Whitney Downard / The Meridian StarDispatcher Tony Payne types up information from an emergency call into the Lauderdale County E-911 calls database to be accessed by other dispatchers, who will relay the information to law enforcement and fire agencies. 

A stolen truck with a dent on the side. A woman fighting with her in-laws over the custody of her child. An inquiry about a license plate. A possible burglary. A woman passed out in her car behind a Newton County church. A noise complaint that was “thumping the whole block.”

Dispatchers with Lauderdale County E-911 juggled these calls on a Friday morning, dispatching firefighters and law enforcement officers to locations around the county and distributing information to the appropriate agencies.

Jennifer Boykin, Jessica Roberson and Tony Payne have worked together on this shift, with a shift supervisor who was absent this Friday, for the last year, serving as the connection between residents and emergency responders.

“When you have 12 phone lines and four or three dispatchers…” Roberson said. “It does get aggravating when you’re on the line and an officer is talking (on the radio) and the phones are constantly ringing.”

In Lauderdale County, there are 16 shifts for dispatchers, or four shifts of four people. Each shift works seven days out of a 14-day cycle, 12 hours from 5:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. or vica versa. 

Dispatchers pay attention to six different screens, which display call information, such as the location of a landline telephone, previous calls at the residence, a map of the area and more. Using a series of “10 codes,” or a system of classifying call types, they can quickly relay information to various emergency agencies. They must always wear a headset, quickly switching between casual, workplace conversations to an emergency call with the click of a button or by pressing on a foot pedal. 

For those unfamiliar with the position, it can be overwhelming.

“I know I didn’t know before I came here,” Boykin said about how E-911 worked. “I’ve been here two years and when I started I know I didn’t think it was like this.”

For example, while Payne takes an emergency call he also types out the caller’s information into a database of calls. Roberson will read that information and begin calling agencies to that location – the fire department for a house fire, police for illegal activity, etc. while Boykin handles county business.

“I didn’t realize exactly how much multi-tasking there was,” Payne said. “There’s so much going on here at times that it’s impossible to catch it all… The first day I just observed; I was lost.”

Roberson has worked in Lauderdale County for only a year, but has a decade of dispatcher experience in Newton and Neshoba counties. 

“It was definitely a challenge,” Roberson said about learning new streets and codes. 

Each county has its own code system and for Roberson, a 10-22, meaning disregard, and a 10-25, meaning meet at location, were switched.

“When different agencies come together for disaster relief, we have to use plainspeak,” Payne said. 

As roads change and new construction grows, the job for dispatchers gets more difficult. Despite years of experience, dispatchers still get calls from roads they didn’t know existed. At times, when new subdivisions get built, there are no addresses or roads to guide firefighters, making a previous response to a fire at a new construction difficult.

“If we hadn’t had a call earlier that day to that location the house would have burned all the way down before we would have known where to send someone,” Payne said. 

Because of how frequently they contacted them, Boykin said she viewed law enforcement officers as her children.

“You have to constantly check in on them and make sure they come home to their families,” Boykin said, while researching some background on a caller. “They’re like my children, I wouldn’t send my kids into a house with someone I didn’t know.”

Often dispatchers handle non-emergency calls on emergency lines, clogging up the system. Sometimes they’re calls from people inquiring about their upcoming court dates, children playing with a phone or someone searching for another agency – such as animal control. They have callers who will ask dispatch, through the emergency lines, to send an officer to their home to discipline their children.

“So you want me to take one of the officers away from their duties for that? That’s not what they’re here for,” Boykin said. 

Callers also accuse dispatchers of purposely being slow, curse them out or don’t give complete information, assuming the dispatchers have their location and information already handy.

“A landline will tell us where they are, but a cellphone? It could be pinging off a tower 10 miles away,” Boykin said.

At times the voices overlap and fill the dimly lit room, kept dim to balance out the brightness of the computer screens. One caller asks for legal advice in a child custody case, calling repeatedly until every dispatcher has heard a version of the story.

Speaking to the dispatchers comes in short bursts timed between the calls as Roberson described the workload. 

“I guess it comes and goes in waves. When it’s summer, everyone is out of school and when it’s cold– I’m sorry. Communications, where are you?”

“Let me try again. Then there’s the holidays – Communications?”

Roberson once helped deliver a baby in Neshoba County but Lauderdale County dispatch doesn’t handle those calls because they don’t have the same training.

“We already have too much on our plates,” Payne said. 

The three enter and leave conversations, seamlessly jumping from a serious call to a joke with their coworkers.

“It’s probably the most stressful job I’ve had,” Boykin said. “I didn’t know what it was when I first applied but, honestly, I fell in love with it.”

“Now that I’ve worked here I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else,” Payne said.

“It really becomes your family. I still have coworkers from Neshoba that I regularly meet and catch up with,” Roberson said. 

“Nine out of 10 times, outside of work, I’m hanging out with someone from work,” Payne said. “I told my wife that (here) your best friends are your coworkers.”

“When you get a stressful call, you can’t just talk about it with anyone,” Roberson said.

The phones ring again, slicing through the moment and cutting the conversation abruptly short. Boykin has another call from the child custody parent, Payne has someone calling about a car accident on 8th Street and Roberson sends out an ambulance and police officer.