I thought you’d be interested in a story from the New York Post.
The NYPD is spending $3 million to equip every investigator with sleek new police
radios for the first time as part of a strategy to improve safety, The Post has learned.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has give the go-ahead to buy 4,000 Vertex VX
800 radios to replace the bulky handsets with their long rubber antennas that investigators
say are clumsy and a giveaway that they are detective from an NYPD squad room.
Under the new initiative every detective will have his own smaller radios that will be
more easily carried and concealed.
The purchase will eliminate the frustration of having to share radios or, worse still
having to wait for one to become available while heading out to probe a murder, rape, or
other serious crime.
The concerns surrounding the radios surfaced following the murders of Brooklyn
Detectives Robert Parker and Patrick Rafferty .
The two 67th Precinct cops were gunned down last September when they tried to help
a woman whose son, Marlon Legere, grabbed Parker’s weapon and killed them.
Although the NYPD radios did not play a direct in the tragedy, it became obvious
that detectives often left these life-saving radios behind in their cars rather than risk
being immediately identified or to walk around with them in their hands when they
might suddenly need to take action.
“One of the key issues that came up was the fact that detectives felt
was no place to conceal them,” said Michael Padino, president of the Detectives
Endowment Association.
Kelly said that the detectives will keep their new radios 24/7 instead of swaping
around the squad’s battered allotment of cumbersome Motorola Sabers when they
come and go to work.
“The program is designed for detectives” safety and to encourage them to carry the
smaller radios, which are more conveiient and easier to conceal than the bigger
heavier models,” Kelly said.
Sources say the department may expand the initiative to replace every radio on the
force and equip every cop with his own radio.
The new Vertex weighs less than a pound and are 4.3 inches tall, 23 inches wide and
1.1 inches thick. By comparison the Motorola Sabers are nearly three times the size,
and far more suitable to uniformed patrol force, officials said.
Paladino said the NYPD security review is also focusing on bullet-proof vests, their
9mm guns and holsters, as well as tactics.
Right frequency
Benefits of the NYPD’s new Vertex radios:
* At 12 ounces, they are half the weight of the old radios.
* They are a pocket-sized 4.3 x 2.6 inches.
* With 4,000 on order, every investigator will have one.