Juking the Stats

"Don't worry", Commissioner Murtaugh told me when I met with him in April. He said that TEAS recognizes that the response times aren't where they would like them to be, but that they'd already made plans to start crewing an additional unit starting May 1.

Since none of the things he's said have ever proven to be true, I decided to request the unit activity logs from the county dispatch. I requested the logs of all TEAS units from 1/1 through 5/31 of 2026 to be able to compare May to prior months. Unfortunately, it took 2 months for the Sheriff's Department to provide them.

In my previous job, I spent about 12 years analyzing data that was structured similarly to this, so it was not difficult to put an appropriate query together to put it into a format that could be analyzed for concurrency.

Final Result

Murtaugh lied, or TEAS lied to him. If you look at the details of each day, the only thing that is clear is that the supposed "additional unit" too closely follows the status of the Director's EMS vehicle when the activity doesn't correspond to another unit disappearing abnormally. When the Director's EMS vehicle disappears, the extra unit disappears along with it. When the Director's EMS unit doesn't show up on days it normally would, the extra unit doesn't materialize either. Seems to be intentional effort to make it look like there are more units than there really are.

Keep reading if you want a summary of the analysis. Keep reading after that if you want the whole analysis.

Summary of Analysis

All said and done, I think the takeaways are:

1. MED1, MED2, MED3, MED4, MED5 (And same numbered AMB unit): I think these are all likely real crews and the concurrency is real. These are the same units that have been consistently crewed the entire rest of the year.

2. MED7/AMB7: It looks like there were a couple of days in there where one of the other regular units used MED7 to fill in when they had issues (Mostly MED3, it looks like), but every other instance of where MED7 appeared to be on duty seems to coincide too well with the TEAS director's EMS vehicle. MED7 appeared when they were on shift, disappeared when they weren't. Most of the time following the exact same pattern.

   • The couple of seemingly legit instances are the ones where EMS3 disappears and 7 appears, and the few days where MED3/AMB3 disappears and this unit appears as part of a normal shift. Neither one of which is an additional unit being staffed.

   • When you combine that with the fact that MED7/AMB7 really didn't get any regular use until after Murtaugh started telling me they were going to start staffing another ambulance but weeks before he said it would start happening, I think 90% of this unit's appearances in the logs were fictitious to provide them cover when I requested these logs.

3. MED6/AMB6: It's clear that there is a crew here that works daytime, but there seems to be long stretches where either the ALS crew isn't diligent at updating its status or parts of the logs are simply fictitious. AMB6 had regular shifts prior to me making public comment about response times, so at least some of its logs are real. Murtaugh said they were going to be running an additional unit during the day, but a lot of this activity that would indicate an additional unit being staffed for MED6 is night shift. AMB6 was already running during the day.

   • Several of the MED6 shifts look like they coincide with another unit disappearing from duty, and given all the factors, seems like these are instances where the crew of a unit had issues and decided to use 6 temporarily.

   • Given that former TEAS employees say it's more than possible for units to forget to take themselves off duty when they go off shift, I think the pattern looks more closely aligned with crews that aren't appropriately keeping their status updated, rather than there being an additional crew here.

   • Given that former TEAS employees confirm that it's not possible for both MED6 and AMB6 to be on duty at the same time, this has to be administrative errors and not additional units being staffed.
     

This would seem to indicate that there are routinely 4 ALS units and 1-2 BLS units during the daytime hours, and then around 2 ALS & 2 BLS units during the nights. Which would put it firmly with the same total number of units that it's been running for the last 13 years, even though the population has boomed. There has definitely not been any increase in staffing as of May 1, as Murtaugh said.

Analysis

Here's the data: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/justin.kendall2389/viz/TEAS_2026/Main#1

If you look at the "ActiveUnits_15m" tab, you'll see a timeline of each unit. Most of the units have pretty regular, repeated usage in the months leading up to April. Shifts are usually 12 hours, but occasionally crews will stay over and work an extra couple of hours. Follow along for the ride!

You can see a trend that typically when MED4 goes off duty, AMB4 goes on duty. Same thing with AMB6 and MED6, AMB3 and MED3, AMB2 and MED2, AMB1 and MED1. When one goes off duty, generally the other comes on duty. It looks like this does not hold true for AMB5/MED5. When MED5 goes off duty, AMB5 typically does not come on duty. So 5 seems to be a unit that only operates during the daytime.

To make the data clearer, "AMB" is basic life support trained EMTs. The "MED" units are advanced life support trained medics. When you see a unit of a particular number transition from AMB to MED and vice versa, this means one of the crew members changed. If a medic goes off shift and there are now only EMTs staffing the unit, the unit transitions from MED to AMB.

