We were issued alphanumeric pagers for SWAT but the LT that programmed them would not add news, sports, etc. So I found out from a dude on another department how to program them and added all the extras to mine. You could also send pages through the website of the company. Person or persons unknown abused this service and sent fake pages with the FBI field office number and an urgent message to call.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
We had several folks thrown under the bus for over the air hijinks. (Some were classic.)
The best were the "Chinese fire drills" necessitated by working with Miami-Dade, City of Miami, FDLE and BSO...where we needed to have three sets of phones and multiple agents / officers in a car to communicate properly (especially with the handie-talkie enabled phones) so everyone would understand the QSL / QTH lingo of the locals and the 10 codes that we used...in addition to the fact that none of the equipment was compatible. (Since we rarely had enough spares to go around for everyone to utilize the same gear.)
Last edited by blues; 04-01-2018 at 08:03 AM.
There's nothing civil about this war.
Hey, my last assignment in the Army, I had a cellular Secure Telephone Unit (STU) - basically a shoe-sized flip phone with an encryption device built in. It was the shizznit, and I rocked that thing in a fanny pack off duty when walking around Miami...
I was issued a Samsung Galaxy as a work phone. My phone is my MDT. It's used for NCIC checks, complete reports, warrants, affidavits, traffic citations, take photos for my reports, communicate with my partners, dispatch, etc. It's extremely handy and fits in my back pocket. Most importantly it keeps me from having to use my personal phone for any work purpose and subjecting it to discovery.
I noticed the phone when I watched the video. I hadnt seen any video prior to the officer putting his car in park but my immediate thought was that agency must use their phones to do ncic checks, etc. I've ran plate checks on my phone just prior to stopping a vehicle so it didn't seem odd. The curse of an object occupying a hand and not getting lost under stress I think is a valid point and something I try to keep in mind during training and performance.
We issue the S6 Active. Durable phone. Used for communication, managing body cam video (Axon Body 2), accessing Department email, reports (you can do a report on it, if you have tiny fingers and good vision), and soon, traffic citations (e-cite app). You can check DMV and mugshot photos, take photos, etc. Actually pretty handy devices. A few years back, when we first got them, we had a juvenile escape from the Juvenile Justice Center. Old protocol was to obtain a photo and run it down to the operations center, who would prepare the bulletin. I just photographed the mugshot and emailed it to the whole department. Kid was in custody 29 minutes later.
As for using the phone for ANY function while driving...it would violate our policy and be a bad idea, in my opinion. MDTs can be distracting enough.