trauma74

The Orange County DA will probably just let him off with a menacing charge. About 9 years ago when I dispatching for the Village of Monroe PD, we had a hostage situation where a guy threatened to kill his own son and any officer who tried to get close to him. He fired numerous assault weapons at officers who were out in front of his residence. In the end they talked him out of the situation. He was charged with multiple crimes including attempted homicide of a police officer. When he went to court they made him a deal and he plead guilty to a menacing charge!

It should be a rule that all PD cars are black and white. It is awesome and there is no mistake that you are seeing a PD car when you see those colors. It seems like most of the PDs in California have black and whites. Most of the ones I have seen look like LAPD but with their own logo. The only cars in NY that should be any other color are the Sheriffs Cars. They look good in red and white. Some counties have come up with their own colors that look like crap. Orange County SO cars are black with crappy gold, blue and red striping! AWEFUL!

I know that was are not supposed to use curse words on here, so I will apologize a head of time. This deserves a "WHAT THE F***???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and a "ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME???!!" Sorry Seth. Had to get that off my chest. I will take the appropriate lashings from you!

These buses both have the Electronic EQ2B. I thought it would good. When you are close you tell it is not the real thing. Most of my members want to either get rid of the Q all together or add an additional siren. We have been running these rigs to all of our jobs since we out then in service and we are not having any major problems. We have had a few minor things that the dealship fixed quickly and they were back in service as fast as they went out of service. I know that not every VAC can afford to spend the money on these Big Buses, but the Chevy/GMC 4500 series is becoming very popular in the ambulance market. The Chevy van chassis are becoming ambulances now too. Mobile Life just bought a few of them. You cannot go wrong with a Chevy. You get the Duramax Dielsel and the Allison transmission. You really cannot ask for a better combination unless you get a vehicle with a Caterpillar Diesel, but the you are talking BIG BUCKS!

We did our homework when it came to buying these large Type 1 buses. We heard all of the horror stories from years ago. We heard about the terrible ride with these buses because of the stiff suspension. We heard about VACs buying them just to turn around and sell them within 6 months of getting them. It was my idea for us to look at International because of all of the problems we dealt with on our Ford buses. The constant suspension problems and going thru brakes and rotors, plus all of the other typical Ford problems. After we did our homework, we looked at Demos of these Big Buses and we got to drive a few and ride in the back and speak to the VACs about their experiences with them. We spoke with numerous ambulance dealerships and started to get prices. We found that these buses cost between $25K - $40K more then an "E" series Ford. When we decided what we wanted and what company we wanted to build them, we went to our Town Board and asked them to purchase two of these ambulances. I expected to have to give a long drawn out speech for an hour. Within 15 minutes, the Town thought it was great to get a truck chassis instead of a Ford van chassis. They were sold on it and so were we. The more weight you add to these buses, the better the ride. We have always carried A LOT more supplies compared to what the DOH says the minimum is. Even without the added weight, these buses are working out great. When you are riding in the back, you only thing you get is a little more road noise and some very minimal vibration from the big 19.5 inch truck tires. When you are up front you know you are in a truck, especially with the air seats which can make you bounce all over the place. I like the air assisted brakes, the fact that you sit up a lot higher, you have a better field of vision and believe it or not, they have a better turning radius compared to the Ford. If anyone is considering getting a Big Bus, please send me a PM and maybe we can set up a time to show the bus to you.

REST IN PEACE MY FRIENDS!

I have seen the Taser at work numerous times. I love it. It is my favorite non-lethal weapon. No matter how big or how strong or what drugs a perp is on. The Taser brings them down!

