our city because the air is too thin! What a waste of millions.
This Chief is a total idiot, why doesn't the Mayor send him back where he came from!
Look at what the Chief has done for morale, and it gets worse each day! The negitive list goes on and on. I don't think there is anything positive this Chief has done in his time here, other than stuff his wallet!
It is the most UN "user friendly". The font is small, the navigation is difficult to use while driving. The Chief had the audasity to state it was the officers fault they didnt pay attention. For one thing CHIEF,. thanks for throwing us under the bus YET AGAIN/. During my training class, they didnt even have passwords, the instructors kept saying "youll get a screen that looks a little like this, but we cant show you"..I cant even call for help on the system when im working. Two nights ago, teh system was down for over an hour.. had nothing to do with users. Chief, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE<
LOYALTY.. chief schultz, you have no idea how easy you have it. You have some of the best trained, motivated, hard-working, knowledgable officers of any department NATION WIDE.....YOU have thrown us all Under the bus, for your personal gain. We have covered for you and the MAYOR , enough is enough... Chief, I just have one more thing to say to you.... YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT
Really a nice that time after time Schultz does not take responsibility for his actions but blames those under him.
Schultz needs to go, he has no support/respect from the officers.
The next APOA meeting needs to include a vote of no confidence in Schultz. It is time for us to toss him under the bus.
They need to fix the court date problem, if you dont have a car dispatchers cant give us court dates anymore.
Guess everyone gets warnings now! if the violator doesnt want to pay the citation. i suggest the public tell the officer they wanna go to court that way the officer just gives them a warning.
The city will lose millions!
List of problem:
-What cheat sheet?
-Tib freezes up my PC when I try to use the map.
-Have to scroll though menus while driving to run a plate.
-You have to know the super secret key commands to perform functions like getting a driver's history.
-No copy and paste!!
-Tib caused my computer to shut down and restart 8 times the other night.
-Very few hot keys (have to go though menus for everything)
-Training was very poor.
-The system crashes constantly.
-The night screen is horrible.
-Overly complicated.
I can keep going. This system sucks. Please bring back the old one...
If someone wants this on the news tonight- call 764-2539
if someone wants this on the news tonight- call 764-2539
I love this system. Its far better than anything we had before. So is this Chief. Look what he and our great Mayor has done for us. We will all be rich pretty soon with this 47% raise. Now I can finally afford to take some time off. Semper Fi brothers.
The officer that was in charge of purchasing this system was dating the salesman of this company and has since left APD to work for this company
Another thing dispatchers can no longer use the phone book feature with this system.
The manager of this site is a senior official with BCSO that is spreading unsubstantiated rumors concerning APD. He has yet to post any of the conflict within BCSO or the fact that a LT from AFD was arrested on internet sex charges with a 13 year old.
Either publish your credentials and identity or shut down this site.
Stupid Chief! By implementing this new system you've taken the officers' attention away from more important things like citing us horrible citizens for aftermarket exhausts - You're going to cause Marty to lose millions!
Lets get ride of Schultz. We need to make a motion to vote no confidence on the chief.
Remember, Ron Judus Torres Olivas will try to save the Chief like he did last time. After all, Olivas has been buying the chief's lunches on our hard earned dime for years....
The eye hates APD for some reason,,,I agree lets start hearing more about the dirt on BCSO's shenanigans.
The gay blade, the pedo lt, the drunk & drugged deputy, the 90 year old crooked captain, come on eye,,,be fair about this crap.
It's "Eye on Albuquerque" not "Eye on Bernalillo". It's also a blog that we all love to hate....
what bout that bcso sgt that was moonlighting as a repo man for Pitre?
Yeah, right on poster--So what's this about Sheriff White telling ahis people not to wear "politically INCORRECT" tee-shirts? Darren is no better than the almight alcalde...and what's up with the deputy that's been accused of drug stealing/using/selling? Probably the EYE only has sources inside APD is why. Hey EYE, you need to go out to the county and find out what's up with the boys in brown!!
This is EYE ON ALBUQUERQUE....If you want start and EYE ON BERNCO
I wish dispatch could tell us the history on addresses further back than March!
The above poster is 95% correct. The major majority of our officers have no respect for Chief Schultz. We all know he will lie and cover up anything to save his own hide. He is the epitome of what a cop should not be....
Wooried Ray? You should be.
what would a vote of no confidence do?
answer to above,,, it will leave the city and department in severe peril!
whats the with when i run a plate, the next day i log on i get it 30 times throughout my shift and every shift afterwards. this crap is slowin down the whole system for everyone!
I log on and get 30 or more messages, all from the previous weeks.... frustrating. By the way CHIEF... the computers went down NUMEROUS times this weekend.....Did that have to do with training? All you had to say on teh news was "We are implementing a new computer program that we believe to be more useful to the city and officers. As with any new program, there will be a transition period. Be patient. The community support is what enabled us to purchase this new program"
Frustrating OK, but definately dangerous...problem with training my ass - - chief why don't you roll out here with this system??
LMAO...He wouldn't even know how to boot it up!
This would be a great system if i was sitting behind a desk. It was not designed for someone driving a patrol car. Im having all of the above problems. On top of that I paid attention in training and have referred to my powerpoint copy of the training. However, i still can't run plates from Mexico (as we were told we could), still can't get WITS hits back, still dont get 26 checks when I call out with a 54, can't cut and paste, can't get to the boxes i actually need without hitting tab, and have to memorize KQ and other dumb commands for pages i actually need. Oh, and god forbid you try to ask the dispatcher to log you 10-8 or 19/16. NO, you need to log yourself while driving (an SOP violation) which means you need to scroll thru various tabs or lose your current screen to make it to the in service button. While I agree there are some great features on this system, it was not designed with a patrol cop in mind.
amen to all that!
Well, it's not just the officers having issues with the new system! It is everyone having to deal with it. Granted the new system IMO has greatly increased the chances of officers getting injured or hurt due to the many screens and information that is not always complete (danger/weapons/etc). I truly believe this system was a huge waste of money! Everybody in APD is having issues-- the officers, radio, and the crime lab! Talk about backlog, information not in the database, radio's system crashes, dispo units dispositions, and the countless tabs and windows everybody must click on in order to complete what used to be a simple task to get information! Good luck goes out to everyone using this horrible new Tiburon System!
As for not paying attention being the problem! I must say so many things kept changing that notes that had been taken were quickly thrown out for new ones! Nobody was properly trained and there was very little to no input taken into consideration by the Tiburon folks from the people that would ultimately have to use this system!
I can't imagine that those in charge had any real idea of how big a task this database conversion really was. Now here we are naked as can be. I have been trained that it is all about officer and public safety. How safe are our men and women if we can't even provide them with accurate and dependable information? Maybe someone can listen to the worker bees once in a while. Don't blame our men and women for "not paying attention during training:--that is lame. Truth be told there was not enough pressure on the vender to get it right and there were not enough eyes involved in the troubleshooting of the system. Now we are left to suffer and pick up the pieces.
Let's all log on and then simply not use it. I know it will be hell for radio but seriously this is a joke, we're better off just using radios. I don't know how to make the issue more obvious.
Maybe the problem with the CAD system is that HeH and his babies only had one training to learn the system....You know they have a hard time reading and counting...Just food for thought...Most of them were hired before the college requirement took affect.
Scrap tiburon and lets just go back to 3X5 cards for dispatching.
Dispatch doesn't get hot hits on subjects or vehicles???? wtf?
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