By M.K. Guetersloh, The Pantagraph
Original publication date: April 9, 2011

Bloomington, Ill. — The recent cooperation between Twin City police departments on a series of FBI-led drug raids and planning for a weekend college party has demonstrated why the city of Bloomington needed to switch to Starcom 21 radio system, local officials said.

McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery said the drug raids Tuesday morning that resulted in 14 arrests were a “classic example” of cooperative law enforcement efforts.

“This efficiency in how it went down is due in part to good communications,” Emery said. “This is what can happen when you have one system that everyone can work off of.”

Last month Bloomington police upgraded its radios to the statewide, digital emergency radio system.

The change followed several years of frustration between the city police, Normal police and McLean County sheriff’s police that came to a boiling point in July 2008 at State Farm Insurance Cos. headquarters. Normal and McLean County officers, who have been using Starcom for years, said they could not hear Bloomington officers who were on an analog radio system.

The FBI raids and the recent planning to respond to Fool’s Fest, a proposed party that threatened to bring thousands of college students to the Twin Cities the weekend of April 1, have been strong examples of how the departments’ radios can work together, said Darren Wolf, Bloomington Communication Center manager.

Illinois State University police and Illinois state police also use Starcom.

“The raids and Fool’s Fest show the ability of the radios to work between agencies and how we can have interoperability coordination,” Wolf said.

Bloomington Assistant Police Chief Bob Wall, who assisted in the FBI raids, said Bloomington officers didn’t have any issues talking to officers in other agencies. He also said he has not received any complaints from other agencies.

FBI spokesman Marshall Stone said he also has not heard of any communication problems. The FBI uses Starcom, but their transmissions are encrypted so a regular police scanner will not be able to receive agents’ conversations. 

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