SEATTLE - Some Seattle Police officers assigned to patrol the downtown bus tunnel are privately worried that Mayor Mike McGinn's push to get officers to beef up King County deputies is putting their safety at risk.
The mayor offered his officers to King County following the videotaped beating of a teenage girl.
The issue KING 5 News has learned involves the possibility that if there is trouble in the tunnel, officers may not be able to radio for help.
There is a flaw in the radio system - a dead zone where SPD radios cannot hit the repeater towers, a critical step in their transmissions being heard.
King County deputies which until now had exclusive jurisdiction over the transit tunnel use a radio system designed to work underground.
On the other hand, Seattle's police radios were never designed to work in the concrete confines of the tunnel.
In an emergency, the officer could be all alone.
In the wake of the beating, some commuters are concerned.
"If they can't call for help, what's the point?" asked one rider waiting for the bus with her two children.
But a department spokesman tells KING 5 News that the highest levels of the department are aware of the situation, that experts ran a communications sweep of the tunnel, and that analysis found a dead spot in the tunnel.
SPD is calling it an "electronic issue" and not just a police radio issue because neither department radios nor civillian cell phones were able to get a signal.
Spokesman Jeff Kappel says the department is "working on it as we speak."
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