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In Kirkland, you guys put your ears on!

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King 5 news with live coverage.. Get that bastard.

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Code 4, in custody.

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A couple questions:

1. Why wasn't this taken to MARS? Bellevue and Kirkland were both involved, then it went onto 405 (WSP), and nobody was talking to each other. What's the point of even having MARS if you're not going to use it?

2. On the radio at some point somebody said "we don't have LERN capability." LERN is in every single police trunked radio. Why haven't people been trained in the use of the radio system?

To me, this chase signifies a great job by the cops who pursued the guy, and an utter failure of the training of those involved with the various communications centers. What a total waste of money to build this trunked radio system with all this interoperability and not have anybody who has half a clue how to use it.

They said they had the T V coverage, dispatch could see ware they were at, tho i agree with you!

STEVE F.

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GOD BLESS 73s

I'll take a stab at it...

1. Why wasn't this taken to MARS? Bellevue and Kirkland were both involved, then it went onto 405 (WSP), and nobody was talking to each other. What's the point of even having MARS if you're not going to use it?

A. There was a request for people to switch to MARS. A few of us did. Not enough people did it, though. I was relaying information to MARS, however, and it seemed to be received by a few people.

The last thing I want to do when navigating traffic at those speeds is finding a talkgroup that has been arbitrarily placed in the radio way up the dial. Perhaps a better question is "why can't MARS be patched onto whatever talkgroup we happen to be using at the time?"

In the end, most of us were switching between the different city talkgroups (Bel-1, Kirkland, Bothell). Fortunately, Renton K930 had Bel-1 in their radio already, and was talking to us directly from the beginning, with no dispatcher patching - at least they were thinking ahead with their template.

And actually, MARS is a good system - if everyone switches to it. Since it can't be patched to anything, it's up to the users to make that switch. Real hard to do during an ongoing incident.

Perhaps MARS could be attached to the TRIS system - so that everyone in the county can hook up to it as needed with the click of a mouse.

2. On the radio at some point somebody said "we don't have LERN capability." LERN is in every single police trunked radio. Why haven't people been trained in the use of the radio system?

A. That was me making that comment. There is a LERN talkgroup on the King County system, but it is NOT programmed into "every single police trunked radio". I don't know - maybe it's programmed into every single police trunked radio EXCEPT ours. It is not programmed into my radios, nor any radio of my partners. It has been requested, however as of yet not added. I have *heard* that it was deemed unnecessary, since we have access to MARS.

To me, this chase signifies a great job by the cops who pursued the guy, and an utter failure of the training of those involved with the various communications centers. What a total waste of money to build this trunked radio system with all this interoperability and not have anybody who has half a clue how to use it.

There is an interoperability problem in King County. I am not able to get King County SO or Valley Comm city talkgroups in my radio. We are allowed to have one Seatle PD talkgroup (East Precinct). I have no idea what any of those agencies are doing, unless they are patched to something I can listen to, or if I take a trunktracker to work and listen on my own. Same thing with WSP. MARS is usable, if everyone is able to switch over. Patching to any of the PSOPS channels requires dispatcher intervention - sometimes done quickly, sometimes not. We are unable to speak directly to the Media helicopters - a great resource that the WSP uses and allows on their frequencies, however we can't seem to get access to.

The dispatchers today did a very good job, considering the wildly changing conditions and jurisdictions of the chase. However, the radio system is complicated, and at times no one entity wants to make a decision. Bellevue PD Dispatch could have easily patched Bel 1 with Kirkland and Bothell dispatch talkgroups, making us all one happy family. It was not automatically done, and no one requested for that to be done. The comm center, absent of a specific policy or supervisory direction, is usually unwilling to make such a bold move - even though all of those agencies are very much involved in the ongoing situation.

Unfortunately, most of those policy decisions are made by people who don't work on the street, and don't see the "need" for such contingencies - even though the system is certainly capable of it.

(rant mode off)

Brad

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Whatever.....

Awesome job T68!!! On your job and especially your reply :)

Here in Victoria, we've got the Astro Spectras set up so that you just have to press one button and it'll swtich to POLICE M/A. Every police radio is set up that way, it may be something to think about for you guys too.

We've got a standardized radio system that's shared among users, but hardly any training in its use and capabilites. Right now what seems to happen in multijurisdictional chases is that two agency talkgroups are patched to each other. It seems to work OK, but what if there is another Priority 1 call in the area? I don't know why they just don't all switch to POLICE M/A to begin with?

