School police seek direct 911 link

Friday, Oct. 25, 2002 | 9:55 a.m.

The Clark County School District's police chief is pushing for a new telephone system that would allow his officers to respond more quickly to 911 calls placed from campus telephones.

The system, already in place in several districts nationwide including Los Angeles, alerts school police dispatchers when 911 is dialed from any district location. Even if the call is not picked up by the regular dispatcher -- or the caller is put on hold -- the signal is routed to the school cops.

Given the delay currently being experienced by Metro Police in answering 911 calls, the new system could shave critical minutes off the response time to campus emergencies, said Paul Scott, chief of the school's police.

Calls to Mesquite, Henderson and other municipal dispatch centers in Clark County would also be routed to the school police.

"When we have to wait for Metro to pass the call along to us, we're losing valuable time," Scott said. "Sometimes the dispatcher just assumes we've already been notified and doesn't bother to pass the information along at all."

Using the new system, the school police dispatcher would be able to hear the conversation between the emergency dispatcher and the caller, but would not be able to communicate with them. Eventually, school police hope to link the telephone system to campus security cameras, which would allow officers to zoom in on the location of a call, Scott said.

The improvements would cost an estimated $15 million over 10 years, according to a proposal submitted to the Clark County School Board for approval.

Members of the School Board were enthused by the plan at their meeting Thursday, but put off a decision to award a contract for the project.

The vote was delayed two weeks because several board members had questions about the bid process. District staff had recommended the bid be awarded to Alcatel, a division of Verizon. But executives from NEC challenged that decision, urging the board to reconsider.

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