Today, it is much more difficult to learn in real time what police are doing and why, creating challenges for police accountability groups and journalists such as Ruiz.<\/p>\n
On June 2, the department flipped the switch to encrypt its radio communications, shutting out the public from hearing what police are responding to and receiving instant public safety updates.<\/p>\n
Anyone tuning to San Diego police radio communications \u2014 often called \u201cscanner traffic\u201d \u2014 will find dead air.<\/p>\n
San Diego was the last municipal or regional law enforcement agency in the county to go radio silent. Departments throughout California moved to encryption to comply with a 2020 directive<\/a> from the state\u2019s Department of Justice, which tells police to ensure they keep people\u2019s personal identifying information off public radio traffic.<\/p>\n Watchdog groups, journalists, advocates for open records, and everyday folks who had regularly tuned in to scanner traffic decry the lost access to police radio communications as a step away from transparency.<\/p>\n Journalists \u201cneed to hear what\u2019s going on in real time so they know the questions to ask police. Otherwise, journalists are forced to just believe the sort of PR version of events that officers choose to put out,\u201d said Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit in California that focuses on open government and press rights.<\/p>\n Darwin Fishman, a professor in the African-American Studies department at San Diego State University and a former member of the city\u2019s community police review board,\u00a0said that without real-time scanner traffic, he worries that community members trained to monitor the police and journalists will arrive late to police scenes, if at all.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tug of war always is about how secretive they are, and it feels like we\u2019re always pushing for them to be more transparent,\u201d Fishman said of law enforcement. \u201cIt\u2019s always a question of: \u2018What are you hiding if you\u2019re doing your police work right? Why aren\u2019t you willing to open that up and share that with us?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Why it happened<\/p>\n Personal data \u2014 names, addresses, dates of birth, driver\u2019s license numbers \u2014 could be the sort of thing an officer might rattle off to dispatchers to check for warrants or get needed information during a traffic stop.<\/p>\n In an October 2020 information bulletin, the California Department of Justice laid out for agencies two options to ensure such personal information was kept private: craft a policy and approach that ensures no one transmits personal information on public channels or encrypt the radios.<\/p>\n Most departments throughout the state chose encryption. Chula Vista and Escondido made the change early on. One by one, others in the region followed. San Diego\u2019s switch had long been in the works; Assistant Police Chief Shawn Takeuchi said the department was already looking to upgrade its old system when the DOJ bulletin went out.<\/p>\n In September 2021, the city approved<\/a> a $51 million, 10-year contract with Motorola to update the radio system for departments throughout the city, from police to fire to parks.<\/p>\n In 2022, the department began the gradual rollout<\/a> of switching about 3,400 handheld radios and upgrading the 1,050 mobile radios in its vehicle fleet. By the beginning of this year, the communication system was in place.<\/p>\n Takeuchi said it was not feasible to continue to balance communicating between public and private channels, as the department had been doing for the past few years. If an officer in the field accidentally forgot to switch to a private channel and shared personal identifying information over the radio, the department would be liable under the DOJ directive and possibly subject to an inquiry from the state or a lawsuit filed by someone whose information was improperly shared. He also said having officers bounce between public and private channels during an active incident is\u00a0dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving it be both public and private, although it sounds like a solution, operationally it hampers us and makes us less efficient,\u201d Takeuchi said.<\/p>\n Jeff Hebert, communications coordinator for the Sheriff\u2019s Office, said the county agency made the switch in 2022<\/a> after it, too, realized it wasn\u2019t feasible for command staff to expect deputies in the field \u2014 especially during high-pressure, high-intensity situations \u2014 to adhere to the directive in real time.<\/p>\n \u201cWith over 4,000 employees, all it takes is for one error, for one person to broadcast information over an unencrypted channel that they weren\u2019t supposed to and then we\u2019re in violation of that DOJ requirement and we\u2019re liable,\u201d Hebert said.<\/p>\n San Diego police officers union President Jared Wilson views the move to encryption as positive. Wilson said he believes scanners are being used by everyone from street racing take-over crews to fentanyl dealers to cartel groups to stay one step ahead of police.<\/p>\n Takeuchi also pointed to \u201cnefarious individuals\u201d who might listen to scanner traffic with the intent of grabbing information for identity theft.