Hey did anyone else catch the car chase on DPS West 460.3 Friday night?
I watched live video from the Channel 10 news helo on their website, while listening to the traffic on the DPS frequency. It was pretty neat stuff. Near the end the bad guy crashed in a tunnel and a DPS officer called out a 998 (shooting) when the guy drove at him and he was forced to fire on him, wounding him critically.
The DPS called in Phoenix PD snipers and SAU guys with barricades to move in on him, and while listening I watched it unfold from the Channel 10 helo camera shot.
Interesting was that the chase started on DPS West 460.3 and they KEPT IT THERE as it ended up in North Phoenix. This caused a lot of communication issues with the officers and the (patched) Phoenix PD helicopter since that repeater operates off of Estrella Mountain which is pretty far from where the chase ended up. I was very surprised that they didn't switch to DPS Central 460.325 (repeater on Shaw Butte - just a few miles from the chase ending), and have the normal traffic for that channel re-routed to another frequency like DPS East TAC for instance, but I am assuming they didn't want to switch channels on an active chase, or maybe the East repeater (not sure where it is) wouldn't have given adequate coverage for the Central units. Either way, the comms were so broken by the end of the chase it was a real officer safety issue. Makes me wonder when the DPS is going to move to a more modern system.
I watched live video from the Channel 10 news helo on their website, while listening to the traffic on the DPS frequency. It was pretty neat stuff. Near the end the bad guy crashed in a tunnel and a DPS officer called out a 998 (shooting) when the guy drove at him and he was forced to fire on him, wounding him critically.
The DPS called in Phoenix PD snipers and SAU guys with barricades to move in on him, and while listening I watched it unfold from the Channel 10 helo camera shot.
Interesting was that the chase started on DPS West 460.3 and they KEPT IT THERE as it ended up in North Phoenix. This caused a lot of communication issues with the officers and the (patched) Phoenix PD helicopter since that repeater operates off of Estrella Mountain which is pretty far from where the chase ended up. I was very surprised that they didn't switch to DPS Central 460.325 (repeater on Shaw Butte - just a few miles from the chase ending), and have the normal traffic for that channel re-routed to another frequency like DPS East TAC for instance, but I am assuming they didn't want to switch channels on an active chase, or maybe the East repeater (not sure where it is) wouldn't have given adequate coverage for the Central units. Either way, the comms were so broken by the end of the chase it was a real officer safety issue. Makes me wonder when the DPS is going to move to a more modern system.