San Bruno CA Dispatchers Honored

Article Source: San Bruno Chief of Police Barberini & Shannon Rohatch

The San Bruno City Council on April 10 2018 honored their EMERGENCY Dispatchers as part of Public Safety Dispatcher Week

Tonight (4/10/2018) the San Bruno City Council presented the San Bruno Police Department Dispatchers and Call Takers with a Proclamation recognizing 2018 National Public Safety Telecommunicators (Dispatcher) Week. We are blessed in San Bruno with fabulous Police Dispatchers and Call Takers. They are truly the first-first responders and serve as a lifeline to officers in the field and to the public we serve.

ABOVE: L Mayor Rico E. Medina R Shannon Rohatch

Thank you to the City Council for recognizing this amazing group of women and men. Most importantly, Thank You to our Dispatchers and Call Takers. Your incredible work too often goes unnoticed. Your are truly heroes to all of us and we could not be more proud of all of you.

ABOVE: Mayor Medina presenting Officer Rohatch recognition proclamation

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Good evening, Honorable Mayor Medina, and council members. My name is Shannon Rohatch, I recently promoted to the position of Communications and Records Supervisor for the San Bruno Police Department. I have been with the Police Department for over 16 years now, working primarily as a dispatcher. Sitting next to me are some of our dispatchers from The San Bruno Police Dispatch center and they represent over 57 years of experience total.

During Dispatch appreciation week we are able to acknowledge the dedicated and hardworking people behind the mic, that don’t always get the recognition they should. Although, this is but one week out of the year, we should always be thankful for these fine women and men every day. Most of you are familiar with the job demands of Law Enforcement and FIRE personnel. The job of a dispatcher is hard, it is stressful, and it can be emotionally draining. These dispatchers that serve the people of San Bruno are strong, capable, hardworking and dedicated individuals.

We saw this last week, especially, during the YouTube shooting incident. As is usually the case during the dayshift, one person was in the dispatch center when the initial call came in of an active shooter. She immediately needed help and I sat down next to her in the dispatch center to assist in answering some of the 200 phone calls we received within those first few hours. We are also fortunate enough to have a virtual dispatch center that seamlessly allows Burlingame PD dispatch to help answer our phone calls during a major emergency. Thankfully, that was in place, the volume of calls and the amount of radio traffic that was received was amazing and those additional people were necessary.

Each one of these people you see behind me, showed up to work that day, during their off duty time, to help, at some point during and after that incident occurred. Even if only to allow a dispatcher to get up and walk away from the terminal for a little while to have a break. Sometimes the additional people there just gave us a chance to get food for the staff. This is yet another major incident the San Bruno Police Department and the community we serve has had to endure. It won’t be the last and thankfully we will have these outstanding dispatchers there to take the call and handle the radio.

Erin, Damaris, Tracy, Jaclyn and Robert, these are the members of the San Bruno PD dispatch center team. We are small but mighty! I am proud of their dedication, the efficient work they all do, the support they all have for each other and they are to be commended for that.

Thank you

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Robert Riechel

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Photo Credit: San Bruno CA Patch Archives

Source Credit: City of San Bruno CA Police Department

Web Site: https://sanbruno.ca.gov/

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