Here is another example.... Big school fire in a small town in Langford. Mutual Aid request goes out, 3 other depts respond. Fire Operations stay on Langford Ops 1 instead of switching to a Fire Mutual Aid Talkgroup, a Common Projects talkgroup, or a Fire Ambualnce Police (FAP) talkgroup.

Other responding firefighters are given Langford Portable Radios when they arrive so they can all talk to eachother? Why didn't they bring their own radios and switch to a common talkgroup?

Because there is no money in anyone's budget for training. The system works well, the capabilities are there.. But the system has been up and running since the spring of 2003 and the end users still don't know how to use it to its potential.

I hope that when it comes to spending your Homeland Security grants down there, it's not all splurged on equipment, but training training training.....

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The KING helo was doing the 'watching'. He was asked to go to MARS but said he didn't have it, only LEARN.

-m

I was monitoring MARS, heard J-42 's call.
Someone made the comment: "Great interop capabilities" after the MARS request failed.
MARS used to work way back when.
Imagine; you're just about to get off shift when this knucklehead loses his mind.
All that property damage paper.....
How about the guy in the suburban? What was he thinking. Causing a head-on? I wonder what his insurance company will say.

I heard that comment too

It may have been to difacult to dial up the corect ch. on thoes radios in orange county, sourthen Calieefornia we have a button for the red,white, purple,black, and green, so its easy to find the correct CH. to go to the PDjust may have been to pre occupied whith their job to find MARS or learn!


STEVE F.

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GOD BLESS 73s

Unfortunately, most of those policy decisions are made by people who don't work on the street, and don't see the "need" for such contingencies - even though the system is certainly capable of it.

As a dispatcher in Thurston County, amen to that thought! We sometimes have our hands bound by our user agency admin groups as to what we can and can't do. I know how, but my policy says I can't. Let the people that actually USE the systems make some of the rules for once.

And BTW, great collar by all involved!

I think PK is correct. Correct me if Im wrong. I guess if the WSP gets involved then its a LERN operation? There was a chase that started in Lacey and ended up in Montesanto, this past Mon night. Long and short of it was by the time it got to Grays Harbor Co and no Oly area WSP units were availible, to join in, they finally switched to LERN after 25 miles or so, several units along the way attempted spike strips, this info was all relayed via seperate juridictions on Tac 2 City and then Tac1 county, all on VHF legacy systems.

True the 14 year old was driving like a maniac with a blown tire , at speeds up to 100 and fianally crashed, but a McCleary unit attempted a SS and had to listen to his dispatcher relay for location before Hoquiam State switched it to LERN. They did do one at the scales on hwy 8 and the driver took the scale off ramp and came back on again before another one was sucessful later on. I think it would have made the news if other chases hadn't occured back to back this week. It was still an exciting chase to listen in on.

"Great interop capabilities" after the MARS request failed.


I'll take credit for that quote, too....

The system has some great capabilities, and can potentially do some pretty trick stuff. However, all the techology in the world will not do us any good if the users are not trained, and if the administrators don't follow through with implementation of those technologies with solid policy and training opportunities.

It was truly frustrating on the ground, listening to this mish-mash of conversations and high priority radio traffic on multiple talkgroups. Fortunately, it stayed in the EPSCA realm of radio jurisdiction, so we all had each other's primary talkgroups available to us. If it had spiked off into the county (further into Woodinville), or maybe up into Snohomish County, we would have really been hurting for interop communications.

The King County SO and Valley Comm dispatchers are pretty quick to patch their active stuff to a PSOPS channel, so that the rest of the county can listen in. Eastside agencies have not been so quick to take up that practice. It has been suggested, however not acted upon.

Training of the dispatchers is done, but usually just enough to get them on the air and filling a chair. Continuing training beyond that isn't very common (from what I can see, anyway). Most dispatch centers are running with some amount of overtime or Mandatory OT, so they certainly don't have the staffing to pull people into classes, and still cover the room. Sad, but true.

And then there's the cop/firefighter on the street. The vast majority of them are NOT radio people at all. They know enough to use the radio, change the channels, and hopefully reset the Emergency Button when they set it off (at least, if I taught them in orientation, they better know). They don't know a VHF from a UHF, and don't really care. Most of them do not scan other talkgroups (at least here - other parts of the state, especially rural areas are much better about scanning and monitoring their neighboring agency). Most of them have very little knowledge of the mutual aid talkgroups. When I try to explain the MARS system and it's cross-band capabilities, I usually get inquisitive stares. If they are told to switch to a particular talkgroup on the fly, they can usually manage it. They are not real privvy to "patches", so they are generally not requested.

We have a lot of work to do.....

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Whatever.....