Police, firefighters, and emt's would still need to learn the extremely complex computer system and the policies and procedures of 5 different police departments..it's much more technical than just bringing those folks off the street to do this job..I retired from boec after 30 years about 7 years ago...nice thought but completely impractical and those folks may not be suited to listening to screaming people on hold most all day long..call after call..and that's not even addressing the shortage of dispatchers only caretakers.