Local dispatchers honored for service

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Rosalie Little still remembers the first call she received.


Little was fresh in her new job as a telecommunicator for the Houma Police Department, joining after heavy recruiting from HPD dispatchers who were regulars at the restaurant she worked at. Instead of using a bubbly personality to greet customers and offer menu suggestions, Little was going to act as the connection between the police and citizens in crises.

64-G. Armed robbery. Little said she first picked up the phone and heard a woman screaming “We’re getting robbed, I think we’re getting robbed!” Little took in the information such as the woman’s name, her location and what she and anyone else involved was wearing.

“It’s a special kind of person to take all that and multi-task,” Little said. “You have to talk to them, and get into their mind and tell them everything’s going to be okay. And let them keep talking to you while you’re giving info to your other dispatcher.”


Little has heard everything from a 108 – officer in distress – to other robberies to suicide calls in her 27 years working the lines for HPD. She said she’s well-versed and comfortable in her role after all these years, and while she does not have regulars at restaurants anymore, she’s still helping some of the same people that have made 911 calls since the beginning of her time with HPD.

“I try to disguise my voice, and I can’t. Everybody knows who I am,” Little said.

It was for her service of over 20 years that Little was honored at an awards ceremony for local telecommunicators last Wednesday. Dispatchers and supervisors from the HPD, Thibodaux Police Department, Terrebonne Parish 911 and the Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Offices were recognized for their service to the community as part of National Public Safety Telecommunicator’s Week. HPD Chief Dana Coleman celebrated them as the true first responders of any public safety department, calling them the conduit between the public and the police.


“Telecommunications operators, dispatchers are the first responders before law enforcement even arrives on the scene,” Dana Coleman said. “You are the unsung heroes. You are the lifeline, not only for police officers, but you are that calming voice that can bring calm to a storm when someone is in crisis.”

That calming effect extends not just to the public but to their fellow co-workers as well. Jena Chiasson got emotional as she received an award as Terrebonne Parish 911’s telecommunicator of the year. Chiasson has been a telecommunicator for four years, joining after her brother, who works for the TPSO, told her about the job. However, the last year has proven the hardest for Chiasson, though not for her job conditions. Her sister died last year, and she was one of the people to have found her. Chiasson praised her co-workers for their care in her hardest times, as she was given two weeks off while her colleagues raised money to help her family with burial costs.

“I love [my job]. I work with some amazing people. They supported me,” Chiasson said.


Coleman’s brother, Bruce, told his own story of support from local telecommunicators. He was working on the road for the TPSL. He said he was always one of the brusquest officers over the radio, calling in and yelling to dispatchers for information. Bruce Coleman said one night in 1997, he was working an armed robbery in Presque Isle. While in pursuit of a possible suspect, he lost control of his car and flew into a canal, hitting a tree.

“Thank God that tree was there. Cause if that tree wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” Bruce Coleman said.

Bruce Coleman was crushed from the waist down in the accident. He went through 14 operations to rebuild his body, working up from the ground floor level of entire immobility. Bruce Coleman said while many of his fellow deputies and ranking officers came to visit him, he most wanted to be seen by the three dispatchers working that night so they could know he was okay.


Bruce Coleman said when his injury happened, he was applying for a position with the Louisiana State Police, with an interview being the one final step in the process. He went from nearly joining the state troopers to thinking his law enforcement career was over. After his operations and recovery, Bruce Coleman was offered the chance to try and work in the TPSO’s telecommunications department. He said he got there, and while he was once the rough one over the airwaves, he was now scared of being on the other end of the radio. It wasn’t until one supervisor, Ms. Jackie, forced him to put on the headset and take calls did Bruce Coleman find his way.

“You get in that zone, just rocking and rolling, don’t give a damn what come up, you got it. After the shift, [Ms. Jackie] pulled me to the side and said, ‘Did you hear yourself? Dude, you were born to do this.’ Ever since then, you couldn’t take me off the radio,” Bruce Coleman said.

Today, Bruce Coleman has found his way to the state police, working as the communications supervisor the LSP. He credited the support he received from his colleagues in the radio room not only for helping him continue his law enforcement career but also playing a part in his physical recovery. While he would work the phones, his co-workers would have fun with him by hiding his cane and making him walk to find it. After spending enough days searching for it, Bruce Coleman decided to forego the cane entirely. It is that kind of support system that enables the telecommunicators to continue to operate in a job where they become intimately familiar with people at their most vulnerable. Little said while the calls she receives are in no way easy to stomach, knowing her role in such critical situations makes the emotional toll worth it.


“It’s a challenging job, but it’s the fulfillment that you get knowing that you helped somebody some kind of way and their life depended on you,” Little said.

Local dispatchers honoredKARL GOMMEL | THE TIMES