This is the deal. It has been mentioned in other posts. If an EMT has permission from their agency and their vehicle is equipped with all the same equipment that a fly car has and their vehicle gets certified by DOH and they have Red Light cards issued by DOH, THEN they can have red lights and sirens in their vehicles. There must be a written policy in effect regarding the use of POVs as Emergency Ambulance Service Vehicles. My agency had to first send a copy of this policy to Albany and then the Metro Office in NYC issued DOH inspection stickers for our 3 vehicles. In my agency, the only members who can use their POV as an Emergency Ambulance Service Vehicle are the Captain and 2 Lieutenants. We have been thru the entire DOH process and when they came to inspect us at the end of 2005, they also inspected our POVs. If anyone has any further questions for me, please send me a PM.

www.scannermaster.com They have a bunch of different antennas on their site. You do not want to get a crappy antenna. The saying goes "your scanner is only as good as your antenna". You can have a $1000 scanner and without a good antenna, it wont work any better then a $10 scanner. If you want to monitor low band transmission, stay away from a glass mounted antenna!

Ok, I have been holding off commenting on the Hatzolah.....but now it is time for me to speak about them..................I have many good and bad things to say about them. First, I do have to give them credit for being the largest volunteer EMS organization in the world. They have operations in many countries around the world. Second, I give them credit for providing their services free of charge. They do not bill their patients. The funding for their organization comes in the form of donations from jewish people all around the world. Think about how much it must cost them to purchase and operate their giant fleet of vehicles, purchase supplies for everyone, issue radio equipment to each member and send their members for training from EMT to Paramedic. Now, the negative.......they constantly use red lights and sirens when they are not suppose to be using them. I have seen many "WAR WAGONS" (big old beat up suburbans, tahoes, caprice station wagons etc) blowing up and down Rt 17 in Orange County going Code 3 to get to the Catskills before the start of Shabbos. I have seen them take their buses code 3 back to quarters. What is the reason for this?? Many of them are already bad drivers and you add red lights and sirens to the mix and you get a complete cluster****. On every Friday afternoon/evening and every Sunday afternoon/evening you can see War Wagon after War Wagon sitting in the heavy traffic waiting for a reason to activate their lights and sirens. The Hatzolah NYC members who travel on Rt. 17 monitor the KJ EMS channel and when they hear KJ EMS going to an MVA on Rt 17, they all flip on the reds and sail down the shoulder or the median. The ones that do not have the KJ channel call into "H BASE" down in Brooklyn to report an accident. All of the "H-NYC" members respond to the call. When a member of the Hasidic Community has a medical emergency or an MVA (look at their cars, brand new nice car with broken tail lights and dents all over them) they do not dial 911 from one of their 5 cell phones, the call "K BASE" or "H BASE" to request an ambulance. I can go on and on about them, but it does not matter much because they get away with murder and they hide behind their religion to do it. The politicians do not want to lose the "bloc vote" from them so they do not crack down on this behavior. There is not another group of people anywhere in NY that can continuously violate the V&T Laws and DOH policies and protocols besides them. The one word that they need to learn is the word "CANCEL". They have been told time and time again that they are not needed on scene and they still show up. I have had numerous run ins with them and the NYSP had to threaten them with arrest if they did not get back in their vehicles and unclog the highway! <end of rant>

Although I am a cell phone buff, I have pretty much been faithful to the different model Nextel flip phones. At one point last year I purchased a Palm Treo 650 from Sprint. This was a secondary device that I planned on using for web services especially sending and receiving emails while on the road or at work where we have very tight restrictions on internet usage. I did not want a PDA phone as my primary device because I am rough on everything I carry with me. For a while I used it a lot, but then I stopped using it so much. I ended up cancelling the service on it. Thinking back I think I should have gotten a Blackberry. I hear from some people that they do not like the Blackberry and I hear from some people that they are addicted to their Blackberrys. I know that Nextel has a 7100, but Sprint has the 8700 and 8800 series which look like they are loaded with all kinds of features etc. I still do not want a device like that as my primary phone because like I said it will get a beaten. I am looking to get some info and input about the different Blackberry models available and why they are better and or worse then Palm, Moto Q or Blackjack phones. Do any of the Blackberrys WiFi capable? I also keep hearing about needing a separate data plan that is more money and different then the Palm and the Q? Thanks in advance for your help

Thanks for the info. I still want a little more input from you guys before I make a final decision.

