Demand Transparency in Hartford Public Safety Communications

We, the undersigned residents, workers, families, and stakeholders of Hartford and the surrounding communities, submit this petition to formally demand greater transparency and public accountability following the encryption of Hartford Police Department radio communications.

For decades, the public has relied on real-time police dispatch monitoring as a critical tool for:

• Community awareness

• Traffic and accident avoidance

• Public safety decision-making

• Independent verification of public safety activity

• Media and citizen reporting

The recent move to fully encrypted police radio traffic haseliminated public access to real-time dispatch information, effectively removing a long-standing layer of transparency between public institutions and the citizens they serve.

While we acknowledge and respect the need for officer safety and modernized communication systems,encryption without transparency alternatives creates a dangerous imbalance— one that limits public awareness, weakens accountability, and erodes trust between the community and those in power.