El Paso County deputies dealing with radio problems
Imagine needing to call for help, but your call wouldn’t go through. That’s what El Paso County sheriff’s deputies have been dealing with for the past several months.
Ever since March, when all radio frequencies for first responders and government agencies in the area were switched to the same channel, some radio communications have been garbled or couldn’t go through to dispatch.
The deputies weren’t able to tell dispatch their location, or in some cases, call for backup when they needed help.
A concerned citizen first alerted us to the problem.
He didn’t want to be identified by his full name, but said on two different occasions, deputies weren’t able to talk to dispatch when responding to calls in his neighborhood.
“We’ve had three deputies killed in the last seven months and I’m just worried about their safety if they can’t communicate,” he said. “We need to support our deputies.”
The problem is a top priority at the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department.
“If you can’t communicate, your mission will fail, and when the safety of deputies or citizens is on the line, that puts an exclamation point on priority,” Commander Jeff Kramer said.
Kramer has been with meeting with officials in the sheriff’s office as well as leaders from Tait Radio, engineers and officials with the network the radios operate on for months to try to pinpoint the cause of the problems.
“The issues have been happening all over geography, at different times, during all shifts, so it’s a broad-reaching issue and therein lies the problem,” Commander Kramer said.
He explained the radios operate similarly to a cell phone and they are trying to adjust certain settings to see if that will help.
KRDO asked if the department is considering switching to a different radio provider, but Commander Kramer said that would be a solution down the road because it would cost millions of dollars. He also said the department has been using the radios since 2013 and hadn’t had problems until March.
“You have to keep in mind this is a small percentage of our radio communications that are experiencing problems,” he said. “We have thousands upon thousands of calls that go out every day and it is only some of them that have issues.”
Deputies are now making a new call log that keeps track of radio problems to try and track common themes.
Commander Kramer said no deputy or citizen has ever been hurt because of the issues.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is the only agency locally dealing with these communication problems.
Stay with KRDO as we follow developments in this story.