I wish that the Orange County Executive and the Commissioner of Emergency Services would pay more attention to what is going on in the world Public Safety Radio. They believe that the new proposed New York State Wireless Network will be a great system and they have signed an agreement making Orange County a full partner with the State. The State is "buttering up" various Counties thru out the State because they need access to many different tower sites. The State radio system is going to suck. I went to a meeting that the NYS Office of Information Technology held for the Public Safety Agencies in our area. EVERYONE that attended this meeting said that it was a waste of time and they do not want their agencies to have anything to do with this system, but if the County gets this system, we will be forced to be on this system in order to communicate with the County. The mobile and portable radios that we would need to work on this system cost $5000 each. I know that my VAC cannot afford radios that cost this much. Sh&t!....for $5000 I can buy 8-10 of the VHF portables that we use now. The County is not going to provide any funding or radios to us. Plus, the State system is going to be a M/ACOM system. We do not use M/ACOM equipment and we will be forced to use it with this system. The only M/ACOM dealer in the area that could sell radios on this radio system is NYCOMCO. We should not be forced to use a specific radio vendor. Another thing that is going to make this State system a cluster F*** is that the State is going to be split up into 3 regions. One Region is going to be on 700mhz, another region will be on 800mhz and the third region will be on a VHF system. How is that a Statewide system? If a unit from the region with 800mhz radios goes into the region that uses a VHF system, how would they communicate?? How is this a true Statewide system?? I was told that thru the use of in-vehicle repeaters and crossband links on tower sites, everyone will be able to communicate with each other! This is how things are done now with the agencies in our County. We would like to NOT have to use vehicle repeaters and crossband links anymore. You would think that in this day and age of inter-ops being a big issue, the state would want to have everyone communicate over one radio system without the use of multiple radios, vehicle repeaters or crossband links. If this State system is going to be the greatest system going, why are counties such as Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk building their own radio systems? All of these counties are avoiding 700 & 800 MHZ like the plague and are going with UHF T-band 470-512 MHZ systems. The majority of FDs in OC use UHF systems. EMS uses VHF. The US Government is building a nationwide digital trunked VHF radio system. You would think that the State would get the hint that 700 & 800 are not the best. The State system is not going to have talkaround freqencies or a "failsafe" system in place for when the system goes down for any reason. It is nice to see all of our tax dollars at work. Tax payers are getting shafted. Their taxes are paying for this Statewide System AND they are being taxed by their own Cities, Towns, Villages & Fire Districts who are building their own systems. *END OF RANT*..........for now! LOL!

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - AT&T Inc., the nation's largest wireless carrier, agreed Friday to acquire rural wireless provider Dobson Communications Corp. for $2.8 billion in cash. The offer of $13 per share adds about 1.7 million customers to AT&T's nearly 62 million at a time when some analysts have questioned how much larger carriers can grow in a U.S. wireless market that is saturated. The offer represents a 17 percent premium over Dobson's closing price Friday of $11.11 in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Including debt, the deal is worth a total of about $5.1 billion. Oklahoma City-based Dobson does business under the Cellular One brand in rural and suburban markets in 17 states and has provided roaming services to AT&T since 1990. AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson, who took over for long-serving Ed Whitacre Jr. earlier this month, has said AT&T will be a wireless-centered company going forward. The announcement of Dobson deal came at the close of Stephenson's first board meeting as the chief executive. Patrick Comack, an analyst for Zachary Investment Research, said he was suprised by an acquisition announcement so soon after Stephenson's ascension to the top job. AT&T is still completing its integration of BellSouth Corp. and the old AT&T long distance business - two enormous buys in the last couple of years. The announcement of the Dobson acquisition came the same day that Apple Inc.'s iPhone went on sale. AT&T is the sole carrier for the hotly anticipated device, and Dobson's Chairman Everett Dobson noted that the acquisition by AT&T is the only way Dobson's customers could get access to the device. Stan Sigman, the president and chief executive of AT&T's mobility group, said Dobson's network and technology would fit almost perfectly with the company's existing network. The company said the acquisition would have only minimal effect on the expected earnings per share for the year and would have a positive and growing effect on earnings and cash flow in the second year after the deal closes.

