[Scan-DC] Anniston police drop codes during dispatch calls

[Alan Henney]

The Associated Press State & Local Wire

May 30, 2011 Monday 5:06 PM GMT 

Anniston police drop codes during dispatch calls

BYLINE: By CAMERON STEELE, The Anniston Star

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL

LENGTH: 851 words

DATELINE: ANNISTON Ala.

It's been five years since the federal government suggested police agencies across the country retire their "10-4s" and code speak for plain English during dispatch calls.

But only one local agency has followed that recommendation and made the switch from the so-called "10-codes" to asking officers who call in incident reports to use regular, everyday English words.

For the past year, Anniston police have reported robberies, responded to assault scenes and called in for back-up using this plain-speech protocol. And officials with the department say they'll continue to stick with plain old English in the future, too. 

"It just makes things simpler," Anniston police Chief Layton McGrady said. "And in stressful situations, plain talk was what you were going to fall back on anyway."

Allen George, an Anniston lieutenant, spent much of his time during the week following the April tornadoes assisting other public safety agencies in search-and-rescue efforts.

"It's necessary. Like with the tornado, when you start dealing with other agencies from outside the area, you start using 10-codes that are different, and plain speak becomes necessary as far as intercommunication," George said.

Different agencies use different codes. For example, Oxford police use "10-68" when responding to a report of gun-shots fired, but state troopers use that number to mean "present a written report," Oxford Sgt. L.G. Owens said.

The necessity of plain speech became apparent nationally first after Sept. 11 and then later after Hurricane Katrina, when police departments from across the states of New York and Louisiana responded to the tragedies and struggled to communicate effectively, largely because of mismatched 10-codes, a 2006 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security documents.

As a result, the department began to "strongly encourage" plain speech for internal operations, although it has not made the communication protocol a requirement.

The 2006 report noted the switch from 10-codes to plain speak would be a long-term effort.

"It is probably not possible to persuade everyone to change ingrained habits overnight," the report states.

Aside from Anniston police, most local agencies have yet to be persuaded to give up their coded police talk. Oxford, Jacksonville and Weaver police have all hung on to their 10-codes. So have Alabama State Troopers. The protocol used at the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office was unclear, because attempts to reach officials there Tuesday were un-successful.

Those agencies who still communicate over their radios with strings of "10-88s," "10-68s," and 10-93s" use the codes for their brevity, their departmental familiarity and public unfamiliarity, officials said.

"With codes, you get your message out quicker, they're brief, and it ties up less air traffic," Owens said. "We're comfortable with the way our radio operations work."

And the Jacksonville Police Department's assistant chief said he doesn't think Anniston's move to plain speech has set any sort of precedent for other local agencies to do the same.

"If you'll listen to Anniston, Anniston will say, `659, traffic stop, blue Honda, tag number,' and it rattles on and on and on," Bill Wineman, the Jacksonville assistant chief said. "And we'll say, `659. 10-39.' It means exactly the same thing, and it's very quick."

Codes began in the late 1920s and became popular in the 1970s as ways for officers to communicate each other using radio channels that were scarce and numerical signals that wouldn't alarm members of the community who were listening to dispatch calls on scanners, officials said.

But Calhoun County's encrypted 800-megahertz digital radio system has largely done away with residents' ability to listen in, and Anniston police officials say plain speech is every bit as brief as the old codes.

"The thing about it is that we found out we were using the 10-code and then explaining in English," McGrady said. "Plain talk actually shortens the radio time up; you would think that you could spit out a few 10-codes, but by the time you say the code, give a car description, and so on, well, you might as well just say: `Check a warrant .'"

Owens said he felt there were advantages and disadvantages to both the coded and plain speech systems.

The clear advantage that all police agree plain speech has is that it fosters better communication between various agencies during large-scale emergencies.

"If you got several different agencies around, like in a federal disaster, it's handy," Alabama Trooper Chad Joiner said.

But no local agencies plan to give up their codes any time soon.

"Plain talk just takes too long to get out," Weaver police Sgt. Tim Miller said.

"No, we'll never switch over to full plain talk," Wineman agreed.

While some Anniston police veterans like George aren't fully used to calling out words like "robbery" or "murder" over the radios, they support the departmental decision to abandon the use of codes.

"It's the way everybody else in the country is going - what the federal government suggests," George said.

Information from: The Anniston Star, http://www.annistonstar.com