Posted: Tuesday, January 2, 2007 12:00 am
Elizabeth “Liz" Leopold, 63, went to work as a dispatcher for Lebanon police in 1979, after six months in a federally-funded training position at the municipal court. She is one of six dispatchers at the Lebanon Police Department. With occasional help from the communications supervisor and records clerk, they work the radios 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Leopold officially retired in June but has worked back since. She expects to continue for another six months to a year.
“It's a wonderful opportunity and benefits both the city and myself," she said of working back. “The cost is much less."
The city retains a trained employee at a lower cost since it but doesn't have to pay retirement and most other benefits. It does pay her insurance benefit as it does for other employees.
Leopold enjoys her job, but said after 27 years, she's earned her retirement and is not doing any less of a job than she ever has.
Leopold's memories at LPD include a man who shot his friend.
It happened in the early to mid 1980s when two officers responded to an alarm at Redbeard's.
“They pulled up and I heard one of them say: 'There's somebody inside.' Then it was quiet. Then I hear: 'Look out. He's got a gun.' I'm chewing my nails. Then the phone rings and this man says: 'I shot him in the head." I'm thinking of this alarm and ask: 'Who did you shoot in the head?' He said: 'My buddy.' I asked if he needed an ambulance. He said: 'No. He's deader than a doornail.' I told him: 'Put the gun down and walk out the front door and keep your hands on your head.' And he did."
She determined the shooting occurred in the county and called the sheriff's office. The LPD officers caught their burglar and then helped deputies with the guy who shot his buddy.
Another time, in the later 1980s, a hysterical woman called because her husband had shot her hand.
“They had had a domestic argument and she had picked up the phone to call the police and he shot her in the hand to keep her from calling. She ran to the bedroom phone and used that phone and called us anyway. I got her to put him on the phone and again I got him to go outside with his hands on his head."
“It's really amazing how people will take orders like that," Leopold said. “Ultimately they know they're wrong."