NORTH LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Channel 13 continues to follow the North Las Vegas Hispanic Citizens Academy throughout its 10-week program.
On Wednesday, during Week Two of the academy, the students took a field trip to the communication center in North Las Vegas and got a small glimpse of the hard work that dispatchers and operators put in every single day and night.
Dispatcher Arlett Peña said she and other dispatchers work to get the North Las Vegas community the help it needs fast and in the right language.
“We take your calls and we send [police] and they do what they need to do,” Arlett told the class.
Peña explained to students how many calls the center gets, how they prioritize each emergency, and how they work as a team with field officers to keep the community safe.
“I was surprised by the amount of work,” said academy member Jenniffer Escalante.
In 2023, the city’s communication center received more than 180,000 emergency calls to 911 and over 200,000 non-emergency calls, according to a presentation provided by the center.
Escalante said she had no idea how busy they were.
“There might be some people that say, ‘They are taking too long. They don’t offer me the help I need.’ or sometimes, we just don’t provide the correct information and they are left building a puzzle,” Escalante said.
The students also learned about what crime scene investigators do and how they process the evidence from a crime scene.
Anaifabel Garcia, a crime scene analyst, told students that when it comes to reviewing DNA or other evidence, answers aren’t immediate like we see on television shows.
“It takes months because sometimes, the fingerprints that we collect are not all there. They are not complete,” Garcia said.
The academy will meet again on April 10.
