COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 2:05 p.m. Resolution 020455 - Resolution authorizing a Joint Hearing for both City Council's Committee on Public Safety and City Council's Committee on Technology and Information Systems to hold public hearings to investigate the malfunction of the City of Philadelphia's digital radio system... PRESENT: COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 P R O C E E D I N G S - - -
Good afternoon. The joint committee on Public Safety and Technology and Information Services is now in session. Counsel members in attendance, Councilman Frank Rizzo, Councilman Brian O'Neill, Chair of Technology and Information Services, and I am Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, Chair of Public Safety. Will the clerk please read the title of the resolution.
Resolution No. 15 040655, Resolution authorizing a Joint Hearing for both City Council's Committee on Public Safety and City Council's Committee on Technology and Information Systems to hold public hearings to investigate the malfunction of the City of Philadelphia's digital radio system which occurred twice: Once on March 25, 2004 at 8:59 p.m. and then on May 18, 2004 at 9:04 p.m.; and, in furtherance of such investigation, authorizing the issuance of subpoenas to compel the attendance of 3 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 witnesses and the production of documents to the full extent authorized under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule Charter.
Thank you. We'd like to thank all those agencies and personnel that have come today to testify in this hearing. This is an important issue, and I'd like to now call on Councilman Frank Rizzo for brief remarks.
Thank you, Councilwoman. For the record, that resolution that was read indicated two incidences and we're all aware that there was another occurrence of trouble with the radio system over this past weekend. Not a complete interruption, but some problems with the system. So we want that to be part of the record, that there was a third occurrence. Thank you.
Steve, do you want to start calling the witnesses, 4 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 please.
Yes. I'd like to call Philip Goldsmith, the Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia, please.
Good afternoon, Councilman O'Neill, Councilman Rizzo. I'm Phil Goldsmith, Managing Director. I appreciate your opportunity to discuss the 800 megahertz radio system with you today. This afternoon you will hear from the experts and City officials who work directly with this system and who are more knowledgeable about the technology than I am. I am not here as a technology expert. I appear before you as Managing Director, who is responsible and concerned for the public safety in the City of Philadelphia, both for our citizens, as well as our employees. Communications plays a key role in the ability of our public safety officials to protect the public, as well as themselves. This has always been the case, but even more critical in our post 9/11 world. Our radio communication plan has 5 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 certainly received much deserved attention, and I believe that we have been moving in a positive direction, expanding communication capabilities for both users and coverage area. We adopted this system for a number of reasons. One, the system expanded the number of channels available for communication; two, the reception and coverage has dramatically improved over the former radio system; three, the 800 megahertz system has a user and distress feature for police and fire; four, the system provides the ability to communicate across departments, and, lastly, the system has multiple back-ups, as well as component level redundancies. Even with these added features, we have experienced problems that we are aggressively addressing. Whenever an institution implements a new system, there are bound to be challenges. Practically every implementation of new software systems, adoption of new technology or implementation of new business processes present challenges, some unforeseen, some expected. These are 6 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 often technology issues, but they are frequently training issues and sometimes old-fashioned problems of people not liking change. Still, my goal and expectation, which is certainly shared by the Mayor, the Police Commissioner and Fire Commissioner, is that our public safety personnel be able to communicate with each other in a time-urgency fashion. We have charged Motorola, the vendor, to determine the cause of the problems and identify solutions quickly. It is in Motorola's self interest to make sure our system is foolproof. I am told by our personnel that they are working with us to identify and correct problems with a needed sense of urgency. In addition to working with the vendor, our independent consultant has been directed to look over Motorola's work and respond to incidents and supply additional recommendations to the City, if needed. We have formed a crisis response 7 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 team, which is activated immediately on any serious radio issue affecting public safety. The team comprises members of the Public Property department, Police and Fire departments, Motorola and our independent consultants. Each time a disruption has occurred we have brought in both the vendor and the consultants to investigate the issue and attempted to identify the circumstances under which the system failed. This team was activated over this last weekend and was able to work together to stabilize the radio system without serious disruption to the users. Communication within and among the City departments is important. It is also important that the City's public safety officials have the capability of communicating to public safety officials across jurisdictions. I am pleased to inform you that we have received $5 million of federal Home Land Security Grant funds to support this cross-jurisdictional communication. The regional communication's 8 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res.
040655 interoperability project will link the data and voice communications of the ten metropolitan areas in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Counterterrorism Task Force and improve our response to home land security and public safety issues. Hearings like this one are appropriate and beneficial, for they provide our technical experts with the opportunity to address concerns and issues raised by City Council and the public. I will not sit here before you and dismiss any incidents of malfunction as trivial. This is too important an issue to dismiss concerns, but it is also too important an issue for creating undo alarm. I have challenged our experts with the urgency of an appropriate diagnostic analysis of causes and the appropriate fixes. I have made it clear I am not interested in assumptions, hypotheses or speculation. Let's have the facts, the facts and nothing but the facts. Our priority is clearly to protect 9 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 public safety personnel and the public. We will continue and insist that we are taking every step necessary to have a reliable radio communication system. One thing is perfectly clear, the technology we are now using can and must be improved, but it is also equally clear that it is far better than the previous system that was used. We are certainly committed to continually improving this system until there are no issues and making sure that our men and women who risk their lives every day do not have a scintilla of doubt that our technology is as strong as their valor merits. I thank you. Be glad to take any questions.
Mr. Goldsmith, the testimony about you're constantly improving the system, isn't the reliability on the 9-1-1 system, whether it's the old system or the new system, usually a given, I mean, that it works? All the other trappings of high tech or 800 megahertz versus 10 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 some other lesser technology. It seems to me that if we're looking at a $5 million Home Land Security Grant to go to ten jurisdictions, that if we're not getting the very basic function right, just 9-1-1, not the police here talking to the fire departments out there or the feds at that level in an interoperability mode, that we're never going to get there or have anything that will be relied on if we can't get 9-1-1 right. Because I never heard of 9-1-1 being so deficient before this, and I've been around quite a while. Is this something that --
This is our 800 megahertz system, which I believe is different than 9-1-1, but I'm going to let the experts talk about that. I think we're talking about two separate issues.
No. This is using our radio, our 800 megahertz system, which I think went into effect January of 2003. We're not talking about the 9-1-1 11 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 system.
I'm not sure of the precise amount. I think it was a little bit south of $60 million.
I think what Councilman O'Neill was referring to, that for 30 years we had a 400 megahertz system that worked very, very well, very few interruptions of service. You kind of came back on track on me when you talked about whenever you, quote, whenever an institution implements a new system, that there are glitches that do develop in software applications. We had this system on test, I believe, for a long time, and we'll talk more to the Public Property people about that, but 12 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I don't agree with your statement that we should hand off or operate a system that jeopardizes the safety and the welfare of our employees. The problem was also experienced in municipal radio over this week, not as significant, obviously, as police and fire, but, again, I don't agree that we should -- and you said we're not taking this lightly, but I don't believe a public safety communication system of this design and this excellence should have had -- these three incidents, in my opinion, should not have occurred.
Councilman, I don't know where you're reading my testimony that I ever said that we should hand over a system that would undermine public safety. That's not what I said. It's certainly not what's before you.
I didn't say you said that. I said that you said that there are glitches in new software installations. 13 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
And I don't agree that when it comes to a public safety communication system, that we should even allow for glitches or think that glitches are acceptable in this type of technology.
