The “Super Sleuthing in Dispatch” session presented by Zachary Dykes had two objectives: To share free, online resources available to those searching for information not typically available in the ECC; and to provide an outlet for attendees to exchange information beyond that covered in the presentation.

The presentation covered many websites and resources, so it was broken down into several sections to make the information more manageable. During the “people” section, resources were shared that could assist in finding phone numbers by name or address, locating contact information for property owners, and next of kin information. Vehicle-related resources were focused heavily on finding information by VIN, covering several websites that all provided slightly different information. The “GIS/mapping” section covered a variety of topics, including weather, road conditions, GPS coordinate locaters and converters, and railroad crossing information. The final section contained all the other resources not covered previously. These resources allow someone to locate company and contact information based on a commercial vehicle’s DOT number, find information on a marine vessel based on name, or identify medications based on a description.

Dykes frequently provided examples of where these searches may be of use and demonstrated the use of the websites. He also thoroughly explained how information found from one of these resources may be put into another to obtain more information and further a search.

To meet the second objective, each section of the presentation concluded with a “crowd source” request. During these opportunities, those in the audience were invited to share resources they used or knew of that had not been covered in the presentation. This provided an opportunity for a large, diverse group to share ideas and resulted in many new websites and tools being discussed and compared. Additionally, at the end of the presentation, all attendees were provided access to an online list of the resources covered in the presentation and a way to submit new resources to the list.

The presentation was closed with an important message from the speaker – “Go forth and be a super sleuth because your officers depend on you.”

By Daniel Rohrbach