Posted on Wednesday, 30th June 2010 by Patrick Dorwin
Tomorrow morning there will be a press conference regarding the Open Sky radio system that was pressed into use by the Milwaukee Police Department. Even though it is millions of dollars over budget, it still doesn’t work properly. We at BadgerBlogger have been collecting and sharing with you, information from police officers for months, such as the radios did not work while officers were chasing someone with a gun through Washington High School. But we have learned that we are not alone. Stay tuned for the details as they come available.
Tags: OpenSky
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15 Responses to “Another OpenSky shoe is about to drop”
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June 30th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Any idea as to what is prompting the conference?
July 1st, 2010 at 7:19 am
I received some info from CRG which Patrick put into link form. The first link is a CRG “News Release” and the rest of the links are a few examples of the radio problems as described by Police Officers on MPD forms:
http://badgerblogger.com/docs/OpenSky/Preliminary%20Press%20Release.doc
http://badgerblogger.com/docs/OpenSky/scan0001.pdf
http://badgerblogger.com/docs/OpenSky/scan0003.pdf
http://badgerblogger.com/docs/OpenSky/scan0015.pdf
http://badgerblogger.com/docs/OpenSky/scan0023.pdf
July 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I attended the CRG press conference at the City Hall Rotunda this morning. Those in attendance included Chris Kleismet, Orville Seymer, alderman Bob Donovan, Mark Buetow (representing the Milwaukee Police Association) and Al Jansen (representing the Milwaukee Firefighters’ Union). All but Seymer addressed the media which appeared to consist of 7 to 9 people and Jeff Fleming. No other aldermen stood with Bob Donovan, and I only observed two aldermen who even walked into the Rotunda during this presser. Of those two, only one stopped to talk with Flynn’s P.R. gal Anne E. Schwartz who was there making sure the members of the media got handouts from the Chief but didn’t seem to have any extra for Bob Donovan when he asked for one or others present.
Flynn himself arrived with Schwartz but went upstairs without stopping to listen. I saw a number of his Captains arrive as well. As I later learned (and suspected all along) he held his own presser to address CRG’s concerns. Didn’t surprise me because after the CRG presser ended, Anne E. herded the media people upstairs with this comment, “Are you ready to take an elevator ride?” A rather strange way of putting it coming from a Police spokesperson.
I jotted down a couple of things said by the following:
Donovan: “It’s a damn shame that nothing gets done in this town until things go public.”
Jansen: “The radio system is not working as it’s supposed to”. He also brought up the Pizza Man fire on the east side as an example of the inability of firefighters to communicate via the radio system.
Some of the media tried to bait Kleismet, and anyone else who would bite, into asking if the County (meaning Scott Walker) has been approached with this info. Kleismet fielded that question with this answer, “This is the City’s responsibility, not the County’s.”
I was rather disappointed that there weren’t off-duty members of MPD present to stand in support of this effort. I just hope they appreciate the effort being made on their behalf. Some will call it grandstanding, but the fact of the matter is that when the people responsible for addressing these concerns fail to do so after being informed of the problem, then there is no other alternative but to take it public.
July 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Ryan Haggerty has it on jsonline: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/97585054.html
Note the responses of Pat Curley and Mike Murphy. Don’t address the problem, just accuse CRG of having an agenda. So what if CRG does have an agenda? Is this not an issue of Police Officer safety (and soon to become Firefighter safety if the same system is forced on them)? Real leaders solve problems, they don’t point fingers.
July 1st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Ryan Haggerty’s updated article (with lots of good comments at the end): http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/97585054.html
July 1st, 2010 at 4:40 pm
From the link to Ryan Haggerty’s article: “The accusations prompted Police Chief Edward A. Flynn and Ald. Michael Murphy to question the motives of the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsible Government, which released more than 500 pages of Police Department reports Thursday that document problems officers have experienced with the new radios. Flynn and Murphy also outlined steps the department has taken to improve the system.
Murphy said he believes the watchdog group, which describes itself as fiscally conservative, is trying to blame Mayor Tom Barrett for the radio system’s problems in advance of this fall’s gubernatorial election.
Barrett, a Democrat, is running for governor against Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, both Republicans.
