Monday, August 22, 2011

Click here to read the original article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

It’s been two months since Oakland Mayor Jean Quan unveiled the city’s new police radios, and many cops tell us the system is as problem-plagued as the junker it replaced. “As it stands, the system is still absolutely unreliable,” said police union head Dom Arotzarena.

Ken Gordon, the interim tech director charged with getting the new $10 million, 2,000-radio system up and running, says that although there have been glitches, “in the past three weeks it’s been a very solid system.”

The cops, however, tell us a different story.

“On average, we’ve had a problem every other day,” said one police source in the know, who didn’t want to be named because he isn’t authorized to talk to the media.

“The last system had dead spots around the city where you couldn’t hear anything, but this system has its own problems,” the cop said. “Sometimes it sounds like everyone is underwater.”

Gordon concedes sound has been a problem, but said that was the price of switching over to a digital system.

“Someone is going to get hurt,” Arotzarena countered. “And the citizens of Oakland are going to pay the price.”

Click here to read the original article in the San Francisco Chronicle.