Cindy Cielock

“I love the adrenalin rush when there is a hot call. I enjoy the stress of it all. I like the hot call, and I like a successful conclusion,” Cindy Cielock says about her job as a public safety dispatcher for Onondaga 9-1-1 in Syracuse, N.Y. The area comprises 827,000 square miles with 600 deputies and 450 Syracuse police officers. Cielock has lived in Syracuse her entire life.

Nominated for a 2011 APCO Award, Cielock has been a dispatcher for 33 years. Some days she thinks she lacks a little compassion, and other days she feels like she has changed someone’s life. She enjoys the officers she works with. “I work with a really dedicated group of people,” Cielock says. She works four days on and two days off, and every sixth weekend she is off. The days she has off change weekly.

“I really enjoy the whole aspect of the job. You never do the same thing two days in a row. You never do the same thing two hours in a row,” Cielock says. She never wanted to become a supervisor. “I really had no desire to be in charge of my co-workers. I love dispatching,” Cielock says. She acknowledges it’s a stressful job and says one can take a call that goes from stealing a bicycle to someone being shot. “How you react can affect their reaction,” she says.

Cielock also likes to help solve crimes. “I like to put license plates together to solve crimes. That really helps the victim,” she says. It could be a hit and run or a major crime she helps investigate but, whichever the case, she finds it rewarding.

Cielock has taken calls for a number of suicides. She recalls an incident in the 1990s when a lady who had her granddaughter with her on a boat was run over by a bigger boat. The woman was badly injured. A man from another boat had to get them both on his boat, and he wasn’t sure of his specific location on the lake. Throughout the call, Cielock had to calm the kids down and try to determine his location in order to dispatch the call properly for them to be rescued.

She remembers the call in which a baby died. “There’s a lot of sadness in our job,” she says. Cielock recollects the saddest call she took was when a man in his 80s found his wife dead in bed. While on the line with him, she heard him say: “Please just tell me you love me one more time.” Cielock acknowledges older people are very special.

Cielock believes it takes one with thick skin to do her job. She must be level-headed, think quickly on her feet and be able to multi-task by looking at four computer screens in front of her. Cielock says there’s a lot of equipment to get accustomed to. In addition, she has to be able to listen well, communicate effectively and adapt to different situations at a moment’s notice. “If you can’t handle domestic violence calls, you can’t be in this job,” she says.

When she takes calls for officers that are injured, she must try not to have voice inflection and sometimes goes on rote. A situation of this type requires the dispatcher to keep it all together. “It’s not always easy. A lot of them are friends,” she says.

Cielock was on duty Sept. 11, 2011. “We basically went into lock-down mode,” she recalls. Cielock remembers that shortly after the planes hit, a psychotic person called in and said that all children in the schools would die. “That was our mass trauma situation—to get all schools covered. It was really an effort by everyone,” Cielock says.

A group from the 9-1-1 center went to the city and gave presentations to the dispatchers following the horrific events of 9/11. They brought with them a quilt displaying sentiments embracing empathy and sympathy. “These were the most amazing people I’ve ever met, Cielock says.

Some of Cielock’s closest friends are co-workers, but she also has friends who are not associated with law enforcement. When she’s not working, she enjoys reading, particularly mysteries, as well as scrapbooking, watching TV reality shows, getting on EBay and the computer and spending time with friends. Cielock also enjoys travel, and she has been to Las Vegas nine times. She’s not a big movie person but enjoys comedies if she does watch a movie.

Cielock is married, and her husband works for Syracuse 9-1-1. Having served as a dispatcher since 1978, she is well versed in all facets of the profession. She says some people perform well in the classroom when role-playing but later find they cannot perform well when actually on the floor. Her tenure on the job, her thoroughly developed skill set and her love for the work she does make her a well-rounded and effective professional who can serve as a role model and mentor to those who aspire to join the field or those who are already there.

About the Author
Karen L. Bune serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and Marymount University in Arlington, Va., where she teaches victimology. She is a consultant for the Training and Technical Assistance Center for the Office for Victims of Crime and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of Justice. A nationally recognized speaker and trainer on victim issues, Bune is Board-certified in traumatic stress and domestic violence, and she is a Fellow of The Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the National Center for Crisis Management. She is a 2009 inductee in the Wakefield High School (Arlington, Va.) Hall of Fame. She received the “Chief’s Award 2009” from the Prince George’s County Maryland Police Chief, a 2011 Recognition of Service Award from Prince George’s County MD County Executive Rushern Baker, and the American University Alumni Recognition Award in 2011. She appears in the 2011 editions of Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World, and Marquis’ Who’s Who of American Women.