WPA unit on Hagerstown PD Ch 3?

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Gilligan

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I was just listening to Hagerstown PD. A unit came up on Ch 3 (858.7125), which is the detective channel, identified himself as WPA43 (it also sounded like WMPA43 at first, but was definately WPA43 afterwards), and called the dispatcher, who quickly replied. A minute later, he asked for a warrant check on a subject. Another minute passed and he informed dispatch that he had taken the subject into custody and would be transporting to HPD sally port. Literally one minute later, he gave his ending mileage -- he was that close.

Now I'm trying to figure out who this special unit may be. I would say he's a member of a team or something different than Hagerstown Police, as he specifically called for the Hagerstown base and mentioned the Hagerstown PD sally port, which an HPD officer would not do. For one, HPD officers now refer to dispatch as "county", and two, it would be redundant for and HPD officer to tell his dispatcher he's going to his own jail. So it's a safe bet he's not with HPD.

He's comfortable using HPD Ch 3, which is used for the detectives and for tactical operations. So this channel is serving as his own dispatch channel. Now this could be the Narcotics Task Force, but I don't know how well the coverage is in the rest of the county. If they were in an area outside the range of Hagerstown's radio system, they could just use cell phones or Nextel. That would be a possibility then.

Any ideas on what WPA stands for? It could also be a shortened version of WMPA. This could also stand for the Western Maryland Police Academy, which is apparently run by the Hagerstown Police Department. Now this may be a stretch, but it could be that WPA43 or WMPA43 is a cadet and that they are doing radio training/testing on channel 3 to avoid tying up the regular dispatch channel. That would also explain why he would use "Hagerstown" in his communication and why there was almost no transport time -- it may have just been a simulation.
 
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Gilligan

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The same unit, WMPA43, has now gone 10-23 on another subject, so I'd say it's safe to assume that this is definately a cadet in training. At least now we know who these units are...
 
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