The Los Angeles Sheriff’s dispatch system is down after a computer crash on New Year’s Day

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s computer dispatch system is still down after it crashed on New Year’s Day. Authorities are not sure what caused the outage, nor have they said when their systems will be back up and running.

“This is our own little Y2K,” Deputy Sheriff told the LA Times. The crash happened just hours before midnight Tuesday, causing problems with the department’s ability to handle calls related to New Year’s celebrations in the county. LASO said the crash appears to have occurred as a result of the system “not allowing staff to log in with the new year, rendering the CAD inoperable”.

The anonymous deputy quoted by the Times also provided more details about the problems the department had as a result of the crash: “Now callers have to write down all the information about every call and then the dispatcher has to read all the details and the patrol team has to write everything down they said. “They don’t have the ability to control people or plates. They can’t pull the report numbers to give to people, so they have to call dispatch.”

Computer-aided dispatch (or CAD) systems are the digital communication networks that cops use to send 911 calls and respond to emergencies. When these systems fail (sometimes due to a network error and sometimes due to cyber attacks), it forces the police to handle policing in the same ways they did in the 1990s. Police reports are filled out with pencil and paper, and 911 calls are made with radios. LA County and the City of Los Angeles have been the target of multiple cyberattacks, including a debilitating one ransomware attack that hit the county’s Supreme Court last summer.

It is not clear when the system will come back online. “The department is working closely with our Los Angeles County partners in the Department of Internal Services to find both temporary and long-term solutions to resolve this technical issue,” LASD said in a statement. “Since taking office, the sheriff has emphasized the urgent need to improve and upgrade our internal systems. In mid-2023 department has issued a formal request for proposals to acquire a new modernized, centralized CAD system that will greatly enhance our capabilities,” the statement continued.

Gizmodo has reached out to LASD for more information and will update this story when we hear back.