The public’s ability to monitor the radio communications of taxpayer-funded first respon­ders ended Tuesday when the Honolulu Police Department encrypted its channels and replaced them with periodic email updates available only to the news media.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the city has no plans to restore access to the communications that document real-time responses to emergencies and calls for police, fire or Emergency Medical Services.

Jeffrey S. Portnoy, an attorney at Cades Schutte who represents the Star-Advertiser in First Amendment proceedings, said the switch to email alerts is “unsatisfactory” and demonstrates a desire to limit information that “has been and should continue to be” available on a timely basis.

The precedent it sets for police transparency is “concerning,” he said.

“I think the implementation of the new system, which includes eliminating scanners from media outlets and substituting with at-will and discretionary emails that are often untimely and limited, at least based on the first few days … is a very poor and unsatisfactory substitute for keeping the media and therefore the public informed of potentially serious ongoing criminal events, natural weather events and related activities that up until now, have been known immediately, to the media, as they went out over scanners to law enforcement,” Portnoy said.

Blangiardi, who spent 18 years as a Hawaii television news executive, including a decade as the general manager at Hawaii News Now, said he will review HPD’s email system and keep an “open mind” about a return to public access of nontactical police and other first responder radio.

In an interview with the Star-Advertiser last week, he said the decision to encrypt was made by the previous administration, and that in today’s society there is an “overriding need for privacy and sensitivity towards privacy at every level.”

“I have asked this repeatedly of all our directors … (dealing with) any kind of news story to be transparent, open and accessible. I’ve encouraged that and challenged them all to do precisely that,” Blangiardi said. “If you look at any major urban center and their relationship with the media … they are as transparent as possible and as communicative as possible.”

On Tuesday the city completed a multiyear, $15 million system overhaul that encrypted the frequencies used by nine city departments, preventing objective monitoring of the transmissions.

Interim Honolulu Police Chief Rade Vanic told the Star-Advertiser in a statement that HPD’s email notification system was launched when the department finished transitioning to the new radio system. The general public cannot sign up to receive the email alerts of police activity, just the news media, he said.

The email notifications are not yet documenting most major police activity, and Vanic told the Honolulu Police Commission on Wednesday that the system is a work in progress.

The beating death of a woman Tuesday night outside the Kapolei Police Station was shared Wednesday at 11:50 a.m., with HPD not calling it a homicide, but a “criminal investigation.” As of Saturday, 12 incidents were logged since the email notification system began Wednesday.

When the public had access to patrol radio communications, listeners would hear police dispatchers in real time sending the officers to the scene and what callers reported. Now the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet attached to the email includes the date, time, initial case classification and initial disposition for certain incidents, such as homicides, robberies, critical and fatal traffic collisions, barricade situations and missing-person cases, according to Vanic.

The email notifications are sent out 24/7 as incidents occur but not necessarily right away, Vanic told the Police Commission. It will be a case-by-case basis on when the alerts are sent, he told the commission, and the information would be shared when the scene is safe.

“Under the old radio system, the media’s scanners were programmed for the eight patrol district channels, none of which were encrypted. Tactical channels have always been encrypted for security reasons and were not available to the media,” Vanic told the Star- Advertiser.

The Star-Advertiser asked each of the nine members of the Honolulu City Council whether they thought HPD releases enough timely information to keep constituents informed about law enforcement activity in their communities.

Only two Council members, Chairman Tommy Waters and Augie Tulba, vice chairman of the Public Safety Committee, responded.

Waters has introduced four resolutions aimed at improving police transparency and public communication, ensuring qualified candidates are considered for the chief’s job, and urging the administration to appoint commissioners who reflect the diversity of backgrounds and experiences required to represent Honolulu. Waters said he was “shocked” when he learned the media would no longer be able to monitor the first responder stations.

“It is important that the media is able to inform the public about incidents across our island,” he said. “Technological advances sometimes outpace public accessibility, but I firmly believe in transparency. There should be exemptions to this encryption to ensure prompt access to public safety information.”

Tulba said it is “extremely unfortunate” the media is unable to access what was previously publicly broadcast information that quickly alerted news outlets to emergency situations, such as car accidents, fires, hostage situations or crimes occurring in real time.

“These alerts allowed the news media to, in turn, alert the public about key hot spots and areas of dangerous activity that we should all avoid. As a big supporter of transparency and accountability in government, I believe the Honolulu Police Department and other emergency response agencies should find ways to be more transparent, not less, as well as find ways to build trust with the media and the public, not diminish it,” Tulba said.

“In this age, there are more ways to be transparent, whether through social media, a watch commander available 24 hours a day, frequent web posts, and more.”

Police Commission Chairwoman Shannon Alivado told the Star-Advertiser in a statement that the commission expects HPD to make a good-faith effort to convey as much information to the public as quickly as possible.

Vanic told commissioners the email alerts aim to help protect confidential information about people from being broadcast publicly.

The new system, which was ordered by the previous administration of Mayor Kirk Caldwell, does not interface with the radio scanners that newsrooms used to monitor police activity, Alivado said.

“Chief Vanic acknowledged the valuable role newsrooms play in helping the public know about and avoid dangerous situations in their neighborhoods, and also acknowledged that the email alert system will not provide information in real time, as scanners do,” Alivado said.

“We expect HPD to make every effort to transmit information about unfolding and dangerous situations promptly through this email alert system and try its best to include the information that is currently available to the media through scanners. Chief Vanic did indicate he will consider media’s feedback of the new system, so we encourage media outlets to share their concerns with the administration.”

The conversion from the city’s analog system to a P25 Motorola digital system allows the departments to talk to one another on a single channel and is part of a national move away from analog radio systems by county, state and federal agencies.

In addition to HPD and the Honolulu Fire Department, the other agencies using the new encrypted system are the Ocean Safety division, Emergency Medical Services, Department of Information Technology, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, Department of Facilities Maintenance, Department of Environmental Services and Department of Parks and Recreation.

The city said in an email that the P25 system is safer and more reliable with less chance for dropped calls and greater geographical coverage, and allows first responders to hear uninterrupted transmissions, particularly in dense areas with concrete buildings.

“First responders continue to share call data with the public through various means including an automatic text/email notification system, HNLinfo alerts, open data feeds, department websites and public information offices,” read a statement from the city.

For half a century, civilian radio operators were able to follow along as dispatchers sent firefighters, police officers and Emergency Medical Services personnel to calls for help. The internet brought applications that allow browsers to listen in on any frequency available to the public. The sound of a scanner was a long-standing audio constant in U.S. newsrooms.

Some mainland police jurisdictions have made the P25 radio traffic available to news media outlets.

In 2018 the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department came to an agreement that allowed news agencies to pay for their own Motorola P25 radios. Media organizations agreed not to alter or use them in any way other than to monitor the channels approved and programmed by LVMPD and allowed police to inspect the scanners to ensure compliance.

“There are alternatives, and other (police) departments have been able to come up with satisfactory substitutes,” Portnoy said. “I’m not saying they (HPD) can’t come up with an alternative to what was in place that is appropriate, but just looking at what has been implemented in the last few days … the end result is clearly a limitation on immediate access to important events going on in the community. What HPD put out so far is discretionary to them, and could be argued is untimely and is insufficient in the detail that’s provided.”