Communications (Dispatch)
Lieutenant Brandon Reed
The Sheriff’s County-Wide Public Safety Communications System, commonly known as the “Dispatch Center”, is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Dispatchers are professionally trained to handle emergency situations. Calls are received on fourteen regular lines and nine 9-1-1 emergency lines. In addition to dispatching calls for the Sheriff’s Office, the “Dispatch Center” also serves fourteen fire departments and nine other police agencies throughout the county. Our Dispatchers handled over 87,000 calls for service in 2022.
Lieutenant Brandon Reed supervises this division of the Sheriff’s Office. Generally, three or four dispatchers work each shift. Dispatchers answer the phones, record pertinent information, send assistance where required, track which units are sent where, and respond to field unit requests such as checking warrants, running a license registration, dispatching additional help, contacting a hospital or Life Flight, and a myriad of other requests. The dispatchers are often the “lifeline” for units in the field.
The Dispatch Center is the emergency notification center for the Red Cross, Geauga County Dog Warden, Geauga County Highway Department, and UH Geauga Hospital Police, Geauga County Humane Society, Geauga County Game Warden and Punderson State Park Rangers.
All dispatchers are APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) EMD (Emergency Medical Dispatch) Certified as well as CPR and AED Certified. All dispatchers have attended a 40-hour APCO Basic Telecommunicator Course. Continuing education and training courses are attended by dispatchers throughout the year; this enables the dispatchers to keep current on their certifications. Geauga County Sheriff’s dispatchers have attended training in various areas including 9-1-1 liability, suicide intervention, and hostage negotiations.