Recording of LAPD radio calls during the 1965 Watts riot
[Source: Harry Marnell]

On Wednesday August 11, 1965 rioting broke out in the Watts area of Los Angeles, following the arrest of a suspected drunk driver by California Highway Patrol officers. Law Enforcement agencies hadn't been confronted with such widespread violence in decades, and the Los Angeles Police Department never had.

Harry Marnell has posted to his web site a 38-minute segment of LAPD radio calls recorded during the 1965 Watts riots along with other narative information.

posted by Tracy Justus at 8/22/2002  

Glendale Police Department missing radios
[Source: SoCalScan; City of Glendale]

The Glendale Police Department is seeking information regarding the loss of four XTS3000R portable radios in the City of Westminster. The loss occurred on Tuesday, August 20, 2002 at 11:00 AM.

The radios are UHF (450-512 MHz), programmed with the frequencies of every UHF Police agency in Los Angeles County, are equipped with SmartZone trunking, and three are encrypted. The radios are new, were in Motorola boxes, and did not have batteries. All four radios have a Glendale Police Department decal on the front of the case in place of the Motorola nameplate, and a City property tag affixed to the rear.

If you have information which may assist in the recovery of these radios, please call the Glendale Police Department at (818) 548-4989, or you may remain anonymous by calling Glendale Crime Stoppers at (818) 507-7867. Persons providing information resulting in recovery of this property may be eligible for a reward of up to $1000.

We would appreciate your help in passing along this information to radio shops, amateur radio clubs, scanner clubs, and others who might possibly come across any information regarding these radios.

The serial numbers of the lost radios are as follows.

326ABY0631
326ABY0627
326ABY0318
326ABY0305

Steven Hronek
Information Services Administrator
Wireless Communications
City of Glendale
141 N. Glendale Avenue, Room 314
Glendale, CA 91206
(818) 548-6444

posted by Tracy Justus at 8/21/2002  

New York Fire Department Recommends Emergency Changes
[Source: New York Times; Associated Press]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Police and fire officials pledged tighter command, improved communication and better cooperation in future large-scale emergencies while releasing reports Monday that examine the response to the World Trade Center attack.

The reports, prepared by high-ranking department officials and management consultant McKinsey & Co., found the rescue effort -- while heroic and largely successful -- was hurt by poor organization, faulty radio equipment and the departments' failure to work together.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, whose departments have had historically tense relations, promised to work together more closely as they improved their individual departments' operations.

``This was not an exercise in Monday-morning quarterbacking,'' Kelly said.

The Fire Department of New York, which lost 343 firefighters in the attack, and the New York Police Department, which lost 23 officers, have been widely lauded for their bravery Sept. 11. An estimated 25,000 people were evacuated from the twin towers that day in what Bloomberg called ``the most successful urban emergency evacuation in modern history.''

``There is no doubt in my mind that we are doing today what the heroes of 9-11 would have wanted us to do,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. ``It is in that spirit that we present these reports.''

But both departments had some problems with staffing -- caused, ironically, by individual firefighters' and officers' zeal to save lives, the report said.

Kelly said too many officers responded to the scene; the fire department report said some units disobeyed orders to report to staging points around the trade center area, instead heading into the towers.

Once inside, serious radio problems left many commanders and firefighters unable to communicate with each other, the report found. To make matters worse, the fire department's radios were incompatible with the police radio system.

Bloomberg promised to make sure the fire department's radios work properly in the future, regardless of cost. Police are also considering opening their citywide system of radio signal-boosting repeaters to the FDNY to help solve the communication problems.

But beyond their incompatible equipment, police and firefighters did not adequately cooperate on Sept. 11, according to the fire department report, which says there were no senior police chiefs at the Fire Department's command post.

The report also recommends the department bolster its single hazardous materials unit to better respond to potential chemical, biological or radiological attack.

Among those who died Sept. 11 were some of the fire department's senior commanders, including Chief of Department Peter Ganci. In the future, the report said, senior officers should oversee large-scale emergencies from the department's operations center instead of the disaster scene.

On the Net:
Fire: http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/home2.html
Police: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/home.html

posted by Tracy Justus at 8/20/2002