Barrett’s chief of staff, Patrick Curley, said in a statement that the accusations against the Police Department and Barrett are “irresponsible and reprehensible.”
Okay all you coppers and firefighters out there, this is how Mike Murphy, Pat Curley and your Police Chief view this issue. They don’t see it as a matter of safety. These people are such political hacks that they only see it in partisan terms. CRG’s attempt to expose this problem after you all failed in your attempt to get it fixed through your normal chain of command is being called “irresponsible and reprehensible”. You and your union heads need to remember this come election time when these hacks come to you looking for endorsements and money. They want to make it political? Then make it political! Keep this issue on the front burner. Read the comments at the end of the jsonline link. There are alot of people on your side.
July 1st, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Glenn, was not one word given on current status?
From the Urinal article:
“It’s as political as they want to make it,” Kliesmet (CRG spokesman) said in an interview.
Oooo. That had to hurt.
July 1st, 2010 at 6:22 pm
There are some people making points in the comments section of the jsonline article, just as we’ve had some here at BB, who seem to know more about this problem and possible solutions than the powers downtown (which really doesn’t surprise me). This public discussion isn’t going away anytime soon.
July 1st, 2010 at 6:58 pm
You can view the entire list of 244 reports released by Citizens for Responsible Government, here.
I haven’t had a chance to go through many, but just clicked a few links at random… Wow. These are copies of the actual Radio Trouble Reports (RTR) that officers have been asked to file. I guess the chief didn’t plan for the taxpayers to ever get their hands on these. Instead of fixing the problem, they chose to, once again, attack those bringing these issues to light.
Just a few quick hitters:
In this RTR a pair of Sergeant’s go into a fairly long complaint about officers safety and the reliability of the system.
This Sergeant says his partners radio was receiving transmissions, while his was silent.
This officer also raises officer safety issues.
Another Sergeant and his partner both have the same problems, showing it is a system problem, not just a bad radio.
This officer had to leave an apartment to call dispatch… What if she had been fighting for her life and couldn’t walk outside to make the call?
These officers couldn’t use their radios while in a drug house. What if a drug dealer would have been fighting them?
This one is to powerful not to quote:
I believe this one is from the incident at Washington High School, which we broke here at BadgerBlogger.
These are just a few random clicks from the CRG page linked above. You will notice that several of these reports are from Sergeants, experienced officers, these are highly trained individuals, not rookies that can’t operate the radio.
Chief Flynn, Mayor Barrett, the Milwaukee Common Council, put an end to this before you kill someone with your broken toy. There are many systems that will both work and meet the new federal guidelines. Cut your losses before it’s too late.
This is totally unacceptable, and the city of Milwaukee wants to force fire fighters to use this next.
July 1st, 2010 at 7:15 pm
and then there’s Sgt. Willie Murphy: http://badgerblogger.com/?p=16063
July 1st, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Fox6 Coverage: Watchdog group & police union say new OpenSky radio system putting community at risk
Did anyone notice that Ald. Murphy looked like he just rolled out of bed after an all night bender?
July 1st, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Here is an outstanding interview sent to me by Blake Arnold, it is an interview he did today with with
Dave Seager, President of Milwaukee Fire Fighters Local 215.Correction, this is Lieutenant Al Jansen, a fire fighter / paramedic with MFD. Fire Fighters are next in line to get OpenSky, and they are really concerned about the safety of their fire fighters.Video corrected to properly identify Fire Fighters union official
At about the 5 minute mark, they talk about using the Milwaukee County system, and Seager goes on to tell us that all county paramedic units do operate on that system and it is one of the only county-wide systems that actually works. They use a digital system, that actually works.
This is something that @mkescan, @peterepublic and myself have discussed many times on Twitter. The system is there, it is expandable, and it works.
July 1st, 2010 at 9:41 pm
JSOnline has posted the raw video of the press conference.
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I wonder if Milwaukee Fire Dept, has been told not to install any OpenSky radios until after the November 2010 election.
Remember back in February they said they could be installing OpenSky mobiles in March.
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:27 pm
What if they installed the stuff sitting in boxes before the election, and OpenSky still had problems?