Behind a steel-bar security fence in a non-descript concrete building off Commerce Circle in Saanich, up two flights of stairs and inside a large open room, Kuzi Mujakachi is starting her 12-hour shift as police dispatcher and 911 operator.
It’s morning on New Year’s Eve and already a map on her computer screen is showing more than a dozen calls have come in and police officers have been sent to various incidents and emergencies.
Dec. 31 is typically one of the busiest days of the year at the E-Comm Communications Centre, which handles police dispatching and 911 calls for 11 RCMP detachments and four municipal forces on the South Island, from Ladysmith to Port Renfrew.
The operators are trained for every sort of emergency — and it runs the gamut from car accidents, injuries and assaults to domestic disputes, robberies and homicides.
“We are often referred to as the first, first-responders,” Mujakachi said. “Every second counts so we are trained thoroughly to navigate every situation and every call, whether it is de-escalating someone on the phone who is screaming to listening into the background noises and seeing what we can determine from this call, the nature of it, just from the audio that we’re hearing.”
It is about being firm and compassionate at the same time, and getting the reason for the call and an address as quickly as possible to send help, she said.
“We are trying to determine whether it’s an emergency or non-emergency,” Mujakachi said. “If it does meet those parameters of urgency then we process that as quickly as possible and get them the necessary help they need, whether that’s police, ambulances or even fire.”
The South Island 911 Police Dispatch Centre has 110 staff who handled about 100,000 police emergency calls and 160,000 non-emergency calls in 2024 alone. Since the $13.1-million facility was built by the Capital Regional District in October 2017 — and local police agencies consolidated their dispatching and emergency calls there — more than 1.4 million calls have come through.
That means call-takers like Mujakachi have to be ready for just about any situation.
”We definitely experience little bits of everything,” said Mujakachi, who has handled up to 60 calls in a single shift.
Some are “nuisance calls” that take time away from real emergencies. E-comm, which provides services across B.C. and handles about two million 911 calls a year across the province, released its annual list of calls that don’t belong on 911.
That list included people looking for a 24/7 pharmacy and callers not happy about their dry cleaning or offended by their neighbour’s cologne.
“I get my fair share on a regular day,” Mujakachi said. “Some are un-intentional 911 calls. Some are being very irritated at your neighbours, their loud pets or their chickens are squawking.”
But the majority of calls are urgent and real.
Mujakachi said multitasking is a big part of the job. Often, 911 operators are calming people while dispatching police or emergency services.
“While I’m speaking with [a caller] and listening to what’s happening in the background and maybe some shouting that’s going on in the background, I’m also typing and communicating with my team around me,” she said.
“I’m communicating with someone to call an ambulance or another service,” she added. “We’re a very well trained so we’re ready for anything that could go any direction.”
The calls can range from panic to a faint whisper, she said. “It could suddenly be a scream in your ear or it could be somebody whispering ‘can you hear me.’ You have to be attentive at all times.”
Mujakachi said domestic abuse calls can often be masked.
“We can’t assume that someone is a nuisance — they may be pretending to be talking to a friend. My job is to determine if that person is really just calling for help and can’t say it.”
She said every day is different.
“The nature of this job is that life is always going on and people have bad days,” she said. “It can be simple and it can be drastic. The lines are always busy.”
A native of Zimbabwe, Mujakachi has been working the phone lines for four years.
“I come from a country where police, fire and ambulance resources are very limited,” she said. “I’ve watched life-changing things happen to a lot of people where our hands are tied. So I told myself from a very young age that I’m going to be part of the help, part of those people that assist in emergency situations.”
She admits the job can be stressful.
“The nature of the job is that way, but we have very efficient ways of managing that stress and I think a lot of it is in the training,” Mujakachi said. “We are prepared mentally.”
She and her colleagues have different ways of handling stressful events. Some just leave the room and let it out vocally, others stand up and walk around or take a break.
“If it’s a hard call, it’s encouraged that to take a moment go and recharge,” Mujakachi said. “If it’s bad enough, you can take the rest of the day to care for yourself mentally.
“It’s really important that people in service are in the right mental space to help other people who are having a very bad day.”
She said counselling is also readily available.
Carly Paice, communications manager for E-Comm 911, said it takes a special person to thrive in the job.
“It takes critical thinking … to be able to pick up on nuances of a call that may not be what it appears,” Paice said. “You have to have technical, multitasking skills, the ability to listen and type at the same time, to process what you’re hearing and decipher it into something that can be put up as a police file to dispatch.
“Not everyone has that,” she said. “You can have the empathy and the compassion, but if you don’t have that technical ability to be really able to listen and distill and type at the same time, then you’re not going to be as successful.”
Paice said the nature of the job can range from routine calls to massive emergencies, as was the case on June 28, 2022, when several police officers were shot and hostages were taken during a bank robbery on Shelbourne Street in Saanich.
From the time the first 911 call came in to the conclusion of the incident that day, the E-Comm team worked together to ensure a co-ordinated multi-agency emergency response, all while responding to the flurry of calls that came in fast and furious from witnesses.
Matthew Spaans, who was the primary dispatcher on shift, won the Telecommunicator of the Year award, recognizing his exceptional service and professionalism.
“The work they did was so instrumental in getting the resources and information to the officers so quickly,” Paice said. “And it was a relatively new dispatcher to the job who received that top award.
“These are pretty amazing people who are taking these calls.”
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