The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department implemented a “temporary fix” Friday to get its computer dispatch system back on track after a crash on New Year’s Eve, authorities said.
Officials told The Times in a statement that around 8 p.m. Tuesday, officers from multiple police departments reported problems with their patrol car computers, the 38-year-old Computer Aided Dispatch System. CAD) problem occurs for the first time.
The glitch forced the department to resort to the old-fashioned way of managing calls, with dispatchers manually recording call messages and then forwarding the details to deputies over the radio. During a CAD incident, officers were unable to run license plates or character backgrounds through the on-board computer.
According to the Sheriff’s Department, the issues have now been resolved due to a temporary fix to the programming issues experienced by the CAD system.
The incident sparked criticism of the department’s outdated computer systems and calls to address the problem.
Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva weighed in online, writing a post on X pointing to a 2022 letter he wrote to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
“It’s not a question of whether the RMS will suffer a catastrophic and unrecoverable failure. [records management system] or CAD systems, but it’s just a matter of ‘when’,” he wrote in his 2022 letter. “This failure would pose a significant danger to the residents of Los Angeles County, a danger that could be avoided by immediately modernizing and replacing CAD and RMS systems.”
Department officials don’t deny that the system is in dire need of upgrades and say Sheriff Robert Luna is working to address the issue.
“The department has long struggled with outdated technology, and since taking office the Sheriff has emphasized the critical importance of upgrading and enhancing our internal systems,” the department said in a statement Friday. “In his During the first six months of his administration, the Sheriff addressed the need to replace outdated systems such as CAD and further developed a multi-year equipment replacement plan.”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 potential options, the statement said. Testing of a potential system will begin next week at select patrol stations, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
