Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [3]
Philadelphia is broken down, for police department purposes, into eight geographical divisions and the Park Division. Each division is headed by an inspector, and contains from two to four districts, each commanded by a captain. Generally, each division has its own radio frequency, but in some divisions, really busy districts--the Twenty-fifth District in the East Division, for example--have their own separate frequencies. Detectives' cars and those assigned to other investigative units (Narcotics, Intelligence, Organized Crime, et cetera) have radios operating on the "H-Band." All police car radios can be switched to an all-purpose emergency and utility frequency called the "J-Band." Special Operations Division has its own, the "S-Band."
For example, a police officer in the Sixteenth District would routinely have his radio switch set to F-l, which would permit him to communicate with his (the West) division. Switching to F-2 would put him on the universal J-Band. A car assigned to South Philadelphia with his switch set to F-l would be in contact with the South Division. A detective operating anywhere with his switch set to F-l would be on the Detective's H-Band, but he too, by switching to F-2, would be on the J-Band.
Senior police officers have more sophisticated radios, and are able to communicate with other senior police brass, the detective frequency, or on the frequency of some other service in which they have a personal interest. Ordinary police cars are required to communicate through the dispatcher, and forbidden to talk car-to-car. Car-to-car communication is authorized on the J-, H-, and S-Bands.
"Communications discipline" is strictly enforced. Otherwise, there would be communications chaos.
There is provision, however, for a radio room dispatcher-- simply by throwing the appropriate switch--to send a radio message simultaneously to every radio-equipped police vehicle, from a police boat making its way against the current of the Delaware River through the hundreds of police cars on patrol to the commissioner's and mayor's cars.
This most often happens when an operator takes a call in which the calling party says, "Officer needs assistance. Shots fired."
Not every call to 911 requesting police assistance is legitimate. Philadelphia has its fair share of lunatics--some say more than its fair share--who like to involve the cops in any number of things having nothing whatever to do with maintaining the peace and tranquillity within the City of Brotherly Love. And Philadelphia's youth, having watched cop movies on television to learn the cant, dial 911 ten or twelve times every day to report a murder, a body, a robbery, a car accident, anything that will cause a flock of police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming, to descend on a particular street corner and liven up an otherwise dull period of the day.
The people who answer the telephones didn't come to work yesterday, however--Miss Eloise T. Regis, for example, had been on the job for more than twenty years--and usually they know, from the timbre of the caller's voice, or the assurance with which the caller raises the alarm, that this particular call is legitimate.
When Miss Regis answered the call from an excited Latino-sounding lady reporting a robbery in progress at the Roy Rogers at Broad and Snyder, she had known the call was genuine.
At 11:21, a call went out from Police Radio.
"Possible armed robbery in progress, Roy Rogers restaurant, Broad and Snyder. Unknown civilian by phone."
Officer Kenneth J. Charlton, of the First District, then patrolling the area, responded, "One seven. In on the Roy Rogers."
As Mrs. Fernandez was speaking excitedly with Miss Regis, there was the sound of a shot, and some unintelligible shouts.
The door to the kitchen