Well, I would agree, and I would say that they will talk in more detail about the type of testing that went on, but the system went through an enormous amount of testing. A lot of times you can't test for every conceivable glitch because you can't test for every conceivable unpredictable circumstance that may happen. And I don't care whether it's our 800 megahertz system or any other system, whether it's sending a man to the moon or a woman to the moon, that you can test all you want, but there are going to be times when there are circumstances that no 22 one ever tested for it. So I think what we've got to find out and I think that the real challenge here is what were the circumstances that put the 14 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 system out of kilter for that period of time it was out of kilter. And I think one of the things that you'll hear is that we will probably have to reenact the circumstances of that day to find out what happened. But you can test 99.9 percent and something comes up where someone introduces a new technology that interferes with yours and so forth. But I think we're in basic agreement on that.
I understand, but, again, I don't remember being told or the field officers, fire fighters being told that, Here, we're giving you a new system, but glitches might develop. I don't think that anyone foresaw any type of glitch developing in this system to the degree that it occurred here. Again, I don't want to beat a dead horse. We both aren't experts in this area and we will hear from the experts to talk more about that. Thank you, Mr. Managing Director.
Thank you. Call the next witness. 15 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
The next witness, Sylvester Johnson, Philadelphia City Police Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good afternoon, Councilmen. Commissioner Johnson, Philadelphia Police Department. And I have Attorney Healy with me just to accompany me today. The officers in the Philadelphia Police Department use the radio system 60,000 to 70,000 times a day, more than any other City agency combined. I'm aware of the issues we have been experiencing and have fielded complaints from individual officers, as well as the Fraternal Order of Police. My first concern is always for the safety of our officers. In any large-scale deployment of new technology, there is always a long period of acceptance, and a new radio system is one of those type of deployments. This new system gives us some capabilities we have never had before but have definitely needed. For example, our undercover narcotics officers 16 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 have their communication for the first time. Drug dealers can no longer simply purchase a scanner and listen to officers' conversations. In the past if an officer lost their radio, the person finding it could cause sufficient disruption of the radio system. Now if their radio is lost or displaced, we simply turn it off, insuring that no one can interfere with public safety communications. Despite all the new capabilities, I realize that we must work through the present problems to insure that reliable communications are available to our officers. The various agencies in this City, including the Police and the Fire department, have been working together for years of both implementation of the radio system, as well as addressing and correcting problems as they arise. I am confident that the City and its vendors will be able to work through these issues. If there are any questions to the Police Department, I have my operational people here to answer them. Thanks. 17 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you, sir.
That's it. Out of courtesy to the Commissioner, we broke the panel up, so we're going to bring the rest of the -- Charles Brennan, Deputy Commissioner Brennan, in.
We're going to bring up Greg Masi, Sergeant of police radio; Lloyd Ayers, Deputy Fire Commissioner of Operations; Michael Moore, Chief Dispatcher; Joseph James and Frank Punzo, Communications Superintendent of Public Property.
I guess we should start off with Deputy Commissioner Brennan to explain what exactly occurred during three occurrences and the impact that it had on the operation of the Philadelphia Police Department.
My name is Charles Brennan. I'm a Deputy Police Commissioner. 18 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Councilman, we submitted testimony, all of us up here, to Council and we thought that we would all introduce ourselves and we would prefer, if it's okay with you, to simply answer questions, because our testimony sort of explains from each of our viewpoints what happened.
I have no problem doing that. Do you want us to introduce ourselves first?
Yes, please. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Good afternoon, Councilmen. Joseph James, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Public property.
Michael Moore, Chief Dispatcher, Fire Department's Fire Communications Center. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AYERS: Lloyd Ayers, Deputy Commissioner of Operations, Philadelphia Fire Department. SERGEANT MASI: Sergeant Greg 19 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Masi, Philadelphia Police 9-1-1 Operations.
Frank Punzo, Communications Superintendent, Department of Public Property.
And, again, we'd like everyone with prepared testimony to either read their testimony or paraphrase their testimony. I appreciate you starting off, Commissioner Brennan.
Paraphrasing would be preferred. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: It's not long anyway. The City of Philadelphia operates a twin Motorola 800 megahertz radio system and it's really divided into System A and B. So that everyone understands this, the Police Department is the sole user of System B. Everyone else rides on System A. On March 25th, a Police Department dispatcher used a function called an Announcement Group. This function allows the dispatcher to broadcast a message to the 20 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 entire City, all the officers at the same time using one radio channel. In this case, the incident was a triple assist officer call. While broadcasting, the dispatcher reported that his console, as well as the rest of the consoles in the room, seemed to lock up. The situation lasted several minutes. During that time, dispatchers were switching to one of the back-up systems when the main system returned and all the consoles could broadcast again. Motorola was notified of the incident. The Announcement Group function was tested the next day, although not under the same stressful conditions, but we were unable to replicate the problem. As of this time, Motorola has not been able to fully identify the cause, although they've made a software change which we believe may correct the problem and we are waiting to test the Announcement Group to see if it works. The second incident occurred on May 18th during another triple assist officer call. 21 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
Can I interrupt? Just to keep the incidents separate, if you could just explain in your own words what the impact, if any, of that block was or that freeze that occurred. In other words, was there a five-minute delay in getting an assist out, did the back-up systems work? What really happened? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: What really happened, Councilman, is that the triple assist got out okay, but what happens is that all the officers try to get back in and mainly they're trying to get back in saying, I'm going in on that. A triple assist is a rare event.
So the two-way part of this was -- the two-way communication was interrupted? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Yes. What happens is that if an officer calls an assist, we notify roughly half the City. So we notify the division that the assist -- and just so we know what an assist officer means, it's kind of obvious, but an officer is 22 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 in a lot of trouble. It is the highest priority call we have. It takes precedence over every other thing that happens in radio. So an officer calls an assist. We essentially broadcast that to the division that the officer is in and the contiguous divisions. So pretty much half the City knows. And those officers will start to run in to help the officer who is in trouble. By the time it gets to a triple assist, we've notified the whole City. And in order to notify the whole City, we use a mechanism called an Announcement Group. It is a function that Motorola provides with their system. This mechanism permits us to use one radio channel. We have 15. It permits us to use one, but talk to everybody in the City at the same time. Now, there's pretty much bedlam on radio when this happens, because everybody is trying to talk, everybody is trying to say, I'm coming in to help the officer. When that happens, what happened is, the consoles all locked up and the dispatchers could not talk 23 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 to the officers on the street. The officers on the street, though, could hear one another. That lasted for a couple minutes. We think about three minutes, maybe three and a half minutes it lasted for. The system cleared itself up and then everything was fine after that. So you're talking the first incidence was about three and a half minutes of the dispatchers unable to talk to the people on the street.
Okay. So, in your opinion, the safety of the officers that needed the triple assist was not jeopardized by this? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, only in the sense that we did get the assist out and the officer -- a lot of officers can't get in because somebody is trying to get in, but they're all coming to get the officer.
So it's not as effective when you can't have the two-way communication? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: 24 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 It's not as effective. Suppose somebody had to say something. For example, the officer in trouble may have had to say something.
Now you're getting to where I want to go. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: During that three and a half minutes, he or she could not have said anything that would have gotten through. But as far as getting help to the officer, it did not hinder getting help to the officer, because everybody knew.
But if you're the officer that needed a triple assist, this is not what you want to happen. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, it's not what any of us want to happen.
Particularly if you're the officer that needs the assist. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Exactly.
May I add 25 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 something to that quickly?
