[Scan-DC] Radio silence in the city New program causing miscommunication

[Alan Henney]

Odessa American (Texas)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency

August 30, 2018 Thursday

Radio silence in the city New program causing miscommunication

BYLINE: Paul Wedding, Odessa American, Texas

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 1139 words

Aug. 30--The City of Odessa has switched over to a new radio system for its
employees, leaving other local governing entities in the dark in the
meantime.

Following 9/11, the city of Odessa purchased a switch with Homeland
Security grant funds that linked the radios of their city employees to
other local entities. Now, Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke said that switch
is dying. At the risk of leaving the entire region radio silent, the city
bought a new program.

This new switch came at a cost of almost $3 million to the city, Gerke
said, and has an added annual maintenance cost of $477,000. Gerke said the
city had gone to the Permian Basin region, a 17-county area which uses the
radio system housed by the city of Odessa, and told them they would be
switching to a new system and asked them to help pay the maintenance fee.
Many of the entities said no, opting to stay with the old switch.

Currently, only the city is on the system, and Gerke and Mayor David Turner
said the University of Texas of the Permian Basin is in the process of
being added to the new system as well. But many local officials from other
entities think this gap in communication presented by the two systems could
present a communication risk when Odessa police officers can't communicate
with Ector County deputies or state troopers.

"I'm very pissed at the city," Ector County Precinct 3 Commissioner Dale
Childers said.

Childers said that, while the switch to the new system has been in
discussion for several years, the county was not notified the city would be
switching over to the new program until four days prior to the switch.

"Did we do a good enough job before the switch to tell them?" Gerke said.
"Probably not. We could have done a better job."

An option was presented by the U.S. Marshals' Service, Childers said, to
provide a? patch that would connect the city's switch to the old radio
program, allowing the city to interact with other entities. But Childers
said he heard the city declined the patch because the city wants the other
entities to help pay the maintenance fee.

"This is why I'm so furious, because they are putting money before public
and first responder safety," Childers said.

Turner said that for the last 10 years, the city has paid $100,000 annually
on maintenance and updates to the old system, while no other entities paid
anything.

"I'm sorry he's upset, but we have to do what's best for the taxpayers,"
Turner said.

Turner added that the proposed patch Childers was talking about was a piece
of equipment to be used in crisis management and was "not the way to do it."

Childers said the county and the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission
may be switching to the Greater Austin Travis County Regional Radio System,
maintained by the City of Austin. Documents from PBRPC state the advantages
to GATRRS are that it allows for lower, long-term sustainability and
maintenance costs, no connection fees, and participation in the state
channel plan, which affords greater interagency interoperability.

"We've gotta get off that ARC 4000, because it's gonna crash," Childers
said, referring to the radio program still being used by the region outside
of Odessa.

Ector County Medical Examiner Chuck Moad helped work on the prior radio
switch used by the city, and said the new switch presents a hazard to both
officers and citizens.

"If an officer is needing help and calling for help on the city radio
system and someone in one of the other agencies is a block away, unable to
hear that, he's going to keep driving by," Moad said. "If we're all able to
talk to each other and listen to each other, we're able to respond far more
quickly and hopefully help each other and make people more safe."

Moad said the older system allowed anybody in the region to switch between
channels of various agencies, and would do so often to hear their
communication in case they needed help.

"It's just very dangerous to make this switch without having first had more
involvement in trying to insure the other agencies are able to make that
switch as well," Moad said. "We can't talk to each other and we can't hear
each other, and that to me is a prescription for disaster."

Officer safety was exactly what the city had in mind when they decided to
make the new radio system encrypted, Gerke and Turner said, meaning that
other entities or any residents with a police scanner can't hear the
conversations between dispatch and first responders.

"There are apps, there are all types of things where people listen in and
can set up for ambush for officers," Gerke said. "If someone has warrants,
they hear us coming."

Gerke couldn't name any specific incidents where the previously unencrypted
radio program harmed officer safety, but said he has heard of many
instances in Odessa where wanted individuals have heard officers coming for
them over dispatch and leaving before police arrive.

As far as not being able to communicate with another entity, such as the
Ector County Sheriff's Office, Gerke gave an example of a shootout, where
an officer wouldn't be able to switch channels to ask help from deputies
anyway. They would have to shout for help over the main channel.
Afterwards, OPD dispatch would get in touch with ECSO dispatch for help.

"That takes about 30 seconds," Gerke said. "That's how the majority of
communication has always happened, and that hasn't really changed."

Several residents who listen to the police scanners regularly are concerned
about the city's encrypted radio signal, including the Facebook group
Odessa/Midland Police Scanners, which has 3,188 members.

The group's founder, Gabriel Rodriguez of Odessa, said group members have
been able to post about a suspicious person or vehicle in an area many
times due to listening to the scanner.

"Times such as this can help the community keep an eye on each other, as
well as alert law enforcement with any updates," Rodriguez said.

Gerke was concerned about information posted by residents who listen to the
scanner.

"What I would warn about that is how many times have you seen things on
Facebook that were inaccurate?" Gerke said. "A lot. A lot of times the
first information that you hear on the radio is not accurate."

Childers said the county is still waiting to hear back on what the price
for maintenance would be from the city, as are other entities such as the
Ector County ISD Police Department. ECISD Lt. Jerry Daniels said they still
have dispatch to dispatch communication with the city, but are lacking the
ability to speak officer to officer.

"If there was a major event, it could be an issue," Daniels said. "It does
slow things down during the normal course of the day when we're dealing
with incidents together."