Upgrade will allow school police to hear 911 calls

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Clark County School Police may soon be able to listen in on 911 calls made from campus phones, thanks to a $15 million upgrade of the district's telecommunications system.

"A lot of times there's a problem on a campus but we don't know about it until we get the relay from Metro," Clark County School Police Chief Elliot Phelps said. "(The new system) will allow us to instantaneously monitor the situation as it's unfolding."

When someone dials 911 from a school phone, the call is automatically relayed to the municipal police dispatch center. After taking the caller's information, the dispatcher then determines whether municipal officers or school police should respond. School police are not always notified that an outside police agency's officers have been dispatched and have no way of tracking how calls are resolved, Phelps said.

With the new phone system, calls to Metro, Mesquite, Henderson, North Las Vegas and other municipal dispatch centers would be simultaneously routed to the school police dispatch center. The school police operator would listen in but not be able to communicate either with the caller or the dispatcher.

In certain circumstances law enforcement officers may circumvent the state's ban on receiving wire communications provided it is done in the course of their duties, Gerald Gardner, chief deputy attorney general of Nevada's criminal justice division, explained.

The phone system proposed by Clark County School Police appears to meet that threshold, Gardner said.

"The real issue here is whether this is in any way going to interfere in the manner in which Metro responds to potentially serious situations," Gardner said. "I would hope the school police would coordinate carefully with Metro what their role will be."

Phelps said he has put off talking to police chiefs of surrounding municipalities until the new system is closer to being operational. That should be within the next six months, Phelps said.

Metro Sheriff Bill Young said he was unfamiliar with the school district's plans but would be opposed to anything that would interfere with the chain of response to 911 calls.

Officers would still await word from Metro before responding to a call, Phelps said.

"Metro is the chief law enforcement agency in the county, we acknowledge that," Phelps said.

What the system will do is allow school police to hear the caller's information firsthand rather than having it relayed, Phelps said.

"This just gives us more time to prepare our response," Phelps said. "We'll also be in a better position to tell Metro, 'Hey, we already have an officer at that school.' "

The enhanced 911 system is a feature of the overall upgrade that is being phased in districtwide, said Phil Brody, assistant superintendent of technology and information services. The project includes adding telephones to classrooms at older schools.

The nation's second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, is considering a similar phone system upgrade, School Police Deputy Chief Steve LaRoche said.

"We would have a better, more accurate response," LaRoche said. "There's nothing like getting the information firsthand plus there's no lag time involved."