In the years before the shooting at Columbine High School, Colorado had already started to address challenges within its radio communications system for first responders. Primarily directed at helping rural and mountainous towns mitigate dead spots in coverage, these efforts were a promising step forward, particularly during wildfires, when aid spanned multiple jurisdictions.
But on April 20, 1999, when more than 40 separate agencies descended upon Columbine High School, communication broke down.
As police, fire and medical personnel responded to the shootings that took 13 lives, radio frequencies overloaded because so many different agencies were all trying to talk at once.
At one point, radios had become so useless that messengers on foot had to relay critical information between agencies, as then-chief of the state Fire Safety Division Kevin Klein told The Denver Post in 2011.
“Go back to Columbine — different responding agencies on different radio systems that couldn’t talk to each other,” Klein told the Post. “You had paralysis in the initial phase of the incident. We had to use runners to go back and forth to talk about what we’re going to do.”
But a quarter of a century later, many first responders say that challenges aside, the state’s Digital Trunked Radio System (DTRS) has made a difference.
Experts describe DTRS as a “system of systems” that connects fire, law enforcement, medical, military and federal assets with a network of radios, antennas and specialized software patches to bridge gaps between newer hardware and legacy equipment.
And even school districts can be part of the DTRS system.
“Any agency within the state can go to the system and connect with any other law enforcement or first responder group that is on the scene of a critical incident,” Jacki Kelley, spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, said of the DTRS.
Fire Capt. Chad Campagnola said the Larkspur Fire Protection District has been a part of the state’s DTRS systems since Douglas County transitioned to it in the early 2000s.
Campagnola, who has been with the department since 1992 and styles himself as the “district radio guy,” said that although the DTRS system added more capabilities for his team, the early roll-out was not without frustrations.
As in most jurisdictions, Campagnola cites the standard funding and technology challenges as the most troublesome.
Not only is the radio expensive, but there are also fees for each radio to be on the system and for certain types of software upgrades.
However, with more than two decades of build-out complete, Campagnola says he’s confident in the system and feels it has evolved into a dependable asset that can help save lives and protect property.
Prior to DTRS, Larkspur had often experienced radio communication difficulties due to its local geography and terrain.
Things are much better now.
“It’s definitely an improvement from 24 years ago,” said Campagnola. “It’s also an improvement from two years ago. In our district specifically, Douglas County has added more (radio) towers in the past five years and that’s made an impact, especially for responders in the southern part of the county, as it affects not just fire but law enforcement, but roads and bridges, and the Douglas County School District — anyone operating within the DTRS coverage area.”
The Columbine Commission Report
Nine months after the Columbine massacre, then-Gov. Bill Owens signed an executive order creating the Columbine Review Commission in response to public outcry for answers. The 10-member board, chaired by retired Colorado Supreme Court Justice William H. Erickson, was charged with identifying lessons learned and how those lessons could prevent future tragedies.
The Columbine Review Commission Report was released in May 2001, nearly a year and a half later.
Anger and accusations ensued in the days after the report’s release as parents, school officials and others demanded answers, saying the 174-page report completely “glossed over” the events that led up to the attack and failed to properly investigate police response.
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The commission offered recommendations, but made no requirements for mandatory implementation. The commission was disbanded after its report was released, further infuriating the public.
However, among the commission’s top recommendations was the need to improve communications and, as a byproduct, more coordination among emergency response agencies. It recommended continuing development of the Digital Trunk Radio System.
Specifically, the Columbine Commission recommended that “agencies in parts of the state not yet within the statewide system receive funds for the purchase of TRP 100 or similar systems, enabling them to be available in the event of a serious catastrophe in any part of the state.”
While much has changed since 1999, improving the first responder radio system has been difficult in the decades since. The challenge in building out — and sustaining — Colorado’s interoperable communication system seem to be consistent among agencies and falls into three distinct buckets: funding, planning, and training.
Colorado amply followed up with heavy investment in the DTRS program.
Putting a finger on exactly how much has been invested in Colorado’s DTRS program year-to-date is complicated as multiple sources of funding have been and continue to be employed. A 2016 memo from the Colorado Legislative Council provides an insight into the program’s early financial history, nearing $250 million at the time.
But piles of money aside, what most didn’t realize is that this project would be far more than just buying new radios and issuing them to first responders.
Building a statewide interoperable radio system would include the construction of multiple antenna towers — some of them in hard-to-get-to mountainous terrain — to bridge growing technology gaps between new and legacy systems. State technology experts would also have to identify and manage radio frequencies, as well as convince jurisdictions to collaborate and share resources.
