Boulder’s police radios are no longer available for curious minds and ears starting Tuesday.
Up until now, anyone interested in what the Boulder Police Department was doing could go to a police scanner website, such as Broadcastify, and listen in on conversations between officers and dispatchers. That poses security concerns and is less efficient for big operations, according to BPD spokesperson Dionne Waugh.
That’s why a new radio system the department is switching to Tuesday will not be accessible for the public to listen in with ease anymore.
The new radio system already is used by many of the police department’s fellow agencies in Boulder County, so communication with those agencies will be faster, according to Waugh. The system also is encrypted.
“The most evident, everyday benefit, is certainly how quickly we can now communicate and share information with partner agencies, from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office to Boulder Valley School District security,” Waugh said in a statement. “As we move toward hosting the international Sundance Film Festival and continue assisting with many special events that regularly draw large crowds from across the country, we have to bring in a lot of outside partners and the prior radio system was not sufficient enough to handle those large operations.”
The impact on local news coverage
The Daily Camera will also no longer be able to tune in to the department’s radio, which it regularly uses to listen for police actions as they happen. Every day, Camera reporters hear police talk about an active crime scene, car crash or other police activity on the radio. When it sounds serious, important or otherwise newsworthy, reporters take what they heard and ask the relevant authorities about the incident.
Many Boulder police stories in the Camera originate from initial information a reporter or editor heard on the radio scanner.
The department offered an encrypted radio to the Camera, requiring that editorial staff sign a 10-page contract that would have meant reporters and editors must follow the department’s rules, or lose access entirely.
The contract stipulated that any signatory news organization would not pay for a radio scanner. It also stated that news organizations would not disclose what it heard “in any manner, prior to the conclusion of law enforcement operational activities at the scene(s),” and said the Camera could not in any way share tactical information that might lead to an officer’s harm.
If the Camera signed the contract, it would also be held liable for any damages that could have arisen from using the radio.
Prairie Mountain Media Regional Editor and Daily Camera Editor John Vahlenkamp said the Camera has used radio access safely and fairly. Camera coverage using the radio system has not put an officer in danger in his recollection, he added.
“I appreciate the Boulder Police Department’s offer of a radio, but our company’s practice has been to not sign any contract in order to access unencrypted police radio traffic, and this decision is consistent with that practice,” Vahlenkamp said. “I understand the concerns that the department has regarding officer safety. We have that same concern. For the decades we’ve had access to first responder scanner traffic, we’ve kept safety at the top of our minds.”
Though the lack of access to the police radio scanner will impact the Camera’s Boulder coverage, it will not prevent the newspaper from continuing to inform the community, Vahlenkamp said.
“We’ll continue to keep an ear and an eye on public safety matters in the communities we serve, and we’ll keep our readers informed.”
Reporters, besides using the radio scanner, monitor social media, talk to relevant officials and use press releases to kickstart police coverage. That will still happen. However, the loss of access to the police scanner cuts off one avenue reporters use to learn about what police are doing in Boulder.
Boulder police did not share any plans to change their approach to sharing information with the public about crimes and police activities under the new encrypted system.
When asked if Boulder police would commit to proactively sharing the details of specific types of ongoing crimes or police activities such as shootings, police shootings or fatal crashes, Waugh did not commit to any such information-sharing.
“We will continue to prioritize information that’s related to keeping our community safe,” Waugh wrote. “The release of information will also continue to be evaluated in line with best practices in law enforcement public information sharing.”
Waugh did, in an earlier statement, say the department would notify the community when they are being asked to shelter in place, evacuate or take another protective action — a standard that is already in place.
Waugh also did not answer a question about whether or how Boulder police could improve its practices for sharing information with the public.
The Daily Camera reviewed the past three months of posts on the department’s social media account on X and found the department has been generally quick to post about major car crashes or road closures. Information in traffic incidents tends to be updated in the moment, as the scene unfolds. That is also true of information being released during the Fairview High School lockdown.
However, other types of cases, such as when a mountain lion killed a couple’s dog in Boulder in July, were not made available to the public until three days later. On Oct. 16, the department posted about a man carrying a machete around a neighborhood in Boulder. Information about that was posted two days later.
On another occasion, a man drove a car on the bike path in North Boulder in September, and the department did not proactively notify the public. The Camera learned about that from a post by an anonymous user on Reddit.
Improved regional law enforcement
Boulder’s new encrypted system allows the city to connect to the State of Colorado Digital Trunked Radio System, which allows easier communication with nearby agencies, Waugh said.
The city has been trying to get this system online since at least November 2024, when it contracted with Motorola to build out radio infrastructure for the new system. According to Waugh, Boulder has been behind much of Colorado in shifting over to encrypted radio.
In 2019, the Denver Police Department went encrypted and offered a similar agreement to news outlets: buy a radio for $4,000 and sign a contract holding reporters to the department’s standards. The Denver Post declined to sign the contract and does not have access to DPD’s radio anymore.
That same year, Longmont Public Safety went full-time with encrypted radios after a six-month trial period. After initially asking the Longmont Times-Call to sign a contract stipulating what the paper could use the radio for, the department gave the Times-Call a radio scanner free of charge and without a contract. That handshake agreement is ongoing, and Longmont police radio traffic plays near-constantly in the Times-Call’s newsroom.
The threat of leaving radios public
Encryption, Waugh said, will protect law enforcement from people who might use the scanner to learn where officers are.
“We know anecdotally that individuals throughout the years have listened to public radio channels to monitor police response. Encryption protects both the community as well as police, fire and paramedics, who have often been targets themselves when responding to help others,” Waugh said.
Encryption also ensures a victim’s information stays private, Waugh said.
When asked for specific examples of security breaches or victims’ information being unduly shared because of public access to the scanner, Waugh would not share any such instances. She said that the threat of such a breach grows every day, and waiting for such an occurrence would be irresponsible.
Waugh said encrypting police radios allows law enforcement to speak with one another without the fear that someone might hear tactical information.
“The communication with and between officers, firefighters and paramedics is paramount to the safety of all people in Boulder, and by encrypting that information, we are able to have that extra moment to respond without someone alerting a bad actor about our response,” Waugh said.
How to stay informed going forward
Boulder police, the city and Boulder County offer ways to stay informed about police actions in the area. Whether that’s BoCo Alert, Wireless Emergency Alerts, Everbridge alerts, or using social media and reading traditional news, the public will still be notified of the same emergencies they always have, Waugh said.
“The Boulder Police Department is one of the leading agencies in the state and the country regarding its sharing of public information via both traditional and social media outlets and this has not changed,” Waugh said. “We will continue to review and assess all means of communication with our community and adapt in accordance with city employee bandwidth and best practices in public information.”
The Boulder Fire-Rescue Department is not joining the same encrypted system, and its radios will still be available online, according to spokesperson Jamie Barker. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office radio scanner is also still available to the public online on sites like OpenMHz.
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