Philly Radio System Goes Dark

Police officers in Philadelphia reported back to their station houses to double-up in patrol cars after the city’s public safety radio system failed last week for nearly an hour. The Motorola trunked system has been the subject of officer complaints since it was installed in 2002 for $60 million. The police officer’s union says its the 14th documented outage for the system. City officials said three back-up systems also failed, but a fourth method of radio communications did work, along with cellular phones. Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, said he believes the outage was related to an earlier lightning strike. Motorola issued a statement saying only that after an investigation, the company, “has a firm understanding of what caused the incident.” Read more about the political aftermath of the outage here, and a newspaper editorial about the situation.