Commissioner, you indicated that the assist officer is obviously the highest priority of calls, and from my experience, that many accidents occur, police officers are injured, and one of the important things that occurs during the initial minutes of an assist or seconds is a resume of an assist officer. So if that officer wanted to resume or say that that assist was under control, that was not possible at that time; is that correct? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, he couldn't have gotten through to the dispatcher to tell him to resume, but the other officers could have heard that they should have resumed.
But my point being is that headquarters would not have been aware that the situation was under control? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: The dispatcher would not have been aware.
And that's Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 important, that the dispatcher know that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Yes, but in the practical matter, they don't resume anyway. I mean, I'm telling you what happens.
I understand that they keep coming in, but -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: They can say resume, resume, resume. On a triple assist, most are coming in.
But they slow down to the point where they are not into the pedal as heavily as they would? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: We would like to believe that they slow down.
How are you confident that the police officers on the street were able to hear those broadcasts? How do you know that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Motorola tells us that they understand what exactly happened and they tell us under that condition that the officers, in fact, would not be impeded from hearing one another. And 27 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I have no evidence from anyone that we've talked to that the officers could not hear one another, although they would probably tell you that because there was so many coming in, that they probably couldn't all get in. So they would probably tell you that they couldn't get in.
Did you verify that the field heard the conversations that radio could not hear? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: No, I didn't. No. No. 14
I think that would have been important to know that. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I would say in hindsight, we probably should have, but knowing how much radio traffic goes on at that time, we sort of understood the situation. We look at it sort of in hindsight. We pulled all the radio tapes and stuff, so we pretty much know we hear.
Well, you wouldn't have heard anything. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: 28 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 What you would hear is one officer. You'd hear one person talking, but, in fact, a hundred might be trying to come in.
So I think it's important to know going forward in the fact if we would have a duplication of this incident, it would be good for management, I think, to know that even though the dispatchers can't hear the conversation from the field, that their officers, their colleagues, supervisors are able to hear. But, again, we're not sure that that's the case. We're taking Motorola's -- we're getting that information from Motorola, that, in fact, that did occur, but we don't know that that occurred. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: And if I remember, I believe we pulled the radio tapes on this and I believe you could hear it on the tapes also. But, understand, you can only hear one at a time.
Just one 29 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 point of clarity. You mentioned that an assist officer is the highest priority on the radio system. Could you explain the difference between an assist officer and a triple assist officer? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: The really only difference is in an assist officer where we just get one call, as I told you, we would probably tell about half the City, the division of --
I understand the difference, but -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: But a triple assist -- well, you have to remember when the first assist goes out, nothing really else is going out. That pretty much takes priority over everything else. And we're just waiting to see what happens. We're sending officers in. We're communicating out, and the officer starts hollering again, I need more help, I need more help, I need more help. So pretty much there's really nothing else going on at that section of the City no matter what it is, except our concentration on that 30 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 assist officer call. So there's really nothing else going to happen until that's cleared up.
What raises it to a triple assist? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: He's calling for more help.
So half the City is not enough help? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, if he's calling three times -- and it might not be the same officer. It might be another officer that gets there and sees that things are so bad, that then that officer, he or she, starts calling for help. So it could be the same officer. It could be a second officer that gets there. It could be a third officer that gets there and screams for help. And keep in mind is that the dispatcher is only listening. They're not quite sure what's happening. They tend to error on the side of sending more help rather than less. 31 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
Commissioner, just one follow-up. If that happened in one of the divisional areas; that is, the incident, what effect did it have in other parts of the City? Was it a ripple effect? Did it happen throughout the entire -- was every console or dispatch point affected by this interruption or did it just occur in the division where the triple assist was? Are you following my question? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Yes, I do. The reports that we have from radio is that all the consoles locked up. In other words, it affected the City. So our understanding of what happened, and it's from what we got from the dispatchers, that all the consoles locked up. So that would have affected the City. So it wouldn't have mattered if the assist happened in South Philly. The Northeast people would have been locked up for about three and a half minutes.
Thank you. 32 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Excuse me for the interruption.
Again, I'm going to follow up again hearing that. Wouldn't that affect the 9-1-1 call going out if the -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: It would affect all the 9-1-1 calls going out. There's nothing going out during those three minutes.
Right. When I started out with the Managing Director, and I didn't know enough to argue. Now I am full of information after five minutes. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: You've been educated in about ten minutes.
This does affect 9-1-1. Whether it's a three-minute lock-up that occurred or a ten-minute lock-up that might occur tomorrow, three minutes is critical if you've got a part one that's active and a person is in danger. So it does affect 9-1-1. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I was in the back when you asked the Managing 33 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Director that question.
He just said it was a radio issue and not a 9-1-1 issue. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I just want you to understand that the radio component is a piece of what we view as the entire 9-1-1 system.
Right. But it's an integral piece. I mean, you have to have a console working for 9-1-1 to work. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I'm not disagreeing with you. It's that when we talk about 9-1-1 --
We're both disagreeing with the Managing Director, although you are not directly. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I never disagree with the Managing Director.
No. I wouldn't ask you to. Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: When we talk about 9-1-1, we normally talk about the call-handling piece rather than the 34 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 radio piece. So we talk about the citizen, that call getting to the radio center and how we handle the call internally. That is more of what we refer to when we refer to 9-1-1.
There's two parts to 9-1-1. One is me getting in my call; the other is them getting a cop out. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Yes. And I would say to you, Councilman, that the radio response is a part of the entire 9-1-1 system that the citizen sees.
It's actually just as important as the other part. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
It doesn't help much to have one if -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Absolutely.
And to help clarify that, in three and a half minutes, if there was another incident, a hold-up in progress, a burglary or another assist officer 35 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 in another part of the City or the calls that Councilman O'Neill is referring to, 9-1-1, were stacking up that were supposed to be going out in three and a half minutes, so if you had a violent crime in progress during that period of time, that call would have not gotten out; am I right? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Since this was a triple assist, there was nothing going out, nor would there have been if the system was working properly.
I'm talking about other areas of the City. I'm not talking about the console -- what area did this happen, this triple assist? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: 14th.
So you're talking -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Up in Chestnut Hill.
Northwest. But I'm talking about a call in south now, a hold-up in progress, a burglary in progress 36 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 would not have got dispatched even though the incident was at the other end of the City? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I know what you're saying, but what I'm telling you, Councilman, is that in a triple assist, we're taking over the whole City. In other words, we're taking over all the consoles. J band is taking over the broadcast from all the -- there's no other jobs going out. So whether it was a burglary in progress or a robbery in progress, our main concern on a triple assist is that officer. And my guess is you had people coming from everywhere in the City to help that officer. So if it was a regular assist officer, like one, your point is absolutely correct. In this case, in a triple, there's nothing happening other than that assist in the whole City.
And for radio to know that the triple assist was under control now to me becomes a very significant piece of information back to radio, because you don't need a car from Northwest 37 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Philadelphia coming to -- or from South Philadelphia coming to Chestnut Hill to involve themself in this triple assist. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I agree.
Now we go to the second incident. Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: The second incident occurred on May 18th during another triple assist officer call. The resources for this assist officer were called using a different function, because we were not using the Announcement Group function. We used a different way to group everybody together, and we call it a Multi-Select. It is selecting each individual division one at a time. Since we weren't using the Announcement Group, we weren't sure it was working right, I put an order out not to use it again. We used a different way of grouping all the officers together, so that J band 38 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 could sort of talk to them all at the same time. It's called the Multi-Select.