One additional note, the importance of which will become clear as you read: The EMS1 unit is driven by Darrell Clase (TEAS Director). EMS3 is a unit that is staffed by EMTs.

We start off with some innocuous activity:

• April 8:

  • You see MED6 get put on duty for an entire 30 minutes out of nowhere. Most likely testing equipment.

• April 10:

  • You see MED6 on duty for another hour and a half out of nowhere. Most likely testing equipment.

• April 13:

  • You see MED6 on duty for 15 minutes, which coincides with AMB6 going off duty for 15 minutes. Seems most likely a status error.

• April 14:

  • You see MED4 go off duty at 4/14, ~4:15pm. If you look at when it went on duty, that was ~6:45am on 4/13. That's a total of 33.5 hours (Everything is rounded to the nearest 15-minute interval). You then see AMB4 go on duty for about 3 hours. If shifts are 12 hours, then that 3 hours of AMB4 being on duty would round out the shift pretty squarely for unit 4. Likely real activity, but not an "extra" unit.

This is the point at which we start seeing some strange things:

• April 14:

  • MED7 does a shift for the first time, of 12 hours. It comes on duty around 6:15am and MED5, which normally comes on shift at this time, doesn't go on shift until ~8:30, so looks like we have an extra unit for the first time during the day

    • EMS1 is normally on duty on this day of the week and this time of day, but has gone off duty about an hour after MED7 coming on duty and goes off duty around the time when EMS1 would typically go off duty. Is MED7 really Director Clase? (This sort of thing will continue, so keep reading!)

• April 15:

  • AMB6 and MED6 are for the first time active at the same time. MED6 just stays on duty for days, until April 20.

    • Two units of the same number are never legitimately active at the same time, so the activity for 6 here is just one single unit and not two

    • MED2 disappears for quite a bit of time on 4/15 and 4/16 while unit 6 turns from AMB6 to MED6. Seems likely that there was an issue with unit 2, and the medic got reassigned to unit 6 for a while. Maybe they then forgot to mark themselves back off duty that day, and so MED6 stayed showing as on duty until eventually they caught it on the 20th.

• April 17:

  • All of a sudden all the normal units are there, plus AMB6/MED6 are active at the same time, and AMB7/MED7 are as well

    • All of the other crews seem the same. If only 1 crew was being added, and not until May 1, how do we have 2 extra units during most of the day all of a sudden? Are these crews actually there, or did someone just leave the unit as active? Are they testing equipment for the day?

    • Notice that EMS1, EMS2 and EMS3 are also marked as on duty continuously (Only EMS3 seems to be routinely on duty for days and days at a time), and the Unit 7 (AMB7/MED7) shift falls within that (This trend will continue more clearly later on! Keep reading!)

    • Regardless of all of this, only one unit out of AMB/MED with the same number can ever be legitimately on duty at a time. They have to be testing equipment or having some failure of some sort, as having all of these units active at the same time is not possible.

• April 19:

  • MED7 active for about half of a shift, AMB7 active for the other half of the shift

    • MED7 just so happens to have gone on duty within 15 seconds of EMS3 going off duty, then EMS3 comes back on duty within 15 seconds of MED7 going off duty later in the day

    • AMB7 just so happens to have gone on duty within 15 seconds of MED7 going off duty

    • Feels far too coordinated to be independent actors. Seems like MED7 is really the crew staffing EMS3.

      • After posing this question to former employees of TEAS, I'm told the most likely scenario is they moved the EMS3 crew over to 7 so they could transport that day and have better coverage, but not likely to be an additional unit.

• April 20:

  • AMB6 goes on duty for 1.5 hours, coinciding with MED6 going off duty, finishing off a shift. Given that AMB6 and MED6 being active at the same time is never possible, definitely one concurrent crew here, not an additional one.

    • See April 15 - Could just be they forgot to turn MED6 to off duty days ago and never caught it.

This trend for AMB6/MED6 continues until 4/24, going back and forth and sometimes active at the same time. Definitely is a crewed unit here, but this unit was definitely active already before April.

• April 24- April 26:

  • Instead of MED6 being marked as on duty for the entirety of the day, MED6 and AMB6 go back to switching off with one another, consistent with just one concurrent unit here.

    • Where'd the additional crew go if MED7 was real? Were they ever there in the first place? The only way for there to really be an extra crew active is if unit 6 and unit 7 is consistently on duty during the day.

• April 27:

  • Instead of MED6 being marked as on duty all day, now we see MED7 get a shift during the day.

    • Notice how this coincides very closely with EMS1 going on duty. You'll start seeing this exact subset of an EMS unit's shift ongoing from here. Driven by Director Clase, according to logs.

• April 28 - April 29:

  • Where did MED7 (the supposed extra unit) go?

