PSP to begin patrol of Philadelphia

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KAA951

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Thought this change might be worth posting. Should be a big change in scanning if you like to listen to the highway patrol guys...

Troopers To Patrol In Philadelphia; City's FOP Lodge Upset
From The Philadelphia Daily News, July 20

Gov. Rendell will announce today a series of measures to increase law-enforcement resources in Philadelphia, including federal money for firearms investigators, increased witness-protection funding and the deployment of state troopers to patrol key city highways.

For Philadelphians, increasingly worried about gun violence and the mounting number of homicides, the deployment of state troopers to the city may be the most significant move.

That's because many of the city police officers now assigned to patrol work on I-76 (the Schuylkill Expressway), I-95, I-676 (the Vine Expressway) and Woodhaven Road would be available for other crime-fighting duties.

City Councilman Frank Rizzo, who for a decade has pushed for the state to pick up the costs of patrolling the highways, said he's been told that as many as 70 police officers, working on three shifts, now patrol the highways. That includes a truck-enforcement unit, which Rizzo would like to see continue functioning after the troopers begin to patrol.

"It's my understanding that in the new budget approved by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, there's $7.5 million to reimburse the city for patrolling those highways," Rizzo said. "Some time after the new year, the state troopers will be here."

Philadelphia is the only county in the commonwealth in which the state police don't patrol state highways, he said.

Jack Lewis, a spokesman for the state police, said that the department's plan is to assign 60 troopers to cover the key city highways, though a date has not been set for the start of service.

"We're working out the logistics," he said. "We have equipment and facility issues to deal with."

There's also a large class of 122 in the State Police Academy with a larger class slated to start later in the year, he said.

An unintended consequence of the new deployment, according to Rizzo, will be that Philadelphia motorists will encounter radar for the first time on the major highways. "We may see a tougher level of enforcement with that radar," Rizzo said. "We also need to see a change in state law so that Philadelphia police can use radar."

But the deployment of state troopers to Philadelphia is not sitting well with Robert Eddis, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"My concerns start with the impact of outsiders patrolling our streets and being unaware of our city and its culture," he said. And rather than deploying troopers here, Eddis said he urged the state to pay the city for the cost of patrolling, a position that Rizzo also pushed for years.

Eddis said troopers have higher salaries and more costly benefits than city police. "For the money the state is spending, we could have more officers on the street if the state paid the city for the work," he said.

Complaining that the state's assignment of troopers to the city is a loss of work for his union members, Eddis said he plans to file an unfair-labor-practice complaint as soon as the first trooper starts patrolling.

Rizzo, meanwhile, is elated with his personal victory. "I pushed this during budget hearings for years to a point where I know my colleagues were tired of hearing about it, but I also knew that eventually we'd win."
 

ctrabs74

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Short-term, it probably means we'll be able to hear patrols on the expressways on PSP's B Channel (which is also used by the Avondale and Skippack barracks). Long term, it won't mean a damn thing AFA scanning goes once OpenSky is implemented in this part of the state...
 

JRM5204

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Anyone know if PSP has any kind of communications with the city? Besides supposedly patroling the expressways they are patroling some parts of the city too I beleive uniform and plain clothes. I still here the traffic unit expressway cars being dispatched to calls on I95 not sure about I76.
 

JRM5204

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So what you think PPD Communications Center has a OpenScam radio to communicate with PSP? I haven't heard any patches from PSP but I usually just monitor the citywides and then switch to the district bands if I want to monitor something. I do hear patches from SEPTA Transit Police Comm Center on J Band and University of Pennsylvania Police Comm Center on Southwest Band. I been hearing alot of refrences to PSP lately but seems PPD has no cordination with PSP.
 

HM1529

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JRM5204 said:
So what you think PPD Communications Center has a OpenScam radio to communicate with PSP? I haven't heard any patches from PSP but I usually just monitor the citywides and then switch to the district bands if I want to monitor something. I do hear patches from SEPTA Transit Police Comm Center on J Band and University of Pennsylvania Police Comm Center on Southwest Band. I been hearing alot of refrences to PSP lately but seems PPD has no cordination with PSP.

I would guarantee that PPD has at least one OpenSky radio. As part of the statewide radio system, every county comm center was given at least one OpenSky control station to be able to link their local systems with the state system. What I don't know is where the patch from PSP goes to the Philly system. I can't monitor Philly from my location so I can't listen to figure out how this is set up. All I know is that it's been publicly stated that PSP is using OpenSky to be able to contact PPD for assistance/back-up.
 

Audiodave1

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I would suspect into J-Band for hand off to the appropriate district dispatch. I've been running trunker for a few weeks and nothing new to report.

Dave
 
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