Radio Failure Threatens Officers' Safety

The orange button, meant for emergency calls on IMPD police radios, have failed, and that creates a potentially deadly threat to the safety of nearly half of the department, 6News' Jack Rinehart reported.

"We never did have an officer safety issue when an officer tried to activate his emergency button and it didn't work. So, that was a relief," said Sgt. Chris Nielsen.

Officials detected the emergency button failure issue during a training exercise on Friday.

The communication agency immediately issued a recall via in-car computers, pagers and at every police roll call. Officers turned in their radios for reprogramming over the weekend.

On Wednesday, officials said more than 150 officers were still carrying radios with emergency buttons that don't work.

The glitch occurred after the police and sheriff's departments merged Jan. 1, Rinehart reported. The problem went undetected for nine months and impacted more than 600 police officers in every department tied to the county system.

"It could have been a dangerous or deadly situation had the officer needed to use that part of the device to summon the necessary backup," said Fraternal Order of Police President Aaron Sullivan.

Marion County's radio system is so outdated that replacement parts are no longer manufactured. The system is also prone to dead zones -- places where officers lose total communication with dispatchers.

Police will have a new radio system installed by the beginning of next year.