Scott City police chief explains new technology that helps locate 911 calls
SCOTT CITY, Mo. (KBSI) – The Scott City Police Department and Scott City E-911 center recently used new technology to help with an investigation.
Initially, E-911 received a cell phone ping on Rapid SOS, displaying a 911 call was made and giving the caller’s GPS location.
Communications was unable to speak with the caller initially, due to the caller’s location and lack of cell phone service. So, a Prepared Live link was sent via text message. This link allows the caller to live stream an incident directly to the communications officer. Once received, communications officers created an incident and began to try to gather more information.
A police officer on patrol noticed the incident was opened through the use of a mobile (in car) data terminal and began working toward the cell phone ping before the call was dispatched. This allowed the officer to quickly respond to the call once dispatched. From the time of the call was dispatched to the first officer on scene was about two minutes.
“On October 8th later that evening our officers responded to a disturbance and when the Seargent arrived it was determined that it was actually a shooting involving Ms. Hefner.” Says Chris Griggs the chief of Scott City Police Department.
Brittany Uksas is the Communications Director for Scott City Communications.
“A rapid SOS system has a boundary placed in it to where if there were any 911 calls placed within the Scott City limits, says Uksas, it’ll receive a geo location of the 911 caller. It’ll give a latitude and a longitude, it’ll give a cellphone number, and it’ll basically ping a location within a proximity of a 911 caller.”
Megan Heffner is currently being held at the Scott County Police Department with no bond.
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