Maybe Bloomburg has never heard of the US Constitution! What an a**hole! You do not even have to make a new law. If you see "suspicious" people taking pictures or video, you question them!

At the PD that I dispatch for, if a police officer responds to the scene of an MVA, he will complete an accident report unless requested by the parties involved to not complete one. Unless a complaint is received for a hit & run MVA, our officers do not complete a report. We are instructed to give them a "civilian accident report" for them to fill out on their own and submit to their insurance companies. On a side note.............when someone comes in for a lost or supposedly "stolen" cell phone, we make a blotter entry only unless they know who stole the phone. I truly believe that 99% of people that come in saying their cell phone was lost or stolen, just want a new phone and do not want to pay full price!

It takes a real scumbag to do something like that!!

It is nice to see that a lot of thought went into that truck. Nice design!

AMEN!

At the Police & Security 2007 Expo in Atlantic City yesterday I saw many new emergency lights that now available to the public safety agencies. Of course Whelen dominated the "light show". Whelen showed off the new LED bulbs that are specifically designed for use in the Crown Vic. For the tail, head & reverse lights the factory halogen bulbs are removed and these multifuction LED light bulbs are installed. When not emergency mode all of these lights have the same function as the previous halogen bulbs. When in emergency mode, these LED bulbs flash in many different patterns. These LEDs are pretty bright and they seem to thrown off some good light. Also, I saw LED hide-away bulbs from NOVA. Unlike the Whelen LEDs, the NOVA ones go into a hole just like a strobe head. They had an Expedition on display that had the LEDs in the front parking lights, tail lights and the reverse lights. These lights were bright and visible from far away. These LED heads are available in red, amber, blue & clear and unlike with strobe bulbs, these LEDs are the true color, not a colored glass bulb that only gives out a flash of light with a slight tint to it. Below is a link for the NOVA Hide-away LEDs: http://strobeguy.safeshopper.com/80/2527.htm?629

Yesterday I attended the Police & Security 2007 Expo at the Atlantic City Covention Center. It was a great show! There are so many things coming out for not only PDs, but also things that can be applied to the FDs & EMS. NO CHARGE for anyone who works for or is associated law enforcement. Also had free parking. Gas & Tolls were take care of by my friend from US Customs. Dinner was on my agency. My big spending for the day was buying a small pepsi at the show.

if you are not worried about scanning a digital system, the BCT 15 will do the same job as the 996t

A while back when I was considering moving to the State of Florida, I checked out numerous websites of the county Fire/Rescue departments thru out the State. I found that many of the Counties ban the use of nicotine by their employees even while off duty. During the hiring process you have to sign a sworn statement that you have been nicotine free for at least one year prior to your appointment and that you must stay nicotine free during your entire employment even when you are off duty. They provide random testing for nicotine and if they find it in your system you get fired from your job. I can understand not being able to smoke and/or dip on duty or in uniform, but being told that you cannot do this off duty seems pretty excessive to me.

KVI Uniforms in Middletown, NY Alfi's Uniforms in New Windsor Some's in NJ

I have been dispatching for over ten years now and I know how to properly blow off bullsh*t calls and when to send or not send a cop to a job. I dispatch PD/FD & EMS. If I got a call like the one described here, I would not have sent EMS right away. I would have sent a cop to check and advised AND I would have called the ER and told them what was going on. If by the time the cop arrived the ER staff still had not done anything, our Sgt would have directed the cop to go in and speak with the ER staff and not to leave until this patient got the proper treatment. Yes, the dispatcher is at fault to a point, but so is the hospital