Dyersburg. New Police Chief. New Era. Right The Wrong

Why 24/7 police radio encryption is a bad idea and should be reversed

Hardly anyone remembers I was a cop long before being a TV news reporter and weather guesser based out of Memphis. I spent far more time as a reporter than I ever did in a police career that lasted about a decade. But, during those final years in the mid & late 1980s I had my hands in a lot of things administratively in the Dyersburg Police Department.

I started with DPD after a new sheriff had been elected at the department where I was a deputy. The late sheriff fired me and a lot of others. New sheriffs often do this and replace them with their own teams. The Dyersburg Police Chief, the late Bob Williamson called me soon after and asked if I would be interested in joining his department. He didn’t want me as a street cop, he wanted me in more of a support role. Administrative Assistant is what I started as. My job was to help him modernize the agency that was showing a lot of dust from the 1970s era that hadn’t been brushed off in a long time. I was a big techie back then and still am today.

That’s me on the very far right. This was about 1985 ish I’d guess. Many of those people pictured are now dead and gone. But what a good group of people to have worked with. That’s the guy in the middle, coat and tie with the glasses, that hired me. Chief Bob Williamson.

After settling in we determined several things that needed to be addressed. The first and most important one was the two-way radio system the officers were dispatched calls on. At the time several agencies including, DPD, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Department, Newbern Police Department, Trimble Police Department, a dog catcher and a wrecker were all using a single frequency. A handful of state troopers used it as well. In the early to mid 70s when these systems were established through grants, it worked. By the mid 80s it didn’t. If two agencies were handling a critical call at the same time, you only had that one channel to communicate on. The first chore, get a new channel of our own. That was my first job along with updating the criminal records system, improving dispatch, establishing legitimate public relations for media and such, and, other civilians operations of the department. Another longer term task was totally renovating and expanding the current department’s building facility that had become way too small. That part was finishing about the time I left the agency.

We made the decision since we were spending a lot money that we’d get the latest radio system available. And it would have the option to encrypt the radio traffic. (voice privacy so police scanners couldn’t hear it) At the time we’d only be the second local agency in Tennessee to have authentic digital voice protection. It took us two generations of radios manufactured by Motorola to get it right. The first time the units were essentially defective and you couldn’t understand the radio traffic when encrypted. The replacement changeout versions worked.

I was more or less solely responsible for getting this in operation over a 12 to 18 month period. Chief Williamson, whom I highly admire to this very day, and we sparred a lot over whether to go 24/7 with encryption. We had knock down drag out fights. He once said, “We’re scrambling all of the traffic and I don’t care what the public thinks.” I get it to some extent. He and a lot of us were tired of the eavesdroppers. Mainly the Karen’s of the world, not the criminals. Encryption was always intended for use when you needed ultimate privacy for a serious operation or to give information that no one should hear. It was never intended to be a way to keep, legal listeners incidentally, from hearing about a wreck at Highway 51 and 78. Or a weather bulletin being broadcast. Or road conditions. Most police radio traffic is routine, and frankly boring. I can still hear in my mind the late Captain Rayburn Hawkins saying, “102 on the curb,” to late dispatcher Dot Cagle. This was a way to let the dispatcher know they had parked out back and were in the squad room in the back of the station.

As Chief Bob and I fought over this issue, I finally got him around to my way of thinking. Here’s what I told him. “You know chief, this equipment is paid for by tax payers. All of it. They pay my and your salary. All of it. The FCC says it’s legal for people to have police scanners and listen to what their tax paid public servants are doing. Why do we want to block them from that? Let’s not forget the Sam Walton rule. Don’t let the 10% of bad shoppers keep you from the 90% that are good. Plus we have actually been helped by listeners before that say they just saw the car we just gave a description out on as a wanted person or such. I can remember dozens of times this happened and it helped us greatly.”

In the end, the chief saw my rationale and agreed we’d operate in the open and only use encryption as needed. It was a good formula and citizens greatly appreciated it. Something most people don’t grasp. It’s rare you legitimately need encryption. Most criminals aren’t scanning your frequencies in the dark of the night awaiting for the great jewel or drug heist. Some are very, very bright, most aren’t.

In early 1990 I ran an unsuccessful campaign for sheriff. It was my swan song of law enforcement days. I exited that career and eventually landed in my true love, the TV news biz. I’d been behind the scenes as a pilot flying tapes all around the mid-south as sort of a 2nd job to build my flight time. I often accompanied my late friend and news mentor, Doug Viar, on stories he was covering. Both of us were pilots and that gave us a big advantage of getting on the scene of breaking stories and returning before the other crew even got out the door. I’d spend the next 20 plus years on the air, locally and nationally.

After I left DPD I stayed in touch with Chief Williamson. He was often in stories I was covering. Our friendship continued and I still helped him make some decisions about technical issues simply as a friend.

That’s me in 2003 interviewing my former boss, Chief Bob Williamson at a hostage scene where his SWAT team just had to go in and kill a gunman at a local community college. Our relationship shifted but continued with me on the other side.

The chief knew it was important to have a good relationship with the media. And the citizens. He knew either could make you or break you. Though he was outwardly irritated by it at times. I’d like to think I improved his comfort level during the time I worked alongside him and years later every time I showed up to a scene like the one above to interview him. It was a great transition.

As the years ticked by the department modernized and they got more improvements. More advancements. A fellow that followed me years later, Mark Grant, did a tremendous job of getting the communications into the next century. Centralized dispatch, mobile data terminals and more. Today they operate in unison with the Tennessee Highway Patrol on their radio sites across the state. It’s a highly advanced system that takes the burden off local agencies. The local sheriff’s office uses a similar system, but they do operate in the clear for routine traffic and use encrypted channels only when necessary.

Sometime in the last 7-8 years around the general time Mark retired all traffic was completely encrypted. Heck my understanding is the local fire department is even encrypting their radio traffic now. Huh? My late friend, former Dyersburg Fire Department Chief Billy Taylor would have an opinion, I assure you.

So why am I writing this rather lengthy post about something 700 miles away and another lifetime ago? I started this mess. Way back in the 1980s I got the first system installed that started the encryption train. It has its place, but 24/7 encryption isn’t the right place.

Dyersburg PD is about to get a new police chief in the coming weeks. I think perhaps the 2nd or 3rd since Chief Bob Williamson retired. He passed away a few years ago.

The new chief has the opportunity to right the ship and open the dispatch channels for the public to once again hear their public servants doing their jobs. They pay their salaries, as I said above. I hope this new chief adopts this strategy. Openness is always better than darkness. There’s so much hidden from taxpayers both locally and nationally. Local citizens deserve, and have a right to know, what the people they employ are doing. Hopefully the fire chief follows suit as well.

Encryption is always there as needed but it shouldn’t be used a a way to hide in the shadows 24/7. Do the right thing incoming chief, whomever you may be.