ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - It's happening again, St. Louis City Police are working the afternoon shift with only three dispatchers for six districts.
KMOX confirmed the inter department police memo that went out Tuesday afternoon with St. Louis Police Association Business Manager Joe Steiger.
This means police officers cannot initiate any calls on their own, they should not call communications, and if they have an emergency and can't get through the dispatcher, they should utilize their emergency buttons.
Steiger tells KMOX, "this is similar that we've seen here, not just a couple of weeks ago, we've seen it happen multiple times in the past year. So, it's becoming too often, it's becoming an issue."
KMOX asked Steiger if there have been any discussions to hire traveling dispatchers like St. Charles is talking about doing. "I have not heard that from the City. Look, we were just able to sit down and get a pay increase done for them, we were able to negotiate a pay increase for the dispatchers. I think that's a good step in the right direction.
However, while people are applying for the dispatcher and 911 operator jobs, the hiring process seems to stall. Steiger says that's correct and "it's not just the dispatchers, under this policy, where everything goes through the City Human Resources, it seems like it is getting more bogged down than it use to
when ten years ago, we're still under state control, it seems like things moved a lot quicker, it was a lot more streamlined."
