Colorado law enforcement report few impacts amid global technology outage

Numerous police departments across the United States have reported that the worldwide technology outage affected their 911 service Friday morning, according to Scripps News .

The Colorado Springs 911 Emergency Communications Center was one of them. The Colorado Springs Fire Department reported the impacts on the social media site X, saying in part:

"It’s important to emphasize CSFD is continuing to respond to all emergencies. 9-1-1 phone lines and department radios are NOT affected and regular patrols remain active in the city. We want to remind community members to still call 9-1-1 for any life-threatening situation or crime in progress. Drivers involved in any serious traffic accidents involving death or serious injuries requiring medical attention, or if alcohol or impairment is suspected, should still call 9-1-1. However, if all drivers are present with a valid driver’s license, vehicle registration, and insurance information and there is no property damage or injury, you can report the accident within 72 hours online."

Callers were also able to reach Denver 911 and the non-emergency line despite the global technology outage, according to the Denver Department of Public Safety.

"Denver 9-1-1 was back to full operations at 6:10 a.m. this morning, and all systems are functioning normally at this time," the Denver Department of Public Safety said.

Aurora police said the department experienced some effects.

"Our CAD dispatch system [computer-aided dispatch] went down about 10:30 p.m. and we had to transition to manual dispatch. CAD was restored about 2 a.m. and we have been operating normally since," Aurora police said Friday morning.

But 911 phone lines were unaffected by the outage, Aurora police told Denver7.

The Boulder County Sheriff's Office said the department also lost access to the CAD system for about two hours overnight. Boulder followed a similar protocol to Aurora and operated dispatch manually.

Boulder also had issues with the system it uses to issue tickets, but didn't expect the problems to be long lasting.

Colorado State Patrol told Denver7 there were some impacts on dispatch, but none on emergency services. Phones were still working and CSP did not any delays in response times.

Similarly, the Denver Police Department said the outage did not impact fundamental safety services, such as the ability for officers to respond to calls. However, DPD sent Denver7 a statement that said in part:

"The primary impact to DPD patrol operations was that officers were unable to use the laptop terminals in patrol vehicles, and those systems have been restored. During that time, reports that are typically created by officers and submitted electronically were being done as paper reports. The Department is working to restore supporting systems that currently remain offline."

On the other hand, the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office told Denver7 there were no impacts as of 5:50 a.m. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the Douglas County Sheriff's Office also said they were also unaware of any issues.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said, the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

U.S./World

Widespread technology outage disruptions felt around the world

The Associated Press 7:00 AM, Jul 19, 2024