Atlanta PD's CommNet

[ValleyOne]

Atlanta PD has in place a radio communication system called CommNet. This is a system that allows the PD to have direct radio communications with local private security firms. As I understand it they provide the channel (or frequency) and the companies have to provide the radio. I also understand that not every single s/o has the radio that is capableof doing this. I understand that it is for either the shift commander or at the companies dispatch center.

This allows the security company to have immediate access to the PD incase of emergency and likewise, the PD can broadcast ATL's and BOLO's (Attempt To Locate and Be On the LookOut).

Does anyone have any further information on this? Does your local Pd have anything of this nature? Does it worK? What are the penalties for misuse?

I had the link, but it got deleted on accident. So here I am...

[CorpSec]

Downtown Minneapolis has something like this in effect and it appears to have worked on a lot of levels. Downtown St. Paul is lagging behind a bit. There is a frequency that all security can talk on no matter if you are in house or contract, but most security officers either don't have it, don't use it, or don't practice very good radio discipline when they do use it.

I think PD has the capability to monitor the channel, but I don't think a lot of them do. The cops downtown carry voice pagers and security and store owners can bypass dispatch and relay information over them. It is actually not a bad system since going through dispatch is very cumbersome and can often result in untimely response and misinformation.

[james2go30]

Tell me about it.

Downtown Minneapolis has something like this in effect and it appears to have worked on a lot of levels. Downtown St. Paul is lagging behind a bit. There is a frequency that all security can talk on no matter if you are in house or contract, but most security officers either don't have it, don't use it, or don't practice very good radio discipline when they do use it.

I think PD has the capability to monitor the channel, but I don't think a lot of them do. The cops downtown carry voice pagers and security and store owners can bypass dispatch and relay information over them. It is actually not a bad system since going through dispatch is very cumbersome and can often result in untimely response and misinformation.

I have had problems with dispatch misinforming officers of situations here on property...wrong unit numbers, towers, wrong types of problem...and trust me the police get as irritated with dispatch as we do sometimes. We don't have that radio set like valleyone is talking about but I think it would be a good idea.

[N. A. Corbier]

A lot of it depends on the company, too. When I was young, I worked for a company that had a fixed and patrol post on a Coast Guard installation. We were issued a police radio. The guards were afraid of the radio (That's the police's radio, we don't touch that), and the Airport Police instructed the guards not to touch it.

One day, the Flight Tower got on the police radio and told the operations manager and head guard of the site to get off the runway in the patrol vehicle, they were about to be hit by a 727, as they were far from the Air Station.

Since the operations manager did not like the guards having access to the police radio, nor did the guards want it, nor did the airport police want them to have it, no one could hear them. They realized it when the airport police unit on patrol (there was only one) chased them off the runway.

On that day, the Sheriff's Office took their radio back. It was pre-9/11. Post 9/11, I had to stop at the air station's main gate due to a problem, and the guard in the fixed post had a brand new Sheriff's Office radio. I was in uniform, in a different company vehicle, and did not know the guard. When I asked if he could call the police, he handed me the Sheriff's radio and went, "We only have this, I don't know how to work it."

[GCMC Security]

We have 1 radio that belongs to the Sherrifs Office. Supposedly for use in a natural disaster, hurricane etc etc. Upon thinking about it I wonder if it works?

[HotelSecurity]

In Montreal the Police, fire & ambulance services don't have a common radio frequency & can not talk to each other on the scene of an incident. It is slowly supposed to change. The provincial government has ordered all services to switch to a common system.

[N. A. Corbier]

We have 1 radio that belongs to the Sherrifs Office. Supposedly for use in a natural disaster, hurricane etc etc. Upon thinking about it I wonder if it works?

That's gonna go over real well when you actually try to use it...

843.16 Unlawful to install or transport radio equipment using assigned frequency of state or law enforcement officers; definitions; exceptions; penalties.--

(1) A person, firm, or corporation may not install or transport in any motor vehicle or business establishment, except an emergency vehicle or crime watch vehicle as herein defined or a place established by municipal, county, state, or federal authority for governmental purposes, any frequency modulation radio receiving equipment so adjusted or tuned as to receive messages or signals on frequencies assigned by the Federal Communications Commission to police or law enforcement officers or fire rescue personnel of any city or county of the state or to the state or any of its agencies. Provided, nothing herein shall be construed to affect any radio station licensed by the Federal Communications System or to affect any recognized newspaper or news publication engaged in covering the news on a full-time basis or any alarm system contractor certified pursuant to part II of chapter 489, operating a central monitoring system.