Legislation to provide interoperable communication funding for schools
Over the next decade after the Columbine shooting, Colorado would see several pieces of legislation become law designed to help fund the build-out and connect school districts with the money they desperately needed for equipment to communicate directly with local fire and law enforcement.
In 2011, more than 10 years after the mass shooting, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law Senate Bill 11-173. The bill addressed the lack of interoperable communications between schools and first responders during an emergency. It augments the Colorado School Response Framework, created in 2008, to improve school crisis response by clarifying that interoperable communications are included in a school district’s school safety, readiness, and incident management plan.
Senate Bill 18-158 created the School Access for Emergency Response program, which provides schools with grant funding to purchase interoperable communication hardware and software, pay for equipment maintenance and provide training. The goal was to facilitate “seamless communications between existing school communications systems and first responder communications systems.”
The state placed the SAFER program within the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and initially funded it with a $5 million transfer from the Department of Public Safety for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Subsequent years were funded by State Public School Fund transfers through July 1, 2023.
Colorado’s Office of Information Technology currently oversees the state’s public safety communications network and the DTRS.
But even with millions in local, state and federal dollars invested in the DTRS program, completing — and sustaining — a statewide interoperable radio system still has a few bugs.
While most emergency management and public safety experts say the state’s system has improved dramatically and local governments are more organized and collaborative since the Columbine shooting, there is still work to do.
Other jurisdictions have a similar take.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office — an early adopter of DTRS, joining Douglas County and Arapahoe County in the program in the late 1990s — was among the first to arrive on the Columbine scene in 1999.
The agency understands, firsthand, what can go wrong when first responders are unable to communicate.
Brad Ingermann, a commander with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Patrol Division, said that while the state’s DTRS still has its challenges, his agency is far better off than it was at the time of the Columbine shooting and now clearly believes it has an interoperable radio system that works.
“While large-scale incidents such as Columbine are far more common than they used to be, they are still very rare compared to events such as wildland fires,” he said.
As Ingerman points out, wildland fires can quickly spread across multiple jurisdictions and require a medley of first responders and mutual aid partners — all arriving on the scene and many operating on different radio systems and channels.
DTRS helps solve this.
It does so by connecting first responders by the use of pre-coordinated channels assigned to both day-to-day and emergency operations. Specific talk groups are allocated based on responder function and assignments, freeing up channels and organizing incident information among multiple agencies and partners.
Hardware alone does not equal interoperability
But interestingly, over the past 25 years, much of the federal dollars made available to states and local jurisdictions initially went toward the purchase of equipment hardware: things like handheld radios, car radios, repeaters, antennas and tower systems.
Some experts in the field recall “radio spending sprees” to purchase the 800-MHz radios — quickly spending grant money to avoid getting caught up in product shortages and back-order delays.
Fran Santagata, a retired U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulatory analyst and former Douglas County emergency manager, said the same was true for Colorado.
“But equipment alone doesn’t create interoperability,” she said. “There is a specific element of coordination and planning required, as well as training. Proficiency and comfort in using the equipment are just as important.”
For most jurisdictions, Larkspur included, a significant portion of their daily radio traffic occurs over the DTRS, as designed.
But, as Santagata suggests, many first responders tend to be more comfortable with their daily comms channels than they are with their emergency channels.
“I think the DTRS got built out, the towers have helped tremendously, and all of the training has helped, but I think we still struggle at every event with the lowest common denominator, which is the individual first responder only being comfortable using the frequency they use day to day,” she said. “Almost every after-action report usually has a paragraph — or a chapter — on how communications broke down.”
“I think there’s definitely truth to that,” said Campagnola. “Dealing with, like, a unified command with three agencies where we are, we are very comfortable with our primary work zone or operational zone.”
But Campagnola notes the solution to that is not just the responsibility of the individual radio user.
He said agency leadership also plays an important role in developing good muscle memory for users, looking at the bigger picture and developing relevant training exercises to reinforce those skills.
For the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, DTRS training for its personnel begins as early as with new recruits in the county’s law enforcement academy and continues with day-to-day use as the recruit enters the force, and with annual exercises that help reinforce radio competency.
“But we are a think-outside-of-the-box agency,” said Jacki Kelley, spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. “We have an initial plan and a backup plan, but as you know, emergencies don’t always go the way you plan or the way you train.”
But as communities continue to expand and population density increases, more funding will obviously be needed to support and maintain the state’s program.
Overall, most users seem to agree the DTRS system has made a difference.
Is it perfect?
Not really.
“But I think it’s all good,” said Campagnola. “Like, I have no complaints about anything with our system. We’re continually improving it as a county and as a state, which is allowing for better interoperability.”
Editor’s note: The Colorado Department of Public Safety – Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management now oversees the Public Safety Communications Network and DTRS program—a change that happened last year.