The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department implemented a “temporary fix” on Friday to get its computer dispatch system back online after it crashed on New Year's Eve, authorities said.
The problems were first reported with the 38-year-old computer-aided dispatch system, known as CAD, around 8 p.m. Tuesday, when officers at several stations reported problems logging into their patrol cars' computers. officials told The Times in a statement.
This problem forced the department to resort to old-school methods of handling calls, in which dispatchers wrote down call information by hand and then transmitted the details to officers by radio. During the CAD crash, officers were unable to run people's license plates and background information on their car computers.
These issues have now been resolved thanks to the temporary fix of the programming issue that the CAD system encountered, according to the Sheriff's Department.
The accident sparked criticism of the department's outdated computer system and calls to address the problem.
Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva weighed in online, pointing to a letter he wrote to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2022 in a post on X.
“It's not a question of 'if' there will be a catastrophic, unrecoverable failure of the RMS [records management system] or CAD system, but it is a matter of 'when,'” he wrote in the 2022 letter. “This failure will produce a significant danger to the citizens of Los Angeles County, which can be avoided by modernizing and immediately replacing the systems CAD and RMS”.
Department officials do not deny that the system is in desperate need of improvement and say Sheriff Robert Luna is working to fix the problem.
“The department has long struggled with outdated technology, and since taking office, the Sheriff has emphasized the critical importance of updating and improving our internal systems,” the department said in a statement Friday. “In his first six months of his administration, the Sheriff addressed the need to replace archaic CAD, among other systems, and further develop a multi-year equipment replacement plan.”
The department issued a request for proposals for a new CAD system in mid-2023 and is currently evaluating possible options, according to the release. Testing of a potential system will begin next week at select patrol stations, according to the Sheriff's Department.
