Technology isn't the enemy of public safety. That is not what this is about.
It's about your relationship with technology. Your inability to say no to every whizz-bang new thing that promises to fix your world.
Did you even ask the questions? Who, what, when, and where. Just the basics. When council demanded you do more with less — an impossible situation — did you ask what you were giving up?
All the systems are connected. That's what you were told. Cameras and maps, sensors and drones. Do you know how it all works? Or is your diagram just a black box?
911 is special because a person answers the call. A mother, a brother, a child, someone like you. Humanity in the midst of our worst moments.
You'll trade that away.
Blame the Council. Blame overtime. Blame staffing shortages. Real problems, no doubt.
But ask these questions: who, what, when, and where.
If you have no answer, you already made the trade. Not because you chose to. Because you didn't ask before you signed. The technology keeps arriving. The questions don't get easier. And the accountability gap between what the system does and what you can explain keeps widening.
This isn't an argument against technology in public safety. It's an argument for knowing what you have, how it works, and what it costs when it doesn't. That's not a technology question. It's a leadership question.
The dispatchers who sit at those consoles every night deserve leaders who can answer it.