You haven't abandoned that? You're waiting for it to get fixed; is that what I'm hearing? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: We are not using the Announcement Group function. We still use the Multi-Select, although we use it a little differently.
So we have a feature that we designed into the system that we're not using because it created an issue and now you are permanently abandoning that function for this other scenario? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: No. Actually, the Announcement Group function and the Multi-Select function are used for different things. The Announcement Group function is the one way that we can talk to the whole City at the same time. That one we are not using until we test it again. The Multi-Select thing we use all the time. It's being used right now as we're speaking. It's used all the time. 39 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 As in the first incident, the triple assist generated a high volume of radio traffic and a great number of officers trying to access the radio system. As this occurred, a number of consoles as well as officers on the street began to experience what we term system busies; i.e., was not an available channel for them to broadcast. News reports that the system were down were incorrect. The system has never been down. There was limited communication between officers and dispatchers because about half of the channels were available, and either Commissioner James or Motorola will go more into what that means. But essentially it was like we were running on half the horses. That problem persisted for a number of hours and it was eventually rectified by a Motorola technician. The Police Department has been working with Public Property, our management and technical consultants and Motorola to learn what caused these problems. Motorola 40 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 has brought quite a team into Philadelphia, and they're looking at all those aspects of the system attempting to isolate the problems. Although some of the problems have not been solved as of this writing, the Police Department, in consultation with Public Property and Motorola, has taken some steps which we believe will mitigate another incident. First, as I mentioned, we're not using the Announcement Group function until it's thoroughly tested. Secondly, we've limited the number of multi-selects. In other words, divisions that we select at one time to only six talk groups. The third step we've taken is, and this is something we wanted to do anyway, we're trying to pull as much traffic as we can off the radio network. We have way too much radio traffic and we're pulling them to the MDTs, the mobile data computers. We're doing more and more over them. Actually, something near and dear to your heart, Councilman, the 41 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 auto accidents. If you have a mobile data computer now, you're getting the auto accident silently, and you and I understand what that means. It should be noted that pulling radio transmissions from the network is not a radio capacity issue. The radio system is capable of doing it. We just think it's a good operational thing to do. And the only other thing is that we understand and we are very concerned and despite what's said here today, I actually appreciate you calling these hearings, because I think that there's been a lot of misinformation about what occurs, and I really hope the hearings go a long way to settling a lot of these issues and really getting the issue out so that everyone understands. And so although you might think that we didn't want this to happen, I'm kind of glad that it happened. So I thank you for that.
No one was negative about these hearings. 42 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: No. I know that. I know and I have a good relationship and you've never been negative, and your concern is the same as everybody at this table. We're concerned for the safety of the people out there and we just want to see this thing work the way it's supposed to. That's all.
Incident three? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, the --
While we're still on the second incident, I'd like to ask a couple of questions. One, was there any similar time period in the second incident where there was any problem with calls going out from dispatch to police officers within the 9-1-1 system? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: What happened in the second incident was vastly different than what happened in the first incident. Our system has 15 channels, 14 of 43 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 which are usable to talk upon. That means 14 different people could talk at the same time. When we got this volume issue with the triple assist, essentially about half those channels went away. If you had to say something from the street and you were lucky enough to get a channel, you could get through and you wouldn't have noticed that there was a problem. Because the assist generated a lot of traffic, a lot of people couldn't get through. So they would get what looked to them like the system was busy. We call it a bonk. The radio actually goes bonk. It says you can't get through. But people did get through intermittently. When the whole issue actually calmed down -- actually, radio thought the system got better an hour later or so. They thought everything was fine. Actually, it wasn't, but what happened is, the volume of incidents in the City got quieter and eight channels was actually enough to get us through for the next couple hours. Radio didn't know the 44 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 difference. It was really a volume issue. But people could get through the second time. It's just that you really probably waited a little bit longer than you should have.
So to that extent, 9-1-1 was jeopardized? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: To the extent that if you had to get through --
If I'm the guy with a knife at my throat and somebody is calling 9-1-1 for me, anything that causes a delay -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Well, your call would get into 9-1-1.
I understand that part. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Getting it out --
It's just as important. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Right. Getting it out during that time period 45 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 would have been problematic during the time when we were most busy.
Okay. I have a question. You haven't used the Announcement Group function since the March incident? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: We've tested it once or twice with Motorola on board, but I wasn't satisfied because we didn't test it under stress, and that's what I want to do.
But having designed this system to have that function when an assist officer or a triple assist officer is required, it would seem to me that the Multi-Select function isn't nearly as optimal where you have to go through a series of divisions or sectors, or whatever you would characterize them as, as opposed to one blast broadcast Citywide, but that's what we're using in place of the Announcement Group function. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Years ago we used to broadcast a lot Citywide. 46 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 We do so less now. The Announcement Group is only good under really very limited circumstances, believe it or not. We don't really use it that much.
But the limited circumstances is the highest priority and the highest priority within the highest priority. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I absolutely agree with you.
One, I'm talking about the public and somebody getting a felony committed, probably pretty nasty for me to be saying minutes or seconds or whatever is going to be critical, but you've got your highest priority situation with an officer in trouble or officers, particularly when it gets to this triple assist. And we've been out of this now for, I guess you're talking, about four months since -- in a couple of days it will be four months that we haven't been able to use the one function that works best for that situation. 47 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I agree with you.
Commissioner, you didn't, at least I didn't hear you, talk about the fact that your system switched over and started to use the channels that the Fire Department, the B side, correct, or the A side? Which is the -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: We're B. They're A.
Right. You did switch over and use channels. Fortunately, the Fire Department didn't have a multi-alarm fire. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: No. No. No. What happened is, a controller switched, and what happened when the controller switched -- and I was going to let 48 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Commissioner James get into that. When the controller switched in the second incident, it's supposed to take all the channels with it. We're still in on our side. We never -- matter of fact, I don't think Fire even knew what was going on with us. They are not involved in that incident. We're still in our side. Everything is happening on the B side here. When the controller switched, what happened is, all the channels didn't come over with it. And if all the channels had come over, actually the total disruption would have been about ten seconds, had it failed as it was supposed to.
So during Incident 2 -- like this past weekend, I understand a different scenario of events occurred, that other than the Police Department was affected by the breakup. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Right.
You're telling me that the issue in the Incident No. 25 2 only affected the Police Department, that if 49 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 the Fire Department would have put a demand on the system at a multi-alarm fire, they would not have seen any problem with the system at all? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Councilman Rizzo, if I could try to answer your question. On the May 18th incident, the problem was isolated entirely to the police side. If the Fire Department, which was located on the A side, had an incident at any time, they had all their resources available to them for communications. They would not have been impacted by the problem that was occurring on the B side at the time of the incident. So at no time did the system switch between the two, between B and A, and there was no diminished effect on the A side.
We'll come back to you to talk more about the technical reasons why this occurred and why it affected Police and not Fire. Incident 3, Commissioner? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: 50 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 The third incident began last Friday night, probably about 6:00, 6:30. We received intermittent breakup of communications. We would classify it as a minor nature where officers had to repeat themselves sometimes. We lost some words. We lost some syllables. That started happening Friday, and it went sort of in and out. It got better and then it would start happening again. Motorola and Commissioner James will tell you what happened. That lasted from Friday night into Sunday, without any major really disruption to communications. And as I said in an e-mail to the Managing Director, is that we never even went to a back-up system. We actually could have gone to a back-up system where this would have completely gone away, but the commanders in charge of radio, I was in constant contact with them over the weekend. They never felt it was that serious to go to the first back-up system, so we never did.
