TPSO Honors Dispatchers During National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week

National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week is celebrated April 12-18. During this week, we recognize more than 200,000 women and men who play crucial roles in the delivery of this vital public service.

“For 24 hours of each day and seven days of each week the dispatchers of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office provide crucial lifelines to their fellow deputies and the general public, sometimes under great pressure but always in a professional manner,” said Sheriff Jerry Larpenter. “These dispatchers are the unseen wind beneath the wings of deputies fighting crime and saving lives in our streets, highways and neighborhoods. We are grateful to each and every one of them for their dedication and hard work, often performed under challenging and difficult circumstances, when seconds count.”

Dispatchers are most often the first contact citizens in distress make with law enforcement, which means they must often deal with panicked or frightened people, while eliciting the greatest amount of information possible to help deputies to help better when they arrive on a scene. They provide ready-reference services to needed records and information deputies in the field can’t always immediately access, all in the name of expanding the margin of safety for those we serve.

TPSO dispatchers, like deputies in the field, work 12-hour shifts, rotating days and nights. They interact routinely with their counterparts at the Terrebonne Parish 911 District, the Houma Police Department and the Louisiana State Police.

Every year during the second week of April, public safety telecommunications personnel are honored throughout the U.S. The observance began in 1981 at the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in California. Pictured here are various images involving our dispatchers captured throughout the past year.