PGPD spotlights busy 9-1-1 center, recruits new dispatchers

Prince George’s County’s 9-1-1 center is carrying a pace few local agencies can match. Public Safety Communications handled more than 1.4 million incidents in the last year, averaging about 5,000 calls a day, as the county recruited more dispatcher and 9-1-1 call-taker hires during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

The county describes Public Safety Communications as an internationally accredited 9-1-1 center staffed by 197 civilian personnel. The majority of its open jobs are dispatcher and 9-1-1 call-taker positions, a sign of how much of the county’s emergency response system depends on the people who answer the phone before police, fire or EMS units ever roll.

That work covers Police, Fire, EMS and Sheriff dispatches. The county says its Computer Aided Dispatch system helps route calls and recommend units based on geography and availability, which means the first critical decision in an emergency often happens in the communications center, not on the street. For people calling 911 in Prince George’s, the center is the county’s Public Safety Answering Point, or PSAP, where the call is assessed and sent to the right response.

The pressure on that system sits inside the broader scale of the county police department itself. The Prince George’s County Police Department is the fourth-largest full-service law enforcement agency in Maryland, with more than 1,500 officers and 300 civilians serving nearly 900,000 residents and business owners. Chief George Nader has led the department since June 18, 2025, and the communications center helps hold together the county’s emergency response across that population and geography.

County officials also point to the infrastructure behind the operation. Public Safety Communications moved into its current state-of-the-art 9-1-1 communications center on May 3, 2011, and Patricia Anderson has served as the PSAP director since 2001, when the county unified dispatch and 9-1-1 functions. The county’s spotlight came as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week was observed during the second week of April, a recognition that began in 1981 and was nationally recognized in 1994 after President William J. Clinton signed Proclamation 6667.