Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Police lose track as radios fail on Tube

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 18:19:28 -0400

Police lose track as radios fail on Tube
InSourced, UK - Apr 5, 2004

Hundreds of people would have been killed or injured if a device had
exploded. After successfully locating the man, officers trailed
him. They did not want to make an immediate arrest because he was in a
busy area and, if a genuine suicide bomber, could have
set off the device. As he entered an Underground station, however,
uniformed officers lost sight of him and could not radio
colleagues to guard the exits at other stations because neither their
old radios, nor their recently issued replacements, work
underground. The man was later apprehended and turned out not to be a
suicide bomber but officers are concerned that if he had
been genuine their inability to keep track of him could have had
potentially catastrophic consequences. Senior officers at Scotland
Yard have expressed their fears about the problem of the radios and Sir
Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police's Deputy Commissioner,
has raised the issue with David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. The
failure of the police radios in the incident, which took place in
October, has only just emerged, but it is understood that the potential
problem has been known for at least three years. Police
attending an incident on the Underground are advised to wait for London
Underground staff, who are equipped with working radios,
before venturing further. Richard Barnes, a member of the Metropolitan
Police Authority, said: "I have been trying to get something
done about this for years. I find the situation incredibly worrying. "To
have police officers deep underground where they cannot even
talk to each other at either end of the station is a major issue. This
is part of the preparedness of London for a terrorist incident.
"The one thing you have got to have as a frontline rescue service is a
communication system that works. You have to be able to
talk to each other otherwise you could be directing more people into
danger." When officers staged a major terror alert at Bank
Underground station last year police had to install special equipment to
enable their radios to work. Senior officers at Scotland Yard
claim privately that one reason that nothing has been done to solve the
issue is because of a dispute over funding. The Home
Office is arguing that London Underground should pay for the improved
equipment, but London Underground managers take the
reverse position. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "Current
police radios and phones do not work in London
Underground stations that have no open-air section of track." The
statement added: "Arrangements are in place with London
Underground for a member of staff with a radio to accompany any
personnel going into these stations, or to provide them with a
radio on arrival. "Officers must inform their control room both before
they go out of radio contact and when they return to the police
radio network. "A risk assessment must also be made by officers before
entering an area that does not have radio contact with a Met control
room." A Home Office spokesman said that it was seeking to identify a
technical solution.

Courtesy of www.news.telegraph.co.uk
http://www.in-sourced.com/article/articleview/1576/1/13/

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