And we'll talk more about the three scenarios 51 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 technically in a bit. Is there anything else, Commissioner? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: No. I have nothing else.
So that was the least of the three in terms of what I've just heard? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I would agree with you. That was probably the least of the three.
Okay. Can I ask one thing, Commissioner? I assume that Police, Fire and Public Property, if not MOIS, was involved sort of as a team in purchasing this system and putting this system together from a specification standpoint? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Yes, although I don't think MOIS was. MOIS was not.
Why would we want our information systems people to mess around with technology, right? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Exactly. 52 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
But could you tell me other cities, do other cities have this same system? Is there anybody else out there that uses what we have? I know you always want to have what you think is best for your city, but you also don't want to reinvent the wheel if some pretty smart people have spent a lot of money already doing it. Is this a system that exists in other places in pretty much the same format? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: I know the answer to this and Joe will, I'm sure, just repeat what I'm going to tell you. Motorola has these systems all over the place, with this exception: The way it's implemented here is rather unique. And so this technology is well-proven technology. It exists in a lot of places. Matter of fact, if you buy a radio system today in your big city, this is the type you buy.
Is this unique implementation in Philadelphia a potential contributor to these glitches that 53 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 have occurred? Commissioner James? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Councilman, to answer the question, as far as the incident on March 25th, no. As far as the incident on the 18th, there is a possibility. As far as the last incident, no. And we believe that uniqueness of how the system is designed in Philadelphia is, when we started this process back in '95 with the RFP, we set it on a solution where we had 30 800 megahertz channels to work with and we went over different design solutions to best optimize the use of those 30 channels for all the City users and primarily for public safety, and we centered on a solution that basically split the 30 into the two groups of 15, and that was by design to provide the highest reliability for failover in case there was a problem. So that if we had a single system that some cities have where they have all their channels grouped together on the one system, you lose that, you lose everything. So we have the ability of having two 54 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 distinct systems operating at the same time, insuring the safety of the fire fighters on one side and police on the other side and the ability to fail between the two should we lose one or the other.
Do any other cities split it that way? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: I think we're somewhat unique in how we designed it. And cities like Baltimore, who have had this system longer than we have, we spent a great deal of time going back and forth and dealing with these other cities to understand the uniqueness of their experience from their design, construction, implementation and management of the system, and we constantly talk to those cities to find out what's going on in their experiences.
Do other cities that are in this universe, call it the Motorola universe described by the Commissioner, Mr. Brennan, have the Announcement Group function? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: I 55 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 believe the other systems have the Announcement Group function.
Are we aware of any other problems in other cities with it? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Not that I'm aware of it.
So that's something we can easily learn from. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: And that's something that's -- I believe the Managing Director said it and Commissioner Brennan said it, is that we take very seriously, it's a concern for us that we have a system that has a specific function that's inherently important to the police operation. They do not have a comfort level of using that feature. That somehow inhibits their ability to use the system fully, and we're working very closely to make sure we can bring that back on and make that available back to the Police Department.
So in a $60 million system with a single function that 56 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 goes to our highest priority within our highest priority, which affects an officer or officers' safety, four months seems to be an extraordinarily long time to be without it, given that we're not a four-person police department with a thousand dollar system. We really got a huge investment here with the leading company out in the field, right? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Yes. And I believe what Commissioner Brennan said is that when they had the incident on March 25th, which was a three- to five-minute, it created for them a grave concern that they were not comfortable with using that feature.
I understand all that. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: But they altered their --
I have a problem with the four months that we're still in where we haven't fixed it. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: But I think Commissioner Brennan said they've altered their operation, because there are 57 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 other features. Like a lot of systems have duplication of features just for the purpose that if you have to use a different feature, like they're using the Multi-Select, they're able to still do their officer assist calls.
Commissioner, with all due respect, the description of the Multi-Select function is not identical to the description of the Announcement Group function, particularly in that triple assist officer. I'm trying to zero in on that, because that's how it happened, it happened in a triple assist. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: I agree.
In a triple assist situation today, we have to use Multi-Select. I didn't hear anything that said this works, we just turned Multi-Select into something that works just like the Announcement Group. It doesn't. You still are going through a series of functions rather than one. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: 58 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Right. You're doing an operational difference to use the Multi-Select feature for what the Announcement Group --
Which is not as optimal as -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: It's not as optimal, but it hasn't --
But this is four months of not being as optimal. I think that is really a long time. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: But that has not allowed the Police Department to do their triple assist.
Right. It just seems four months -- if we're talking four weeks, four days. I don't know when it becomes an overly long period of time, but four months seems to me to be overly long that it's still down. And I'll just leave it at that. Do you have anything else, Councilman?
Commissioner, I think what you're hearing is 59 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 that there was a significant amount of money, close to $60 million, I don't know what the amount is at this point, but for four months, I'm sure we paid a substantial amount of money for that feature and for four months you're telling me that we are using an alternative. It's like a carpenter, his nail gun breaks and he uses his hammer for a week. You know, got the job done, but still you need to fix it. If we paid and we designed the system to have a button that you push to go Citywide, we need to push that button. And if Motorola can't figure it out, then -- I don't know why it would take four months for a company that's had all the experience in installing these systems all over the county can't make it work and work properly. Because it's unacceptable to me for a system to go down for one minute, three minutes, five minutes where officers on the street can't communicate back to headquarters. Again, even though Commissioner Brennan said that the assist officers, they keep coming, but I know from experience and 60 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 talking to a lot of officers, the minute they hear that resume of that assist, they still hurry, but they're not as in a hurry as they once were. And, again, we don't know whether the officers on the street for sure -- we're told that they heard the resume patrol or assist is under control, but we don't know that that happened, according to the Police Department. So I would encourage -- and we'll ask Motorola what they plan to do to get our system back and working and assure that it continues to work in the fashion that they were handsomely paid to provide us a system. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: I agree with you. We're working from the same perspective as that. We have a large investment in the system. There is a feature that is in the system, the Police Department does not have a comfort level of using it. That won't impact their operation, and they need to be able to use that feature.
And since I'm talking about this, I would think that 61 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 since we have had some problems and I understand from speaking to one of your associates that we do have spare parts on site, but I understand over the weekend we had to get parts flown in, meet at the airport. And, again, I don't know if this was an obvious part that should be in Philadelphia to support this system, but I would hope that Motorola, and we're going to ask them later, that they do have a spare parts bin here to support this system until we're confident that it's working and working properly. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Right. I mean, to talk about the incident that just occurred on this past weekend, there was a timing issue that affected the audio for the police officers in the field so that there was a clipping, and there is a piece of equipment that we have at City Hall in the City Hall system that is used to synchronize that. That piece of equipment failed. There was a back-up piece of equipment in place in Philadelphia up in Southampton Road. They brought that down here and installed it. 62 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 We still experienced -- so we did have a back-up.
But it was an operational piece that, for lack of a better description, you stole it from Southampton and moved it down here. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: We didn't steal it since we all own it. We just moved it down here to replace the piece that failed and put it back in service.
Wasn't it serving some function at Southampton? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: It was serving a function, but when we moved it down here, it didn't have an operational impact on Southampton Road.
So it wasn't needed at Southampton? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: No, I didn't say that. It didn't have an operational impact on Southampton Road. We fixed the audio. That was what the intent was, to move the piece to fix the audio while Motorola came up with a final solution, which 63 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 is to bring in another replacement piece, which is they flew in at their cost to resolve the problem and ultimately get the system back operational.
