By Cynthia Brown, American Police Beat
Original publication date: April 2011

Public safety officials from rural, suburban and urban communities working in law enforcement, the fire service, and emergency health care have joined forces to convince the House, the Senate, the FCC, and the Obama administration that the rightful owner of the  D-Block spectrum should be public safety. If their effort is successful first responders everywhere will have the ability to communicate directly, share information and coordinate a fast, effective response to everything from a terrorist attack, to a hurricane or earthquake, to a train derailment or a major hazmat incident.

Ray Kelly, the commissioner of the New York City Police Department, has been a passionate advocate for getting the D-Block radio spectrum allocated to public safety, along with funding for the build. In a strongly worded and vigorously delivered testimony before the Senate last month in Washington, D.C. Commissioner Kelly, flanked by Chuck Dowd,  NYPD’s Communications chief, and a host of uniformed public safety officials urged the Senators to support the bill that would allocate the broadband spectrum to public safety.

He also thanked the Obama administration for their recent support for the effort. Not mincing words, Kelly told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that a 16-year-old with a smart phone has a more advanced communications capability than a police officer or deputy carrying a two-way radio. “Like all other public safety organizations,” Kelly said, “the New York City Police Department relies mostly on the use of two-way voice radios to communicate with responding officers and direct them to a scene. But the technology is very limited.  We cannot use it to deliver or exchange electronic data.”

Two-way radios are limited The limitations of the two-way radios are numerous, Kelly explained. “We have no way to leverage the powerful technology we use in our Real Time Crime Center, a state-of-the art computer facility supported by a massive database containing billions of public and private records. Around the clock, crime center detectives take calls from investigators in the field looking to follow up on various leads they’ve obtained – a partial license plate, a seemingly untraceable cell phone number, a nickname or even a tattoo.

These investigators conduct instant, on the spot searches, something that previously took days.” Kelly told the Senators if his agency had use of a dedicated broadband network, an officer using a handheld device could receive detailed information before he or she arrives at a location including who lives there, whether or not the police have been there before and why, and if any of the occupants has an outstanding warrant, an order of protection, a firearms license or is out on parole. Officers could send or receive digital pictures of people they detain as well as any prior arrest history, and other critical details.  Deputies would be able to take electronic fingerprints at the scene and compare them instantaneously with those in local, state, and federal databases.

Public safety needs to control the network Law enforcement leaders have been adamant that public safety agencies as opposed to private industry need to control the network and the radio spectrum. The NYPD Commissioner pointed out that on September 11, 2001 and after the 2009 crash of a commercial jet into the Hudson River, commercial cell phone networks were quickly overwhelmed making police and fire communications using commercial phone lines virtually impossible.

“We need a system that we build according to our own specifications and that we control,” Kelly explained. “We know from past experience that we can’t depend on systems run by the private sector. Along with the fact that these companies will be reluctant to shut down service for their own customers to give us priority, commercial systems are too susceptible to failure in a crisis. It’s just too costly for them to build networks that meet our standards. Because of our mission, we will build networks tough enough not to fail during disasters like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.”

Chuck Dowd, the NYPD’s chief of Communications, is as passionate as anyone about the enormous benefits that will accrue to the American people when the switch over to broadband communications has been accomplished. But he cautions that until the bill is passed and signed into law by the president, public safety advocates must keep up the pressure.

Three years ago the prospects for public safety to have control of their own broadband spectrum looked dim at best. Powerful corporate interests were advocating against letting public safety have the D-Block and it looked like they might be successful. It was at that time that law enforcement, fire, emergency medical people, and other first responders began to understand they were going to have to partner up and work together if they wanted to win the fight.

What happened next was remarkable. As Chuck Dowd describes it, the development of the Public Safety Alliance (PSA), a broad based coalition of public safety agencies across the country, turned the whole D-Block battle around. With officials from the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Major County Sheriffs’ Association, the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, the National Emergency Management Association, and the National Association of EMS Officials, marching together to get D-Block and funding allocated to public safety, the mood in Washington started to change.

