Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteTiger
I'm in several 911 groups online, and a topic of this sort came up recently...should guns be allowed in dispatch centers/should 911 dispatchers carry/does your center allow firearms.
Almost to a one, the Canadian centers were all "No, wtf would you need guns for/no guns in our centers/etc".
The answers for the American ones...well...a lot of dispatchers said that with the current anti-police sentiment, they feel very unsafe. Most centers do not have police in/around them which holds true in Canada, too. We may dispatch police (and fire) but...there are no police AT the dispatch center. If we need police for whatever reason, we need to dispatch them to come to us. A lot of the American dispatchers wanted to be able to protect themselves, until police show up, as they feel they are at more risk due to their association with police OF people showing up (how true that is, I don't know, aside from the purely anecdotal evidence presented in that thread). Several mentioned that they have very small, lightly staffed (2-4 people), remote centres, so they kept at least one firearm around.
I heard stories of dispatchers stating angry folks (for a plethora of reasons) had shown up at dispatch centers in the past. It seemed to me that roughly 3/4 of the American dispatchers who answered...were armed.
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Makes sense. Just like firefighters in the states have expressed interest in being armed. Unfortunately, even here, paramedics are wearing vests and firefighters aren't immune from crazies that want to hurt anyone in a uniform.