On the Way! (1969)

2015.007.060
detroithistoric...
Color 16mm film containing "On The Way!," a production of the City of Detroit's Department Report and Information Committee for the Detroit Police Department, about Detroit's emergency number 224-1212, and the emergency response system behind it. The film is narrated by Richard Barnes.
After a brief introductory sequence showing two officers on patrol in a police car, a woman calls the emergency line to report a prowler outside her window. The call arrives at the impact center, where operators take the call. If the call warrants a police response, the operator then uses an electrowriter to contact a dispatcher in the dispatch center. The narrator provides a series of statistics about the dispatch center while the camera pans around the center's dispatch consoles.
The dispatch center then contracts officers either by the cars' mobile radios, or by portable transmitter/receiver units called P.R.E.P. radios worn by individual officers. An officer on foot, an officer on a scooter, and a mounted policeman are shown with the P.R.E.P. radios. The film explains that the radios place the officers in contact with dispatchers who have access to both local and remote computer banks via terminals.
The film then describes how the officers at the dispatch center dispatch cars using their large illuminated maps, and status racks.
The film ends with the officers arriving at the home of the caller from the opening, where they arrest a man in her backyard.
The film is on a grey plastic reel housed inside of a blue plastic container. A blank mailing label is internet into the lad, and "On the Way" is handwritten on the label's frame.