That was defective, that piece that came in -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Yes.
-- also? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: Well, no. The piece that came in was not defective. The piece that we had was defective. And Motorola can speak to the issue of whether the piece that came in was defective, but I believe from what I remember from the weekend incident, it wasn't a defective piece.
So the piece at Southampton was defective and it was in operation there? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: And they sent both the primary piece and the back-up piece back to the factory for testing and fixing. 64 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
So we had a piece of equipment at Southampton that was there in service that was defective?
Southampton Road. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: We had a back-up piece that they moved down that was up Southampton Road, and, again, I'm going to have Motorola speak specifically to it, but my understanding is the piece that they brought down was because it was working and not a defective piece up in Southampton. They brought it down here to replace the defective piece down here in City Hall. When they put it in the system, it still did not resolve the problem and that's why they didn't feel comfortable and they decided to fly in, and we agreed, that they ought to fly in a replacement piece to replace that.
Thank you, Commissioner. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JAMES: 65 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Sure.
I'm going to ask this panel to take a seat. Unless the Fire Department has something to add, it seems like it's mainly a police issue we're dealing with at this point. And if it comes up in the course of -- I believe the two union representatives, the presidents, are going to be up next. If something comes up dealing with fire, we can call you up. But I ask you to stay here, and then I'll ask Commissioner James to come back up after that with Motorola.
Deputy Commissioner Ayers, did it affect the Fire Department at all? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AYERS: We did have some effect.
You did have some problems? Okay. We'll have you back. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AYERS: This past week.
I'd like to call on 66 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 Robert Eddis, President of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5, and David Kearny representing the Local Philadelphia Fire 5 Unions, Fire Fighters Union. 6
Pull that 9 mic in closer to you and identify yourself. 10
David Kearny, 12 Recording Secretary, Fire Fighters Union, 13 Local 22. 14
Good afternoon, 19 gentlemen. We would like to thank you for 20 having these hearings. 21 I believe that some of the 22 discussions that have taken place, we've seen that everybody is really truly interested in resolving this problem. I'm not going to be able to dance and give you rhetoric or some 67 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 kind of jargon that may be technological. I'm just going to be able to give you what I hear from the officers and the problem that we've experienced. When I hear March 25th and May 18th, I find it very ironic, because these are the only three issues that have been brought to light. However, these problems have existed for a long time. We actually started implementing where we go out every single week, myself, I ride in police cars just to hear to see what the problem is. A long time ago when I was a young officer, we used to have a terminology that they used to always quip: Use your radio, don't use your gun. My question is, we don't have that radio now. What should we use? And I'm not trying to make light of the issue, because on Saturday I had the opportunity to be out there walking along with the officers, and they are the same way. Their job is not to understand the technology of their equipment. It's just to have the equipment there available to them. 68 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 We've had meetings, I would probably say, I would be underestimating if I would say that there's been at least 15, times we've 5 been down at our headquarters talking to our 6 command staff in regards to, What are we going 7 to do? We hear, Well, you know, it's new 8 technology, you don't embrace it. 9 We do embrace technology. We think 10 technology and the overall goal of this system 11 is fantastic. Any time we can bring all 12 emergency services together, we're all better 13 served. And I think we realized that 14 specifically after 9/11. 15 But the people on the street, the 16 ones that need to have the back-up -- and what we did was, we put out a questionnaire, because we've made every attempt and a lot of times if it wasn't for the information we received from our officers, we wouldn't receive that information. So we don't always have that give and take that everybody likes to think exists, even though we've made an attempt to have that. And we put out a questionnaire this 69 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 week asking our officers in regards to the problem so they can put it in their terms, nothing fancy, no lawyer jargon, no exact English. Throughout the entire tour, transmissions from officers to radio or radio to officers were broken. This went on constantly and required both all too often to have to repeat their transmission radio, also indicated officers were transmitting at the same time and blame them for the problem. This radio system is supposed to prevent that problem. Radio only indicated that transmissions were broken and officers weren't being courteous by transmitting at the same time. This radio system is the worst change the department has made in my years 19 of service, and that was signed from one of 20 the sergeants that's working out there on the 21 street. 22 We have gone out there and we have 23 tried everything we could to talk to our officers to explain to them the significance. And I know this may not be getting to the crux 70 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 of what the technical problem is, and I apologize for that. I can't provide you that. I can just let you know that from being out there, the officers -- and you say, Well, what is a small matter of time? What's a minimal problem? Let's give you an example. I need an assist officer at 4th and... That becomes the question, 4th and where? If you're the person that's calling out asking, that's not insignificant.
The problem that occurred I believe on the date of May 18th, one of our families -- because we're also part of the community, even though sometimes people like to think we're separate. We are the community. On May 18th, if somebody picks up that phone and calls for an emergency, what response do they get back in return? There was nothing available. The next day we had a call downtown to find out. That night we were notified and we called all of our districts in regards to how the situation was going to be able to be handled. 71 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I think a lot of times over the last year and a half when I bring it to people's attention, they become extremely annoyed, and I think the reason why they become extremely annoyed is because they've been involved in the process from the very beginning. And I understand the significance of believing in something and doing everything I can to make sure that that works out, but sometimes you have to remove yourself from that and say, What is the benefit to the officers on the street? What's the benefit to the community? And let's not mislead ourself by thinking that these are the only three times that there was problems out there. On the one incident we heard there was nobody hurt. Well, I made the mistake of believing that. So I went out at that press conference that we had on the day of May 19th and I said, We were informed that no one was hurt. On that afternoon, a young officer came into me from the 39th District who had been injured as a result of the assist officer. And a triple assist, if anybody 72 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 knows anything about police officers, we do everything we can not to call an assist. It's almost like you can handle the situation. It may be a little -- I don't know what the term would be, but you'd like to feel as if you're trained and you can handle most situations. If it elevates to a triple assist, there's a problem. If you can't get in, there's a problem. If officers are coming in to a scene when it's not being resumed -- how many people have been hurt either going into or going away from a scene? And that's where our concern is right now. We're not here to point fingers to blame. We believe it was $52 million that was spent on this program. We talked to people around the country and heard other places where they said the system worked. We know in the very beginning we had the opportunity to work with Sergeant Masi and Inspector Scott Small. They worked with us fantastically. Not to put them in harm's way within the department, but we were very upset about that, because some of the stories that 73 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 were coming in weren't being verified. So that then itself became third-party issues. Well, this one heard this. And that's why we wanted to go out ourself and see. The comfort level right now of the Philadelphia police officer on the street is one that was realized this weekend, because we all said what would happen if this happened during an emergency situation. I think we're very fortunate the way the Greek Picnic played out this year, but what if it didn't? What if this would have been one of the Greek Picnics from previous years? And we can all say, Well, you're making it the worst case scenario. Police work is worst case scenario. Any questions?
Mr. Eddis, one of the criticisms -- and I don't know if I even want to use the word "criticisms." There is an operational change from the way the radio system used to work. For 20 years we had, or even more, 30 years, the 400 megahertz 74 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 system where if an officer -- if there was routine traffic going back and forth and there was an emergency, the officer could overtalk that transmission and a dispatcher or other cars because of the way the receivers were able to hear that. One of the complaints I hear, and if you could verify, that if there is an emergency, that they can't get through because the system is so designed not to permit them to get through.
