New technology to improve police response time in Rochester

ROCHESTER — Officers in Rochester will soon be able to hear emergency calls immediately as they come into the dispatch center, thanks to a new life-saving tool.

This month, the Rochester Police Department will implement “Live 911,” a technological tool designed to enhance safety in the city.

Once the software is installed, and a 911 call comes through, officers will be able to hear a report of an emergency along with the 911 dispatcher, rather than waiting for instructions to be relayed over the 911 radio dispatch system. The technology also provides a precise GPS location of the caller.

Rochester Police Chief George Rouhib said Live 911 enables officers to hear emergency calls in real-time, allowing them to respond quicker.

“Once the dispatcher receives a call, the officer will receive an alert in their police vehicle and they’ll be able to listen into the entire call … while he (or she) is already moving toward that call,” Rouhib explained. “What that does is it saves time. They can save maybe two-to-three minutes, which is crucial when you are responding to a crime in progress.”

The Rochester Police Department currently has a “very good” response time as is, according to Rouhib.

“We probably have about a three-five minute response time now, but sometimes with traffic, like during rush hour, it delays it,” he said.

“The bottom line is, it’s going to decrease our response time and increase our service, and that’s the whole goal. If it cuts two minutes off, or even one minute off, that’s phenomenal.”

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office has been using the technology, which it piloted, for over three years now.

Capt. Paul Workman, of the agency’s Rochester Hills substation, said the tool enabled swift response by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office during the mass shooting at the Brooklands Splash Pad last summer. A sergeant of the Rochester Hills substation was listening to Live 911 when someone called to report the shooting at the splash pad on June 15, 2024. By listening, officials said the sergeant was able to arrive between the one-minute mark of the call and the two-minute mark, before the call was even set out over the radio.

Because officers are hearing the information at the exact same time the dispatcher is taking the call, they can self dispatch while the information is being gathered and typed into the computer for transfer to the officers.

“You’re talking about anywhere from seconds to minutes — depending on the type of call and the type of information — that the officer can respond to,” said Workman. “It’s just a quicker response to incidents if they happen to be listening to the system.”

The software will cost the Rochester Police Department approximately $7,000 a year for service, which Rouhib said can be cancelled at any time.