[Scan-DC] 'Upgrades' of local police radio systems fueled by desirefor secrecy

[Doorgunner]

Nailed it here
How does this lead to better policing? It doesn't. It just leads to less 
accountability. Taxpayers footed the bill for something that hasn't been 
good for them.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Alan Henney
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2015 2:22 AM
To: Scan DC
Subject: [Scan-DC] 'Upgrades' of local police radio systems fueled by 
desirefor secrecy


The News Journal (Corbin, Kentucky)

March 18, 2015

'Upgrades' of local police radio systems fueled by desire for secrecy

BYLINE: TRENT KNUCKLES

SECTION: OPINIONS; Pg. A4

LENGTH: 713 words

It wasn't so long ago that with an inexpensive radio scanner, a handful of 
frequencies and a little time, citizens in this area used to easily be able 
to monitor the goings on of all our local first-responders (police, fire, 
EMS, etc.)

Spend a little more for a "digital trunking" scanner and you could hear 
Kentucky State Police too.

It was a very nice way of doing things. People got to know, in real time, 
what was going on in their communities.

Around about 2010, we started to enter what I like to call "The Dark Age."

Flush with money from the federal government to upgrade to digital 
communication systems, police departments, mainly, began the process in 
earnest.

But they did a funny thing.

They made DARN sure that the radio systems they adopted could not be easily 
monitored. There were all kinds of reasons why they picked the systems they 
picked, but the main reason is to make certain that the general public was 
kept in the dark. Period. The less you heard, and knew, the better.

What's worse, is that while police department brass, naturally, are the ones 
that wanted these radio systems, our elected town commissions and councils 
didn't look out for our best interest. They weren't the buffers they should 
have been. They didn't put on the brakes and ask any questions. There was no 
due diligence. They just dove in headfirst and went right along with it. 
They were complicit in doing something that was not in our best interest. 
That is a shame.

Since, that push toward secrecy has taken strange and illogical turns.

The radio systems our local police agencies use are not compatible with 
Kentucky State Police. KSP made the leap from analog radio to digital years 
before smaller city and county police forces. So why not just adopt their 
system and be consistent? Why not get the same thing so that everyone can 
easily communicate with everyone else?

Makes sense, right? The decision to go to a different, proprietary system 
has had stupid results.

Like, for instance, a case in Laurel County recently where officers from the 
Sheriff's Department there and KSP had to swap increasingly agitated 
messages to each other through dispatchers to coordinate the capture of a 
suspect during a chase on I-75. I've got the audio of it here at the office. 
It is sort of ridiculous, really. Common sense tells you technology allowing 
officers to talk directly to one another is much better than a Trooper 
telling a dispatcher at KSP Post 11 to tell as dispatcher at the county 911 
center to tell the Sheriff's Deputy on the road to back off a little bit so 
they can deploy spike strips. It's just crazy.

We should have seen it coming! Some basic questions and even the slightest 
bit of research would have revealed this problem in advance. But none of 
that was done because, I believe, there is some built in aversion to 
question police agencies about things like this. They are given too much 
deference. Or, people just didn't care. It was too technical and confusing 
soehwhatever.

Unfortunately, it's led to a lot of silliness. I've talked to many 
rank-and-file officers who have admitted to what I'm telling you. As long as 
they are dealing with officers in their own agency, things are fine. But 
when fighting crime becomes a multi-agency affairthe new radio systems can 
be a hindrance. Our money has been wasted on a half-baked patchwork of radio 
systems when we should have gotten a larger, more connected network.

What the federal government wanted was police departments that could work 
more cohesively together on similar digital radio systems to better fight 
crime and serve the public.

What's happened instead is the creation of little police fiefdoms walled 
off, digitally, from one another for the most cynical of reasons. 
Internally, they do have better communications. But across the line, 
departments have not been brought together in the way envisioned. Instead, 
they are more fractured and less cohesive than ever. All so you would know 
less about the activities of your local law enforcement agencies.

How is this good for the citizens? How does this lead to better policing? It 
doesn't. It just leads to less accountability. Taxpayers footed the bill for 
something that hasn't been good for them.

We got swindled. We'd have been better off staying analog.
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