Greenville police to switch to encrypted radio communications

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – If you own a police scanner, starting Friday, the Greenville Police Department will transition to a fully encrypted radio system, meaning you won’t be able to hear officer dispatch calls made in real-time.

Police scanners are a familiar sound in newsrooms, but come Friday, Greenville police dispatch will go silent on scanners across the area as the agency transitions to a fully encrypted radio system.

Interim Police Chief Richard Tyndall says the much-needed upgrade from the NC Viper System to the Pitt County radio system was mainly done to get better equipment for officers.

“It gave us better coverage, there are more radio towers, we have some spotty areas in the city that were able to get better radio reception in using the county system,” Interim Chief Tyndall said.

According to Tyndall, the encryption system was an option they chose to add on, and there are multiple reasons for the encryption.

“One: To protect the people we’re discussing on the radio, and Two: To protect the officers to make sure they’re able to do their jobs safely,” Tyndall said.

Police also point to social media and say that the public is sharing more unverified information in real time, which they say can confuse, spread misinformation, or compromise safety and investigations.

Tyndall says some media have also arrived at a scene before officers had secured it, putting themselves at risk, though he did not list specific examples.

East Carolina University associate journalism professor Glenn Hubbard thinks scanners are a big part of news, and this change may impact how quickly important information reaches the community

“We’re used to local media being able to get to us quickly with big important things that are going on, especially if it’s something that’s even going to affect your traffic, your commute to work, maybe a suspect on the loose or something like that where there’s some public danger involved, its good for the media to be able to get that information quickly,” Hubbard said

With these concerns for the upcoming change, Tyndall says transparency remains one of their top priorities, and sharing timely and accurate information is not going to change.

“We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure the media, the citizens are getting all the information they can from us,” Tyndall told WITN.

According to the Interim Chief, people will still be able to access all calls for service, which are posted online as they are cleared, as well as reports and arrest records, which will be available the next business day. That information is available here:

In addition, EMS radio traffic will not be encrypted, so any call that results in an EMS response will still be broadcast in real-time and remain accessible to the public.

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