San Diego Sheriffs Department Public Information Transparency
San Diego Sheriffs Department Public Information Transparency
Why this petition matters
The San Diego Sheriffs Department has fully gone encrypted. What does this mean for you? It means the police scanners are in the past. People want to know what's going on right away and not wanting to wait for hours for answers in regards of active shootings, school lockdowns or major police activity in your community that may require you to know what's going on for the safety of you or your family. If the San Diego Sheriffs department services your city, you are now in the dark, unless you wait for updates from the Department. With the scanners, you can receive immediate information from news sources or outlets.
Many people who live in the East County or rural areas within the San Diego County, depend on police scanners during wildfires to activate animal rescue volunteers and others who may own horse trailers and other equipment to help rescue! Many of the volunteers depend on police scanners to send help when things sound bad or the fire takes a new path! Minutes matter when it comes to help! When the lilac fire hit in the Fallbrook area in 2017, many volunteer groups went out to save horses with horse trailers. Some horses did not make it but with the help of the volunteers many others were saved. Being blind of natural disasters can cause more harm than good. If we dont take a stand, you will have to depend on Facebook groups of what people think may be going on vs credible and reliable information. What we want to hear is about an attempted child kidnapping or a wildfire that's burning close to homes. How about why our child’s school is on lockdown? Without the local news having immediate access to hear those emergency calls, it may be hours for the public to know whats going on. We are calling on San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore, San Diego County Mayor's of each city and county leaders to not encrypte the main dispatch channels and only encrypt the channels that are necessary to protect the privacy of others. We are also calling on Escondido Police Chief and all other agencies that are encrypted or plan to go encrypted, to care about the community and to be transparent. San Diego Police Department had the option to go fully-encrypted, but they chose to only encrypt a specific channel called Inquiry that is used to run people's information, such as, Driver License numbers, addresses and DOB. We ask that Bill Gore will use SDPD as an example to be transparent with the community and make sure the community is well informed of what's going on.
Video links of what San Diegans due to help others in need!
Update*
Cal Fire is not encrypted so this does not affect any fire departments. In an event of a brush fire if it's isolated to one city and San Diego Sheriffs Department is the only agency working the incident on law enforcement side then the radio will be encrypted. If the fire is involving multiple law enforcement agencies then they will be on the RSC system LE North or LE south which is not encrypted.