• April 30:

  • MED7 mysteriously appears for 1.5 hours while all the other units are on duty. Testing? Or juking the stats?

    • Just so happens this happens at the tail end of EMS1's shift

• May 5:

  • MED7 reappears for a shift!

    • Does this new unit only do a shift once a week?

    • Oh wait, this shift coincides with EMS1's shift, just like on April 27. Driven by Director Clase according to logs.

• May 6:

  • AMB6 starts getting left on duty all the time and makes it look like there's an additional unit while MED6 and MED7 are also on duty.

    • Given AMB6 and MED6 can never be legitimately active at the same time, likely to be that people aren't updating their status appropriately.

  • MED7's shift conveniently overlaps with EMS2's shift, just like it did with EMS1 on May 5 and April 27. No EMS1 showing today. EMS2 only in the last couple days started showing any activity, and overlaps quite a lot with EMS1 when it does show up. No name on the logs for who was on EMS2 this day. Is this really Director Clase and/or some sort of testing or equipment work being done between EMS1 and EMS2? Stop times seem to be on top of one another when they do show up. Is this really an additional EMS unit? Even if it is, it's not an ambulance, which is what Murtaugh said they were staffing starting May 1.

• May 8 - May 11:

  • No more MED6 and MED7

    • EMS1 and EMS2 missing for a good portion of this time. Coincidence that the extra activity for MED6 and MED7 are gone too?

• May 12:

  • MED7 does a shift, MED6 doesn't reappear

    • MED7's shift conveniently overlaps with EMS1 and EMS2's shifts, just like it did previously.

• May 13:

  • AMB3 and MED3 active at same time all of a sudden. Since it's not possible for both to be active at the same time, this is one concurrent unit.

  • Back to unit 6 being split between AMB6 and MED6, while MED7 does a shift.

    • MED7 just happens to come on duty about 10 seconds after EMS2 goes off duty, and EMS1 is still on duty during this time. Is this really Director Clase?

  • Still doesn't seem to be an extra ambulance unit here.

• May 15:

  • MED7 does a shift.

    • Just so happens to fit exactly the same way into EMS1's shift, as it has in previous instances.

• May 16:

  • MED7 does a shift, but AMB3/MED3 are noticeably absent during this shift. There has been no other similar gap in AMB3/MED3's coverage. Is this really the AMB3/MED3 crew? Or was AMB3/MED3 the fired crew?

  • AMB6/MED6 stop swapping during shifts and MED6 basically disappears

    • I guess there really isn't but the one crew here for AMB6/MED6

  • EMS1 and EMS2 are also gone during this time. Coincidence that additional activity for MED6 and MED7 units disappear?

• May 17:

  • AMB3/MED3 still gone for most of the day. Both units mysteriously return for a couple of hours late in the evening? MED3 logged in on a different terminal than normal- Probably not really there taking calls

  • AMB6/MED6 also gone

• May 18:

  • AMB3/MED3 back in action?

  • AMB6 appears, but no switchoff to MED6. Stays until the following evening. Maybe real? Given AMB6 doesn't normally stay on overnight, possibly left their status overnight?

  • MED7 appears for 45 minutes? That's not a shift.

    • Likely part of AMB3/MED3's shift and not an extra crew

• May 20:

  • MED7 appears for a shift. Also conveniently fits the same pattern as previous days, nicely inside EMS1's shift, driven by Director Clase.

• May 21:

  • AMB3/MED3 gone again for a portion of the day and MED7 shows up for a shift during 3's absence, just like May 16

    • MED 7 shift also conveniently fits the same pattern as previous days, nicely inside EMS1's shift, driven by Director Clase.

    • Seems like the suddenly missing unit 3 might indeed be the crew that got fired.

• May 23:

  • AMB3/MED3 gone again for a portion of the day and MED7 shows up for a shift during 3's absence, just like May 16

    • Still not an additional unit, regardless, since this is likely to be Unit 3's crew using MED7 for some portion of the day.

    • EMS1 and EMS2 not present today. Still fits the patterns given that MED7 appears to be getting crewed by MED3's crew.

• May 24 - May 26:

  • Unit trends continue. Now that AMB3/MED3 are back, EMS1 and EMS2 noticeably absent. MED7 missing also. Coincidence?

• May 27 and 28:

  • MED7 shows up again for another shift each day. Just so happens to fit right inside EMS1's shifts just like previous patterns.

• May 29:

  • AMB3 & MED3 activity for both at the same time cannot possibly be legitimate, so this is really 1 unit. No additional units here. Even if the extra activity overnight is real and not just inattention at changing status, this is not an extra unit during the daytime, as was claimed by Murtaugh.

• May 30:

  • AMB6 presence is clearly unit 6 doing a staffing change that transitions them from MED6. Still no additional units here.