I have recently been told by a trooper that the in-car microphones have been disconnected on orders from Austin, and that only the personal mics will be used. anyone else heard of this? What's the deal?

I just spoke with my local DPS office and they said that they have not heard that. In fact, DPS delivers their cars pre-wired with the in-car mic.

I will do more checking but one of our cars just went to Austin for work on the camera system and the only mic that came back installed was the on-person mic and the explaination I was given was that the in-car mic was no longer being used per DPS policy. Looks like I have more investigation to do.

I have asked Major Baker in the Highway Patrol Division to look into your question. I know that in the past there have been problems with the car radio and the DPS communications radio in the car interfering with the recording by the body mike.

Janette

As always, I appreciate your help. We have had interfence issues before with other entities where the in-car radio comes on at the most inconvient times obliterating the ablility to hear the mic the officer is wearing(usually when the defendant is admitting he is drunk). However, on most of those units, each mic is carried on a separate stereo channel so I simply purchased a cheap amp that had a balance control on it and hooked that to the vcr and hooked two speakers to the amp. A turn to the left balance lets you listen to only the in-car mic, a turn the other way and you can isolate the personal mic. At least that has been my findings on the units I have used. That does not aliviate the problem of the radio covering the in-car when the suspect is in there making statements but i have tried to instruct the officers to turn the radio in the car down when they exit the vechicle while the def is in the car.
I hate to lose the in-car mic, as it is the source of good evidence. There was also some confusion on the part of a couple of the troopers as to whether they now had to tell the suspect that the were being recorded while they were in the car. They thought that was a recent change to the law. I have not heard of that either.Thanks for the imput.
Mike Hartman
Scurry County Atty.

[This message was edited by mhartman on 10-16-03 at .]

There is no legal requirement to tell the suspect that they are being recorded in the car. There was a DPS regulation that troopers tell the defendant, but that is not a law. Years ago I had to send a memo to DPS higher ups to let them know that our office authorized and even encouraged surreptitious recording of suspects. That cleared it up for us. Since then we have gotten some real gems on tape.

Do you know if the policy is still in effect at D.P.S.?

I spoke with Major Baker (with our Highway Patrol Division--formerly Traffic Law Enforcement). He said that there used to be a policy that the in-car mike should be disconnected because it very often interfered with the recording of the body mike. That is no longer the case. According to Major Baker, the in-car mike system should be operational.

Janette Ansolabehere
DPS, Office of General Counsel

Thanks, I will look into the problem locally and see if there is a solution to get those mics turned back on.