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Professionals in the Stanly County law enforcement and emergency response community have a new computer system to better assist their efforts.

The system officially went online late last year, but the plans for the system’s implementation go back a couple of years.

In December 2022, according to Stanly County 911 Director Kyle Griffin, the county signed a contract with Hexagon for a new computer aided dispatch (CAD) system.

Stanly 911 was awarded a grant from the North Carolina 911 Board for part of the project, and eventually one of the department’s senior telecommunicators, shift supervisor Chris Furr, became a CAD specialist.

“He worked very closely with (Stanly Information Technology Director) Chad Coble and I to integrate the system,” Griffin said.

“Everything had to be rebuilt from scratch on both the record side and on the CAD side, so it was a lot of work,” he added.

Griffin said the project included the county’s records management system (RMS) and the jail management system (SMS). Those systems included, Griffin said, “basically, anything law enforcement does: reports, arrests, citations, the whole nine yards.”

Stanly County, Griffin said, has always been on the edge of new systems, noting in 1998 the county was one of the first to go on the previous system, and “had a good 25-year run with it.”

The county’s new CAD system, by integrating multiple systems, gives emergency and law enforcement personnel “a more holistic view in the long run,” he said.

Griffin also encouraged citizens to participate in a new Smart 911 program which will integrate with the new system. After downloading the app or signing up online, users create a profile and can enter their emergency contacts and medical conditions.

“So when you call 911, our system will recognize your phone number, (when) you register your phone number and give us all the information you voluntarily supply to us. We’re able to see that more efficiently,” Griffin said.

He said the new system has increased security to protect information and overall is more of a “21st century product.”

Soon callers will be able to send video from their phones to 911 and contact dispatchers via text. Those changes, Griffin said, may come in the next six to eight months.

The new CAD system streamlines the contact between callers and dispatchers, Griffin said, and despite some challenges with the transition of moving to a new system, “we will see that continuity and that ease of simplification will increase over time.”

“One of our biggest challenges is that it is new,” Griffin said. “We couldn’t stop all the services we provide for a week to train everyone. So they had to continue operating on the system that many used for their entire careers, then learn a new one, and then work while learning it.”

Another challenge, Griffin said, was having 20 to 30 police and fire departments, along with county institutions. That means the new system “touches a lot of areas, and the to-do list is still very long. We’ve made great improvements and strides, and we prioritize all of those things and continue to work on them.”

The database includes 25 years worth of searchable records, he noted, but because of updated data integrity, the new database will not get migrated data from the old. However, the old system will still be searchable if needed.

Recordings of 911 calls will still be kept for 60 days, Griffin said, but caller’s identities will be protected as always.

Griffin said the job of helping with the new 911 system is not a regular 9 to 5 job, saying, “we make sure we’re available to (system users) at night.”

“Once we get those kinks out of the way and implemented, (the system) will be better at providing information to the county, to each municipality, but also better prepared for analytics and crime statistics.”