Well, there is a button that they can push. It's what's known as an -- initially it was referred to as an assist button. Because when the program first came out, we were actually out doing roll calls when they were starting the training process of this, and a lot of the officers themselves didn't always use the equipment that was provided there to them, in all fairness. There was a comfort level of reaching for it, and there was different things, as the Commissioner stated, with the 75 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 narcotics unit. That was resolved. But it was changing the whole way that they were used to doing it. And at that time, we made a request and they also included into the training in regards to officers having more hands-on with an item prior to them going out there. But the actual hitting of the equipment itself was handled differently than it was in the past.
But hitting the emergency button tells radio that a particular radio is in trouble, but it doesn't tell them where that officer is, correct?
I believe it gives them a good indication of where that officer is. That's my understanding.
We'll talk more to Motorola about that, but when, I think, Commissioner Brennan and even maybe the Managing Director indicated that there is -- I haven't seen any resistance from the officers to use the new system, but I have heard some legitimate concerns, that the system is 76 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 sometimes cumbersome or difficult to use during an emergency situation. So I really need to understand what that means, because I've been told that in an emergency, I guess what I'm hearing is that the emergency button is the only way to get through, that if there is activity on that radio or that system, that the officer can't get through and say that, I'm in trouble and I have an emergency.
I agree with you. And the other problem was, there was a lot of dead spots also in the beginning. That was a problem that a lot of the officers had out there. Certain areas up in the 14th District, there's a place called the Box, which is just one of those things that lends itself to hard communications. If you don't mind, before you go to the fire fighters, I would like to defer to Jim Wheeler, only because from the beginning when the meetings first started in regards to what this system was going to be, Jim was both the point person for Rich Costello and for 77 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 myself. So if you don't mind him making a few comments and then I'll...
Yes, sir. With due respect to everyone that has spoken, we're talking about a system that the officers on the street have no faith in, and that's the biggest problem. This weekend certainly didn't help. We could suppose or create scenarios that if it happened during Freedom Week or Greek Picnic or some other events that were maybe tenuous at best, it would have been tragic. It didn't. We're grateful. Thank God. The problem is that I have an e-mail here I'm just looking at, it's in my folder. It's from June of '03 from an officer. We've been working with the City diligently, supporting them in every step of the way, working with them. We've implemented new training for our officers for the radios to help, because some of the reasons given, that it wasn't being implemented the way it 78 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 should be is because they weren't trained well enough in how to use that. And we publicized it, we worked on it, we preached on it. We've done everything that we think necessary to be a partner with the City in promoting this system, because we believe in a good system. It's gotten to the point now where we can't wholeheartedly tell our members that you've got a good radio system here. That's where we're at. And it isn't three times. The June of '03 e-mail is just another of many of daily, weekly, monthly calls and e-mails to us about garbled, can't hear, can't get through, knocked off the air, bonked, boinked or whatever the heck it is. And it's ongoing. And I know they're working on it. I know that there's good people here behind me that are pulling their hair out probably trying to get this thing straightened, but as the good Councilman said earlier, how long is too long and do we have to have a tragedy before we really take this thing seriously? It isn't something we can just say, Well, this was a minimal incident. I've got a 79 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 folder here with all sorts of people calling all the time. Bob has got people that he rides with every week. And the first thing out of their mouths, other than what's in the new contract, is the radios. And it is, as you, I think, were trying to allude to earlier, cultural in the beginning. We tried to work on that. We miss our radios in the car dearly. People of my age and experience, we miss that, that safety blanket. But it's something that we're evolving out of, and this is probably a better concept for the future. And we're working on it, educating our officers, but it's got to work, and they have to have faith in it, and they're not -- it's just not happening.
Can you explain the difference between the old system with the radio in the car and how this works and how it's different?
This is a totally portable system. It's attached to you. It's with you all the time. 80 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655
Yeah, it's on your shoulder. And if you didn't have a hand-held radio in a car or wagon years ago, when you got out of the vehicle, you're on your own. So in that respect, I thought it was a great move, but you always knew that your radio in the car or the wagon worked and it was alive, you could hear the --
It is a distinction and you did have that override that you could hear somebody else in another car calling even though two other people and the dispatcher were talking. You could say, No, no, no, he's at 4th and Girard. And that availability isn't with this system and, you know, okay. But if that was the only problem, I think we'd all learn to live with it.
I understood that there was an issue with portable radio 81 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 batteries where an officer couldn't even get through a tour of duty with one battery and they didn't have spare batteries?
We had officers come to us. We'd be out on the street at details and they'd show us that they had batteries in their pockets. I mean, it got to a point where everybody -- the batteries were running out and everybody was afraid to go in and get a new one. They'd get a new one, it would be dead before they got back out to where they were supposed to be. And I know the City has addressed that with getting a new version of the battery, but it makes you wonder when they were sold that particular product -- I was at the meetings. That battery is supposed to last for over ten hours on a full charge, and this is not what was guaranteed, so to speak.
Well, that's it. If it isn't that, Bob mentioned that they had the dead spots. Boy, the Police Department 82 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 and the technicians worked their tails off to get those dead spots cleared up. They adjusted the towers. They adjusted the dishes and everything they did to correct that, and they really were showing a lot of effort that they wanted to get it right. That's why we supported them so strongly, but right now it's really hard.
The last thing we need on police radio is to hear a police officer saying, Can you hear me now.
The most bothersome thing that I've heard from you two gentlemen is that with a system like this that clearly has some problems, and it isn't just the three incidents that have been publicized, that you are taking up the function of management in getting input back from the officers on the street who are actually using this system as to how well it works, not just when something is publicized and we read about it in the Inquirer, Daily News or hear it on the radio. 83 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 It would seem to me that right from the Commissioner's office on through every other part of this responsibility from the City administration side, we should be spot-checking constantly with the men and women that are front line and relaying these problems to Motorola on a constant basis. And I didn't hear any of that. And I know the people are still in the room and I'm going to ask some more, but it seems to me that the union has a different job in representing -- it shouldn't be something that is a communication with management issue. That's management's responsibility. I'm glad you're doing it, because it's bringing information forward and everybody wants more information, but I'm just wondering why the people that are e-mailing you and probably worried about whether somebody is going pick their name up are not being solicited by the people that are responsible for this system, this $52 or $60 million system. I would think that Motorola would 84 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 want to know how this is affecting officers on a day-to-day basis, because if I'm the city out there looking at the next system and Motorola is competing with somebody, it sounds like Philadelphia is a place I'd want to check to see what the progress is on some of the issues that are in the 800 megahertz system.