<\/p>\n That sort of possible eavesdropping by bad actors has been a concern with public scanner traffic for decades. The solution was to move sensitive work \u2014 such as undercover drug operations or high-risk search warrants \u2014 to encrypted channels while making the day-to-day calls for service accessible.<\/p>\n The California Highway Patrol largely doesn\u2019t encrypt day-to-day traffic. The vast majority of access to personal data by officers in the field is done over a computer in their car rather than radio chatter, although sometimes officers in remote spots can\u2019t get an internet connection, CHP Lt. Matt Gutierrez said.<\/p>\n However, he said the department is actively testing new technology and plans to encrypt its radios \u201csometime in the future.\u201d One big reason, he said, is that most law enforcement agencies across California are now encrypted and \u201cwe want to be able to work seamlessly\u201d with them.<\/p>\n What it looks like<\/p>\n Since San Diego police flipped on their encrypted radio communications, it has cut off journalists like Ruiz and everyone else from hearing what is happening and what police are doing.<\/p>\n Ruiz, 43, is an overnight freelance photographer who primarily covers breaking news. He used to jump from city to city chasing calls to produce video under the name 619 Media that he then sells to local TV stations and other media, including at times the Union-Tribune. But for the last month, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s been stagnant.\u201d On a recent day, all he covered was a single traffic crash.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could have been so many events going on in the city, in the county, and I was not aware of it, because I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u201d Ruiz said.<\/p>\n He listens to fire department radio traffic, which remains unencrypted, alert for clues indicating the call also involves a police response. He monitors online dispatch logs \u2014 generic, sparse and sometimes outdated \u2014 that some policing agencies in the region provide. He also watches flight radar to see if law enforcement helicopters are up and flying.<\/p>\n Like Ruiz, freelance photojournalist Bill Paul also tries to \u201cread the tea leaves\u201d to figure out what is happening and where. He fears the public is not hearing about notable events, nor is it getting the complete picture.<\/p>\n \u201cScanner audio gives more than just raw facts. It helps us understand the situation based on tone, pace, and urgency,\u201d Paul wrote on his blog June 24.<\/p>\n Some agencies post online dispatch logs with limited information. The Sheriff\u2019s Office has a \u201ccalls for service\u201d<\/a> webpage that supplies type of call, time and location. Oceanside police offer a dashboard<\/a> with a color-coded map of current calls.<\/p>\n San Diego police also post <\/a>where officers are being dispatched. The details are sparse, and while it provides the name of the neighborhood \u2014 say Rancho Bernardo or Allied Gardens \u2014 it does not specify a street. And there is an hour-long delay for calls to post.<\/p>\n Takeuchi said he is looking at improving it.<\/p>\n Why it matters<\/p>\n Without access to police radio traffic, the public has to largely rely on law enforcement to disclose incidents.<\/p>\n Paul, the photojournalist, noted that on June 10, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg at a Bay Terraces apartment complex. The teen\u2019s injuries were not considered life-threatening. The gunman was not apprehended at the scene. San Diego police eventually supplied basic information about the incident, but only when asked after news of it hit social media.<\/p>\n In the Encanto use-of-force incident in October, Ruiz\u2019s video remains one of the only visual depictions of the police encounter. The First Amendment Coalition recently sued the department<\/a> seeking access to the officers\u2019 body-worn cameras as well as other records that the group alleges are public.<\/p>\n Watchdog groups also rely on scanner traffic to help police the police. Tasha Williamson, a local law enforcement accountability advocate, has trained community members to monitor and record actions of officers in the field.<\/p>\n \u201c(The monitors) make the community more aware of what\u2019s going on, and they have increased the number of people standing up for their rights,\u201d said Williamson. \u201cAnd if there\u2019s a viral video, and there\u2019s too much negative attention and media, that can shift the direction of how the department wants their officers to act.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-encrypted-scanners-002.jpg\")
San Diego police dispatcher Taryn Hawthorne on duty at Police Headquarters on Wednesday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"At](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-encrypted-scanners-005.jpg\")
At San Diego Police Headquarters downtown, the radio system screen displays the frequencies that have recently been converted to the encrypted system.\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Parked](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-police-scanners-004.jpg\")
The scanners that Bill Paul, a freelance photojournalist, uses no longer pick up San Diego police radio traffic, which is now encrypted along with most other local law enforcement channels. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n