HANCOCK COUNTY — “Ten-four,” a police officer might tell a dispatcher over the radio. Or “OK, I gotcha.” They both mean the same thing, but one is a little easier to understand than the other.
Anyone who has listened to a police scanner or watched popular cop shows is familiar with the code and signal talk used by police agencies and other first-responders. A dispatcher who sends an alert about a “10-55,” for example, is talking about a drunk driver. A “Signal 9,” which a dispatcher might announce during a fire run, means “disregard.” The shorthand language has been in use for generations and was even appropriated by trucker drivers and popularized during the citizens band radio craze of the late 1970s and early ’80s.
But over the years, local, state and national experts have begun to think it best for first-responders to start phasing out the special way of communicating in favor of everyday talk.
The idea had its genesis after agencies in New York City had trouble communicating with outside first-responders during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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“That’s exactly where it came from — during 9/11. It all went to hell there,” said Greg Duda, public information officer for the Hancock County 911 Center. Among the myriad problems with the emergency communications that day, some people just couldn’t understand what others were saying.
While officials with the county 911 Center, the Greenfield Police Department, Hancock County Sheriff’s Department still allow officers and employees to use the shorthand to communicate, they’re trying to phase out the iconic vocabulary. “Basically what’s happening as older officers retire, the codes are going out with them,” Duda said.
The shorthand talk can be confusing because — like differences in languages — the codes and signals in one jurisdiction might not mean the same thing in another. That can be dangerous if multiple jurisdictions are responding to an emergency.
For example, a Signal 48 in one part of Indiana can mean that visitors or officials are present. In Hancock County, it means the officer has someone in his or her car and is transporting them.
Capt. Robert Harris, road patrol supervisor for the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, had to memorize all the codes and signals when he joined the force several years ago.
Back then, the idea behind the “brevity codes” was to save time when communicating with other officers and dispatch as well as to avoid miscommunications. But Harris, for one, has come to believe that phasing out the special kind of communication is a great idea to help avoid mistakes between different departments and agencies.
“It makes sense to just use simple, plain speak,” Harris said.
He thinks it will take a long time to phase out the use of the codes because some officers are just so used to using them.
Matt Holland, deputy chief of the Greenfield Police Department, also had to memorize the codes when he became a police officer in 1998 and was even tested on them and had to pass in order to become a police officer. Like Harris, he understands the reasoning behind getting rid of the codes, but he’d rather have them.
Holland thinks it’s good business for law enforcement to be able to communicate without the general population and criminals knowing exactly what they’re doing or are about to do.
“Sometimes it’s for their own safety,” Holland said. “You also want to be able to protect people’s privacy.”
Some officers still use the codes, and that’s fine with officials. However, new officers coming on board are not required to learn codes or signals, unless they want to.
“Our policy now is to encourage plain speak,” Harris said.
That’s also the policy with county fire departments who immediately went to plain-speak policies right after 9/11, when consensus quickly settled on largely doing away with anything that wasn’t plainly spoken English.
“We don’t use codes at all,” said Tony Bratcher, public information office for the Sugar Creek Township Fire Department.
While plain talk makes more sense, Duda knows even everyday talk can be challenging. Calling for a wrecker and a hook mean the same thing, but not everyone knows that, he pointed out.
“People talk in a local way,” Duda said. “That’s something we have to be prepared for.”
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Examples of police codes:
10-0 Fatality
10-1 Unable To Copy
10-2 Signals Good
10-3 Stop Transmitting
10-4 Acknowledgment/Status OK
10-5 Relay
10-6 Busy, Stand By Unless Urgent
10-7 Out-Of-Service
10-8 In Service
10-9 Repeat
10-10 Fight In Progress
10-11 Dog Case
10-12 Stand By
10-13 Weather And Road Report
10-14 Report Of Prowler
10-15 Civil Disturbance
10-16 Domestic Trouble
10-17 Complainant
10-18 Urgent
10-19 Go to Station
10-20 Location
Examples of police signals:
Signals
1 – Call Officer
2 – Call HQ
3 – Call Control
4 – Report to HQ
5 – Go to Control
6 – Call – Person, at Number
7 – Emergency
8 – Meet
9 – Disregard
10 – Rush
11 – Confidential Information
12 – Reply by Phone
13 – Army Convoy
14 – Plain Clothes / Unmarked
15 – Cannot Comment on Air
16 – Aircraft Accident
17 – Give Emergency Right of Way
18 – Target Practice
19 – Truck Check
20 – Car Wash
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