Chris Moore, chief of the San Jose PD, has been involved in the effort to get the D-Block allocated to public safety from the outset. He points out that it’s made a huge difference to have so many officials from different agencies going to Washington and telling their Representatives and Senators that the most important thing they need right now is the D-Block broadband spectrum. Divide and conquer didn’t work

“Even the people who oppose us say they are impressed with our coalition,” Moore said. “But impressed or not, once we got going, some folks mounted a serious effort to break us up.” The people fighting to keep the broadband spectrum out of the hands of public safety used a classic “divide and conquer” strategy. First they visited the rural areas and made the case that the big cities were going to leave them behind. “It wasn’t true,” Dowd said. “And the agencies serving our rural communities knew that.”

Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald of Story County Iowa shared his perspective on the need for capacity and seamless interoperability in rural areas. “We’re going to need just as much bandwidth for a large scale emergency as the big cities”, says Fitzgerald. ”

Recently we had a shooting incident with a multi-jurisdictional response. My Deputies couldn’t communicate with other responders that were literally across the road.” Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald of Story County Iowa shared his perspective on the need for capacity and seamless interoperability in rural areas. “We’re going to need just as much bandwidth for a large scale emergency as the big cities,” Fitzgerald said. ”

When that approach didn’t work they tried to pit fire against police. But that attempt failed as well thanks to people like Jack Parow and Jeff Johnson, the current and past presidents of the IAFC, and Mark Marshall, the president of the IACP. “Nothing worked,” Dowd said. “We stuck together. The whole thing was precedent shattering – both the coalition and the fact that we hung together to accomplish our goal.”

But there’s still work to be done. Ray Kelly and all the other public safety professionals across the country who have worked hard and long over these past three years to get the broadband spectrum need your help to make sure one of the several bills that have been proposed allocating D-Block to public safety passes. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) have introduced legislation called the Broadband for First Responder’s Act of 2011 (H.R. 607).

On the Senate side, Jay Rockefeller (D – W.V.) introduced the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act of 2010 (S. 3756). “The goal,” says Dowd, “is to get a bill passed and signed into law by the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. To do that we need every law enforcement leader in the country-every police chief, every commander, every sheriff to write, call and most importantly visit both their Senators and their Congressional Representatives to urge them to support this legislation.

We know people are busy, but when they realize how high the stakes are, we are confident they will take the time speak out.” As Ray Kelly pointed out at the hearing, broadband is the future of wireless law enforcement communications. Every chief and sheriff needs to ensure that the future happens now. The public’s safety depends on it. For more information on how you can help, go to the PSA website at www.PSAfirst.org.

About the Author
Cynthia Brown is the publisher of American Police Beat and the author of Brave Hearts: Extraordinary Stories of Pride, Pain and Courage.

Ray Kelly: D-Block is about officer safety . . .
“With broadband communications, responding to the type of call every cop is familiar with – domestic violence – would change dramatically.

At the present time, the only information officers receive about the 911 call is transmitted verbally by the dispatcher.

Once we switch to broadband, all the information from every database can be delivered to officers on the scene in real time including prior responses to that address, domestic incident reports, arrest history, weapons history and active warrants or court orders of protection.

We will even have the ability to download the audio from the 911 call when victims are reluctant to cooperate.

If your agency has a dedicated domestic violence officer, they could get an ‘alert’ notification in real time, even before the responding unit arrives. In addition, officers and deputies making car stops will be able to use their dash-cam to stream real time video to the dispatcher who could then send backup immediately if the stop posed any threat to the officer.

Other units on patrol, including those in nearby jurisdictions, could monitor the real time streaming video, keep an eye on the officers making the stop and respond if they saw anything that concerned them.” – Ray Kelly

Posted with permission of American Police Beat.