SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — Law enforcement in Oakland County are praising a new radio communications system they say will save lives.
On Wednesday, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office alongside the Southfield police and Farmington Hills fire departments held a press conference revealing the new P25 radios.
The radios are a part of a $61 million investment that also included upgrades to 20 dispatch centers too.
Sgt. Lawrence Tomasino has been with the Southfield Police Department for almost a decade. He says working through in different capacities at the department, he got to see the challenges their current radio communications posed.
"A lot of incidents tend to run south of 8 Mile (Road), which is Wayne County, and essentially as soon as we cross that line, our radios would have issues with static and connectivity," Tomasino said. "Even as a detective, we’d be doing follow-ups all over in the tri-county area. Our radios would be useless outside the city. We were better off contacting dispatch saying we’re out at a location by cellphone instead."
See officials discuss the new radio communications system in the video player below:
Tomasino says they also had issues connecting to and communicating with other departments.
It's an issue that multiple agencies throughout Oakland County have been dealing with. Department heads say they previously used a system called OpenSky, where they had to patch different systems together relying on no internet.
The new system allows them to transmit data and communicate with other agencies.
"Over time, it was a true officer safety issue. Officers were consistently losing signal within city limits. They lost signal every time we had to leave the city and we had no way of communicating or listening to radio traffic of surrounding jurisdictions," Lt. Teresa Young with Southfield police said.
While officers are excited about the increased connectivity, the new radios comes with some concerns of transparency. Because the new system is encrypted, members of the public will be unable to listen to police scanner traffic and hear what's going on around them.
"Our last system was encrypted: OpenSky. We believe it’s important to be encrypted because our adversaries are not dumb. They’re utilizing scanners to listen to response. We know that the teams in Mumbai were listening to and watching video coverage of what the police were doing to thwart their deadly efforts. And so if we don’t have the ability to communicate our strategy — let’s say it’s a hostage situation — without them knowing what we’re about to do, that’s going to put lives at risk," Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.
"For the average person that just wants to hear what’s going on, I understand that interest, but the dangers associated with us not being able to have our strategy, our response and our capability private in the moment when it’s happening can cause lives to be lost."
The departments have been using the system since January. They say this new technology will be pivotal when they help the city of Detroit cover the NFL Draft next month.
"It’s everything. It truly is everything. For us to have clear constant communication is huge," Tomasino said. "For a transmission not to go through to our dispatch or another officer not being able to understand or hear, that is massive in terms of potential response that would follow up."
