Police officers and firefighters can’t telecommute to keep streets and homes safe. They have to stay on the streets, sometimes closed quarters.
Even when the spread of a deadly virus like coronavirus leads to a worldwide pandemic that is hitting home.
“You have to be out there. There’s not another choice. There’s not a tele-work,” said WTMJ contributor Anne E. Schwartz on the Steve Scaffidi Show. She was a communications director for both the Milwaukee Police Department and Wisconsin Department of Justice.
However, she admits that officers and firefighters will have a temporary new normal in how they go about their work – particularly officers on the police beat.
“This has made that interaction with people much more challenging when it comes to building community relationships.”
She says part of first responders’ work is the communication to the public that they need to alter what should lead to an emergency 9-1-1 call. Some police districts are suggesting to call 9-1-1 only if it is a life-threatening situation.
“I have seen law enforcement agencies across the country say ‘Here are the things that constitute an emergency phone call. Here are the things that do not,’ ” said Anne.
“It really is making people decide what is an emergency. ‘What am I calling the police for?’ “
Internally, police departments are also making staffing adjustments to keep their team members safe.
“Most municipalities have a SWAT team,” she said.
“They’re splitting up the shifts for their officers so they don’t have an entire team that could contract this and then be out of circuluation. If you have 12 people on the bomb unit, you want to make sure you split up those shifts so there’s no risk of everybody (contracting) it at the same time.”