Live 911 tech enables swift response by Oakland County Sheriff's Office during Rochester Hills shooting
PONTIAC, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) – Law enforcement arrived at the scene of the Rochester Hills mass shooting within two minutes because the Oakland County Sheriff's Office is using technology meant to speed up emergency responses.
"When you look at a life-saving or a life-threatening moment, seconds matter, and minutes matter," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
That's why, almost two years ago, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office began working with HigherGround, a company out of California, to implement "Live 911."
Their software live streams emergency calls directly to officers in the field and provides a precise GPS location of the caller.
"They're hearing exactly what we're hearing as we're getting it in. So they're able to respond quicker. They're able to hear if we're having difficulty with a caller or difficulty getting an address," said Anna Craft, an emergency dispatcher at Oakland County Sheriff's Office.
The system uses geofencing to make sure only relevant officers get the calls, preventing what Bouchard calls sensory overload.
"We're not putting too much in front of them, because then they also have to drive, they have to listen to the radio, they have to do a variety of things that are all happening simultaneously. And that's why you try to keep it focused on what's the main mission? What's the priority? And for us, if it's a life-saving moment, how do we get that information to them quicker to get them in route faster, so that we could get there to save a life?" Bouchard said.
On Saturday evening, a sergeant at the agency's Rochester Hills substation was listening to "Live 911" when someone called to report a shooting at the splash pad.
Bouchard says that the sergeant arrived between the one-minute mark of the call and the two-minute mark.
"So as soon as he got there, there was no act of threat; they immediately transition to wound care to life-saving measures," Bouchard said.
In the days since, Bouchard says other police departments in the metro have contacted his office to learn about this technology, which is already being used by 135 different law enforcement agencies across the U.S.
"We try to stay ahead of the technological and the training capabilities because it allows us to be quicker, faster, more responsive, save more lives, all of those things that come in our space," Bouchard said.
