Over 50 law enforcement and other emergency agencies came to Stuart last week to assist with an officer-involved shooting, but the first people who responded to those injured weren’t made visible by flashing lights or sirens.

Guthrie County Dispatchers Amy Cleveland and Paula Martinson were working on October 17th when they received the call that officers had been shot at about 10:43 p.m. The two of them worked to get responding agencies to the scene to transport the officers to Des Moines hospitals and to secure the area, in which it took about 90 minutes for the alleged shooter, 52-year-old Randall Comly, to surrender. Martinson said the atmosphere in the dispatch area was pure panic, “You don’t know what’s going on, you know that there’s two officers down. We didn’t know what the extent of the injuries were, we didn’t know which officers it was at the time and your only thought is ‘Get them out.’”

Martinson and Cleveland have both worked for the Sheriff’s Office for seven years, and they say their maternal instincts kick in when their deputies are sent out to a call. Cleveland says they received offers from other counties to send an extra dispatcher to assist that night, but she compared the experience to that of a mother caring for a sick child, “Nobody else is going to do it, and so you just sit back in the chair and keep going. And if you gotta turn around and cry, you turn around and cry, and then you turn back around and answer them on the radio.”

The Sheriff’s Office and other local agencies took part in a debriefing with the Iowa Department of Public Safety Wednesday, which Cleveland and Martinson said involved a lot of laughs, tears, and hugs. It’s an anxious time for them to perform their duties, but they’re grateful for the cards and messages of support. They hope for them and the other Sheriff’s personnel to move forward, one page at a time.