Rocking In Rockland

It’s clear from speaking with Lee Sentell that he loves this field. Sentell is a Radio Communications Specialist and Director of Operations for Rockland County Sheriff’s Office, Communications Division (New York, USA), and prior to coming to emergency dispatch, he was an EMS responder in New York City and the surrounding area. However, the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center were a big factor in changing his mind.

He started with a small local police department in 2002 to see what it was like to work on the other end of the line. After two years there, the sheriff from Rockland County came knocking and Sentell’s been with them ever since.

Although Sentell described the police department he previously worked at as small, Rockland County Sheriff’s Office isn’t much bigger. The agency dispatches for the Rockland County Fire Service (26 volunteer fire departments), Rockland EMS (five agencies), and the state police and state park police, serving an area of about 200 square miles, making it the smallest county by area outside of New York City itself. One-third of it is covered by several state parks like Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain State Park, and Nyack Beach State Park. It became a popular destination in the 1950s when famous urban planner Robert Moses built the Palisades Interstate Parkway that took New Yorkers from the George Washington Bridge to more scenic surroundings in an hour or so.

“During the summer, the parks will fill to capacity and have to turn people away,” Sentell said.

Sneden’s Landing in the hamlet of Palisades is often called “Hollywood on the Hudson” due to its reputation of being a home to artists and celebrities for well over one hundred years. Actors, filmmakers, and novelists such as Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, and Carson McCullers enjoyed the spot due to its relative seclusion with easy, quick access to the city. Current celebrities who reportedly live in Sneden’s Landing include Tina Fey, Scarlett Johansson, and Al Pacino.¹

One noted figure who was born in Rockland County is artist Edward Hopper, famous for his painting "Nighthawks” and other pieces of American realism in the middle of the twentieth century. Hopper was born in Nyack in 1882 and lived there until he moved to Manhattan in 1910. The home is now an art center that “features one gallery dedicated to Hopper’s life and work and other galleries for changing exhibits. The center also offers workshops, lectures, jazz concerts, figure drawing, and other classes.”²

Not including the vacationers who mostly come during the summer, Rockland County Sheriff’s Office serves a population of roughly 350,000 people, and a fair amount of those people drive or ride into the city during the day for work. There aren’t any cities within Rockland County; it’s made up of towns, hamlets, and villages. Its biggest town is Ramapo, which is home to just under 150,000 people.

The Rockland County Sheriff's Office crew celebrates implementing the Police Priority Dispatch System (PPDS) in March 2025.

Rockland County has a very diverse population. In addition to English, more than 12 languages are spoken locally. The small county also boasts the largest Jewish population per capita of any U.S. county, with roughly 31% of residents being Jewish.³

Reflecting the small population they serve, the Communications Division itself is fairly small but robust. There are 41 employees on the payroll, five of which are admin, five of which are first-level supervisors, and the remaining 31 are entry-level Emergency Dispatchers. They work eight-hour tours, and their busiest tour is from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which is staffed by five operators and a supervisor at minimum. Most tours will also have an admin on duty to help out when needed.

“Everybody who works here started in one chair,” Sentell said. “We focus on developing and promoting from within. We believe that dispatching functions should always be fulfilled by dedicated telecommunicators, not field responders or outside staff. When there are decisions to be made, we look at them from a dispatch level. In everything we do, we work hard to balance best practices in public safety telecommunications versus the street-level needs of the field responders.”

The Rockland County Sheriff’s Office Communications Division facilities are spacious and modern and include a backup facility in the actual Rockland County Sheriff’s Office some five miles west. The facility is equipped with a full kitchen, locker room, and a quiet room for decompressing after stressful calls.
While they are the main Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for the county, the Emergency Dispatchers at Rockland County only answer calls from cellular phones—nothing from landlines.

When asked why Emergency Dispatchers like working for Rockland County, Sentell’s answer might be surprising to some—he says it’s because the process is extremely structured.

“We spend a lot of our time and resources on supporting our staff with training and detailed procedures,” he said. “We like everything to be systematized and take the onus off the dispatcher from having to make hard decisions as much as possible because those hard decisions have already been made.”

Part of that structure includes the Medical Priority Dispatch System^™ (MPDS^®), Fire Priority Dispatch System^™ (FPDS^®), and Police Priority Dispatch System^™ (PPDS^®), which they have been using since March 2025.

“So far, the implementation has been a hit,” Sentell said. “It’s great to have the data and analytics for call processing time right in front of us.”

That data shows that the agency sees seasonal fluctuations in high-stress police or fire calls, but residents and visitors in the area most often call for EMS help. Sentell is particularly passionate about recognizing the amazing work done in those cases by Rockland County Emergency Dispatchers.

“We recognize a higher success rate with life saves than the surrounding areas,” he said. “We typically get a few calls each quarter where an Emergency Dispatcher helped rescue someone by providing choking instructions, guiding a caller through delivering a baby, or providing instructions to administer CPR.”

Those miraculous calls are recognized internally in addition to being promoted on their Facebook page (facebook.com/44Control). The celebratory posts are received with delight and enthusiasm by the page’s 4,600 followers. The Emergency Dispatchers are similarly delighted by having their work recognized while also putting a face to a profession that is less recognizable than their EMS, firefighter, and police officer counterparts. “It’s a big deal for us,” Sentell said. “Our dispatchers are always propping each other up, but it’s important to our agency that dispatchers have that external recognition, too.”

Sources
1. Cary, B. “Al Pacino, Orson Welles, Angelina Jolie. The Rich and Famous Seek a Haven in This Enclave Outside NYC.” Mansion Global. 2024; Oct. 5. mansionglobal.com/articles/al-pacino-orson-welles-angelina-jolie-the-rich-and-famous-seek-a-haven-in-this-enclave-outside-nyc-978dffee (accessed Feb. 5, 2026).
2. “History.” Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center. edwardhopperhouse.org/history.html (accessed Feb. 5, 2026).
3. “Overview.” New York State. ny.gov/counties/rockland (accessed Feb. 5, 2026).