I think we're all here for the same reason; that is, for truth, and I would not feel comfortable sitting here without responding to that, because in all fairness, Motorola, along with the department, have held probably so many meetings and the department has reached out so many times to legitimately say, Where are the problems, whether it was at the University City, whether it was the 35th District. It's like we're finding a problem -- I point out poor Sergeant Masi. I mean, there was times I'm talking to him 3 o'clock in the morning. 85 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I don't think that's always the case. I think --
And I truly believe in my heart that there is no one within the Philadelphia Police Department that meant any harm to anyone. I just think it was a matter of wherein the problems were brought up so many times, we brought the issue in regards to the batteries very early on and we were told, Well, maybe the officers aren't having them charged right. We said, Well, that should be then a bulletin explaining how the battery should be rotated, rotated. And then I had the advantage of being a supervisor down in the subway and we had major problems in the area of communications in regards of what to do if a radio went down. And these are things that we tried to sit down and work side by side with the administration in. I think because of the newness of the program trying to put a finger on it, I 86 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 think that everybody in this room is just as frustrated as we are. I think as a result of us being out there on the street, taking the approach that we took to actually ride in the cars, which we felt was our responsibility as the representative agency of these officers, it gave us the chance to see firsthand something that Jimmy pointed out. As a result of this, the confidence level -- and I think when the system was put in, everybody thought that it was what it was being sold to be, the next best thing, because it was going to link all technology. I think as the surprises came up, I think that's where the frustration level may have developed. We said about the batteries. Until May 18th, we never heard back that, Yeah, you're not out of your mind, the battery has been a problem. So while we're out there, at times we were saying to ourselves we're actually becoming almost like the gatekeeper for the department, exactly as you said. We seem to be fulfilling a different role on which we 87 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 thought was our responsibility and not to overvalue ourselves, and that was something that we took serious in sitting down and saying, How can we work this out, how can we get this to a point where it can be identified, we can look and we can know that these people who are saying these complaints exists. We're going out. They exist. There was dead spots and it can be identified. So, I mean, we knew -- and then I think a lot of times the perception was, Well, you want it the way it always was. See, I'm different. I like change. I think change is good. I think we have to move forward in this day and age, and I hate to keep on throwing it back to 9/11, but my thing is, as an elected official representing my members, what level of responsibility do I have if I don't put the City on notice and say, We've come to you, we've tried to work, we've tried to point out these problems. On May 18th we were never given an answer of what actually caused the problem. Over the weekend, minor. When I hear the term 88 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 "minor," it's almost like saying minor disturbance, which is an officer's worst nightmare. You don't know what you're walking into. And we're not trying to be out there making things more than they are. We're just saying that we feel that our officers need to be able to have an environment that's conducive for working. What level of threat can be eliminated as a result of them knowing. The greatest security in the world is knowing when you call for a back-up, that the officers are going to come in. It helps you keep the system under control to make sure nothing gets out of control. If you're calling and you think people are coming and you're standing there and no one is coming and then officers -- I went into the 19th District and a sergeant grabbed me out of roll call and he said, I want you to talk to this officer and explain to him what you as president were doing last night when he almost got killed out there. And it was a radio situation. And the reality 89 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res.
040655 was, when we were done, I was arguing with the sergeant saying, What responsibility do you have to make sure that the training is going to your officers, too. So we're not trying to pin one against the other, and I don't think that was the intent of anybody's hearings here today. I think it's just a matter of saying, Do we have a guarantee that this is not going to happen again? When the officers call me and we asked the questionnaire, we never get responses like this from our members. This was only within like a four-hour period we received these kind of things back from people who normally are not complainers. I mean, you have some people, no matter what, change they're going to oppose all the way down the line, and then we're out there and they always tell me I'm shilling for the Commissioner. That's what I get everywhere I go. Well, you're just defending the Commissioner. I'm like, No, no, you have to embrace this, you have to see. 90 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 But when they're pointing out and then when you a situation like this weekend -- like I said earlier, without overdramatizing it, you call for back-up, you're not coming or they don't hear you, that's very frustrating. So that, compounded with everything else. So I apologize for not being able to give you the technical reasons of all this. I can just tell you from an officer's point of view that they're frustrated out there and they're asking us, as they did last night at our meeting that was full, What are we doing, where do we go, are we safe when we are out there, what's the system? After May 18th, we had a discussion. The Deputy sat down and worked with us a policy so officers now know what to do when this type of thing breaks down, and we're very appreciative of that. But we're just in fear, when is the next major disaster. And we're not looking to wait until afterwards. And I hate to make the analogy, but I sure hope this isn't like Tucker where you're going to wait until afterwards and it was cheaper to pay for 91 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 the damage than it was to fix the problem.
I've talked 6 to officers. You talk about confidence in the 7 system. I've talked to officers that tell me 8 that they now carry a personal cell phone on 9 duty with them because they are concerned 10 about their safety. 11
The night that I 12 was in the 24th District there was a stolen 13 auto and the officers couldn't get through 14 from each other, and they actually were able 15 to relay and make the apprehension as a result 16 of talking to each other through their own 17 cell phones. And I believe now the policy is 18 that the officers are not allowed to have 19 their cell phones out there, which is making 20 it even worse. 21
That's 22 pretty sad. Oklahoma City was -- cell phone was the only way anybody could talk to each other, and that is what got all the interoperability started nationwide. 92 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I said Engine 22. That's mine. But Local 22. Sorry.
Commissioner Ayers indicated that there were some problems with the fire system. Could you tell us, after you make your remarks, of what effect this has had on the Fire Department?
I'll start out by saying we haven't had nearly the same amount of complaints --
I'm sorry. David Kearny from Local 22. We haven't had nearly the same amount of complaints it seems as the police officers have. I'm guessing it's because operationally we function differently in the way we use the radios. I will say this: I'm a front-line paramedic. I've been through the radio training through the Fire Department, and the first questions that were asked when we went for our training is, Is this the same -- one 93 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 of the first questions that was asked when I went for my training for the radio was, Is this the same system New York has? And I'm sure you're aware that they had many problems with their radio system failing prior and post 9/11.
It is the same type of radio system. It is an 800 megahertz trunked radio system.
It is a similar system. So there's a lot of -- in the world of the fire side, there's a lot more communication between departments. Guys know different departments. So we knew that they had had problems up there. We've had no similar communications with the Fire Department such as the FOP has. 94 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 There's been no formal communications that I know of as far as problems with the radio. The department has a form that we can send in to list problems. What action they've taken on that, I don't know. It's not -- we've had some slightly larger concerns in the last few months, as you well know. So this has kind of taken a back seat to those things. I can tell you from many anecdotal accounts and my own personal accounts that we have the same problem with the bonking, the radio traffic gets too much, you can't get through and you might have to push the button, and then if you push the button, sometimes you're left having to explain, Well, why did you push the button, it wasn't that big of an emergency. When you have multiple units responding at one time, the way it happens in our operation on calls, a lot of the time you're constantly trying to get through on the radio, trying to key the radio up, waiting your turn in line to get through. 95 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 I know that we have problems with penetration into high-rise buildings. I've been on many fire grounds where we had to switch to what they call the analog band, which doesn't use the repeater system, so that the chiefs could talk to each other on different floors of the building. The biggest problem with that is, it totally defeats the emergency call button. Every fire fighter on every ladder and engine has their own personal radio that identifies them as the fire fighter with the tip, the officer, the pump operator, the pack man, and if one of those men goes down and are operating on this analog band, we don't know.
Headquarters doesn't know. That's who would tell us. It would come up on their console.
But because you're using the analog, you're not being monitored by fire headquarters, correct?
Correct. But 96 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 that's not an everyday occurrence. It's occasional and it's specific to certain incidents. It's not on the same scale as the police are having. However, there are problems in the system.
Commissioner Ayers again on his way to the last panel indicated that there were problems this weekend. Could you describe your knowledge of what occurred and what effect it had on the Fire Department?
We received at the union hall no complaints about the problem. We did not receive any complaints this weekend regarding that problem.
Maybe the Commissioner knows something that we're not aware of. We'll ask him that question. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen. Why don't we call Commissioner Ayers up before we bring Commissioner Brennan back with Motorola, just to follow up on that 97 Public Safety/Technology - 7/14/04 - Res. 040655 recent situation. Commissioner, you just don't have to limit yourself just to this past weekend, but any comments you want to make about this system is appropriate. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AYERS: Well, basically the comments that I was going to make was related to this weekend.