Los Angeles County Sheriff’s computer dispatch system remains down since New Year’s Eve

LOS ANGELES — The archaic computer system for the nation’s largest sheriff’s department remained out of service Thursday after a crash on New Year’s Eve, forcing officers to handle all calls by radio, authorities said.

Officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department first heard about the problem Tuesday around 8 p.m., when deputies at several sheriff’s stations were unable to log into the mobile computers in their patrol cars, the department said in a statement.

The department said its computer-aided dispatch program – known as the CAD – “did not allow staff to log in with the new year, rendering the CAD unusable.”

“As a result, the ministry is currently working on its own initiative while the problem is addressed. Calls for service continue to be responded to and manually tracked at the station level,” the statement said.

Service remains uninterrupted and radio communications and 911 lines are fully operational, officials said.

It was not yet clear on Thursday what the cause of the problem was and how long it will take to solve the problem. Department officials did not immediately respond to an email asking whether there was any indication the outage was the result of a malicious attack.

The department has faced challenges with outdated technology for years. Since taking office in December 2022, Sheriff Robert Luna has “emphasized the urgent need to improve and upgrade our internal systems.” In mid-2023, the department formally submitted RFQs for the purchase of a new, centralized CAD system. This week’s statements did not say where modernization efforts stand.

On Wednesday, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva posted on the social media site The letter stated that the existing system was so old that it could no longer meet data collection requirements.