Radio Security

If you have a $30 scanner you can listen to CPD radio traffic on twelve different zones, six different citywides, and if you know a Radio Shack geek, you can find the other frequencies set aside for other traffic.

For $80, you can buy a transceiver and broadcast on those frequencies. The FCC might catch you or they might not, depending on weather or not you move around when their triangulation attempts kick into gear.

In the meantime, this happens:

• Interim Police Supt. John Escalante has ordered an investigation into “absolutely unacceptable” racial slurs broadcast on a police frequency that was recorded and circulated online, a spokesman said.

 Of course it's unacceptable. But was it the police?

• But late Monday, a spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications said the broadcast doesn’t appear to have been made with the use of a “city-programmed” radio.

We won't go into the particulars, but everyone on the job knows that there are certain identifier codes that are transmitted with CPD-issued radios. This is how they know this isn't a Department issued radio. But that didn't stop this nonsense:

• Activist Will Calloway and reporter Brandon Smith, who pursued the legal case that got the Laquan McDonald video released, spoke out against police racism outside City Hall Monday.
  
  "I think it speaks for itself," Calloway said, citing the recording as proof of "systemic racism that's going on and that's present in the Police Department."

Really moron? We just explained how with $80 and some spare time, you can commit all sorts of mischief. We haven't even touched on the real damage someone with a real agenda could do....someone like....

But that wouldn't be possible - someone with a vested interest in maintaining high tensions to provoke incidents and provide "proof" of some practice, to spend $80 to make potentially millions.