Kane County SO Deputy Shot in Fredonia AZ

[Hooligan]

Kane County deputy shot in Arizona; officers searching for shooter in desert
Published: Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010 5:52 p.m. MDT
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FREDONIA, Ariz. — A Kane County sheriff's deputy was shot Thursday afternoon while in pursuit of an armed suspect.

Officers from various agencies are responding to the scene and the officer's condition is still unknown, Coconino sheriff's representative Erika Wiltenmuth said. She said she did not know what prompted the chase that started in Utah and crossed into Arizona, but reported that the officer was shot just after 2:20 p.m.

Some news outlets are reporting that a law enforcement officials confirmed that the deputy has been killed.

A Washington County law enforcement official said a SWAT team was headed to Fredonia, Ariz., just a few miles south of the Utah border.

"They've asked for a lot of manpower," said Hurricane police spokeswoman Nancy Perkins.

Representatives from Coconino County said the suspect's name is Scott Curley and he is armed with a high-powered gun. He reportedly fled into the desert with a high power scoped weapon and fired at officers during two distinct exchanges of gunfire.

The Deseret News will provide updated information as it becomes available.

— Emiley Morgan

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As of 7PM MDT (6PM Arizona time) the suspect is still at-large. In addition to Arizona resources, LEOs from Washington County, State Parks, Iron County, etc. are all at or on the way to the scene & a command post has been set up near the AZ/UT border in Fredonia.

I'm hearing repeater comms on 155.70/155.070, which is the Kanab/Kane County area main LE channel, used also by the Fredonia Town Marshal & AZ DPS when in the area.

 

[Hooligan]

Now that it's all said & done with (except for the murder still being alive), most of the comms related to the extensive manhunt were on the 155.070/155.700 Kane County UHP channel normally used by UHP down there, Kane City Police, Fredonia Town Marshall, & even AZ DPS when in the area.

Once the repeater was reserved for manhunt use, the officers from other venues (mostly Hurricane PD) that came down to do the regular patrol & call-taking were on the Statewide LE channel of 155.505MHz/162.2Hz

Washington County SO SWAT was on 155.880 for some intra-team comms while also on 155.070.

Arizona DPS Ranger helos were on 463.100 talking to themselves & their forward operating base at Kanab Airport.

151.460/88.5Hz was a repeater being used by I believe Arizona State Lands Rangers.

UHP Tac 3 -- 155.745/210.7

460.475/151.4Hz was used by AZ DPS units (repeater & simplex).

AZ DPS Region 1 & Region 2 SWAT Teams took a while to show up, but they were active on 460.475 and then another repeater/talk-around channel reserved for them. I'm trying to remember the freq. They used TAC ### callsigns, with TAC 100 being the Region 1 SWAT Commander & TAC 200 being the Region 2 SWAT Commander.

165.2375/100Hz was used simplex by some ICE agents, who along with USMS, were amongst the first feds to arrive.

Many SWAT & SAR Teams that deploy to rugged areas like the Fredonia/Kanab area use Garmin RINO GPSs, which are a combination GPS/FRS/GMRS radio, in order that they can quickly send their coordinates to other operators or a command post. In this case, they used FRS channel 4, with some voice BS'ing & operational traffic in addition to the data signal coordinates.


Overall, I'd have to rate the communications procedures as pretty poor. Only after the pesky media started showing up at locations did they really use SMS messages to pass some sensitive traffic, though when they had surveillance units watching houses of the suspects friends & relatives, they used cell-phones to pass on those addresses. Early one morning a ranchowner was woken up to some strange noises & called 9-1-1 immediately. LE teams from the staging area were sent to the ranch & of course had to approach slowly & cautiously -- fair enough. But due to comms issues & location confusion, it took over an hour before the FBI SWAT & CBP Teams operating in the general area understood where the ranch house was so they could focus on that area, and it took over two hours after the initial call before a tracking dog was sent to the area from the staging location. Once the dog was there, it did verify the scent on the windowsill as being that of the suspect, but by now, he had a several hour head start. A CBP fixed-wing aircraft with thermal imaging gear was sent up (again, an hour+ later) but had to return to Kanab Airport due to comms problems.

Incident Command communications (the command post/staging area at the Fredonia Fire Station & the Tactical Ops Center in the field) was pretty bad. They didn't assign a tactical dispatcher to operate the radios, the IC (who was usually the Fredonia Town Marshall, later sharing the task with a couple AZ DPS Command Officers) used the radio directly. As you can imagine, those people were pretty busy, so as a result, units calling them from the field often had to call numerous times over several minutes before the IC responded back.

Due to coverage issues, most of the SWAT teams in the field would communicate with the TOC on a simplex freq, and then the TOC would relay info as necessary with the IC/Command Post via repeater channel.

The number of LE personnel involved was staggering. I've seen a lot of different figures in the media, the highest being about 400 people from 30+ AZ & UT state, county & local LEAs plus numerous federal LEAs (FBI, USMS, CBP, ICE, BLM & ??). Even some teams from Nevada showed up.


I really thought that once the CBP BORTAC team showed up, the suspect would be caught quickly, as BORTAC has the equipment & experience that's absolutely perfect for that type of hunt.

I feel bad that I used such a horrible event to allow me to determine radio/freq usage, and it was frustrating at times to hear some of the comms problems (as they say, effective communications are a force-multiplier). Some comms issues can be expected to occur in a highly fluid event involving so many different resources, especially in the initial stage, but other problems should simply have never occurred, though the bottom-line is they caught the bastard.