The laws Florida passes are hilarious at times. In other words, no business (except the media) can have a scanner or radio set to a police frequency.

Unless you know what you're doing with a Sheriff's radio, they like to enforce this statute.

[HotelSecurity]

That's gonna go over real well when you actually try to use it...

843.16 Unlawful to install or transport radio equipment using assigned frequency of state or law enforcement officers; definitions; exceptions; penalties.--

(1) A person, firm, or corporation may not install or transport in any motor vehicle or business establishment, except an emergency vehicle or crime watch vehicle as herein defined or a place established by municipal, county, state, or federal authority for governmental purposes, any frequency modulation radio receiving equipment so adjusted or tuned as to receive messages or signals on frequencies assigned by the Federal Communications Commission to police or law enforcement officers or fire rescue personnel of any city or county of the state or to the state or any of its agencies. Provided, nothing herein shall be construed to affect any radio station licensed by the Federal Communications System or to affect any recognized newspaper or news publication engaged in covering the news on a full-time basis or any alarm system contractor certified pursuant to part II of chapter 489, operating a central monitoring system.

The laws Florida passes are hilarious at times. In other words, no business (except the media) can have a scanner or radio set to a police frequency.

Unless you know what you're doing with a Sheriff's radio, they like to enforce this statute.

In my area there are a lot of free lance photographers that take pictures at fires & other incidents & publish them on the net. (eg www.securiteincendie.com). Would they be considered a publication covering the news?

[OccamsRazor]

Where I work we share a channel with the federal cops, we just use differing callsigns to tell the difference.

The local police where I llive let some patrol security company operate on their channels, they have a written MOU for it. It's interesting to hear the guard (there's like one in this whole area, and I guess he covers a LOT of area) call directly on the PD channel for assistance...He also occasionally asissts the PD on calls, or with BOLOs.

Lawson, you know which company I'm talking about? They use the Tacoma PD radios as well, IDing as "Robert-xx". ::Wondering how the pay is::

[CorpSec]

In Minnesota you can have a scanner in your car in you have a ham radio license or if you have a license from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension with approvals from the law enforcement agencies that you are monitoring.

Sworn officers do not need approval to monitor in their personal vehicles.

I know of only one instance where a security guard has gotten popped for it. One night he saw a friend of his who is a State Trooper driving on the highway. Thinking that it would be funny(why, I don't know), he started tailgating him and flashing his brights. The Trooper immediately pulled to the side and got in behind his vehicle and lit him up. Turns out it wasn't his friend.

As he was getting dressed down on the roadside by the irate Trooper, the Trooper that this guy actually knew shows up. He was able to calm the other trooper down and after a few apologies, the guard left without incident.

A few weeks later, this same guard sees a car full of people in one of his lots smoking pot. They take off when they see him and he proceeds to chase them down the road while on the phone to the police dispatcher. On a recorded line he was telling her that they were blowing lights and going double the speed limit. The vehicle eventually got stopped by the State Patrol on the highway and the guard stopped on the roadside.

Guess who the Trooper was that made the stop? The dope had long since been tossed out the window and he turned his attention to the guard and the scanner that he had velcro'd on the dash of the security patrol vehicle.

After tagging him for speed, he confisacted the scanner and gave him a gross misdemeanor tag for that as well.

Under normal circumstances the Trooper very well may have looked the other way, but after getting tailgated and high brighted a few weeks earlier he wasn't much in the mood to hand out breaks.

[HotelSecurity]

The new Canadian law says you need a license to listen to digital frequencies. Nobody can tell us what license but we think it is a ham license. So far only the Montreal Fire Department has gone digital & the police on the street don't realize we shouldn't be listening to them. The police force on the 2nd largest city in Quebec, Laval is also digital but also encrypted. They can not be listened too using normal scanners.

Intersting to note that in Canada it is still legal to listen to cell phone frequencies although since most of the scanners sold here are made in the US they are blocked. (Not to say that a little research on the internet can not tell you how to unblock some of them )