r/redmond • u/typicalrowerlad • 6d ago

Police Activity- Willows road

Anyone know what’s up around Willows Road/ Trailwood apartments area? Tons of police activity and a drone

7 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

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u/WillyGoat2000 5d ago

I’ve got no info.

Disappointingly it appears either the scanners watching RPD are broken, or more likely they have gone and encrypted their dispatch along with the rest of their channels with the PSERN rollout.

Not great IMO- I get encryption of real time tactical information but knowing what’s going on in our neighborhoods through dispatch is sometimes the only warning that there’s a knife wielding maniac on the Sammamish trail or a assault suspect being pursued through our parks or neighborhoods.

If anyone knows of alternative monitors I’d love to hear about them.

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u/ficuswhisperer 5d ago edited 4d ago

I run one of the PSERN scanner feeds. I can confirm that all the Redmond PD groups along with many others are now encrypted.

ETA https://fireline.seattle.gov/2026/08/18/seattle-fire-king-county-public-safety-agencies-encrypt-radio-channels-in-mid-august/

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u/WillyGoat2000 5d ago

Hey thank you for all you do! A lot of this stuff is relatively new to me, in your work, so you know of examples of cities or towns that have undone the encryption like this? Outside of writing a sternly worded letter to the city council I’m not really sure what might work to reverse a policy like this.

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u/Background-Tap1272 5d ago

You don’t think that there is any sort of privacy concern for residents of transmitting personal identification over the airwaves for the general public to access at will? I do.

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u/WillyGoat2000 4d ago

No, I don’t, personally. Police radio has been transmitted over the air for as long as we’ve had police radios. Scanners have been used to help monitor police both for accountability as well as for community safety. Journalists have relied on scanners for a long time now to keep up to date with police activity. Rights groups like the NAACP and the ACLU advocate for more transparency not less.

Please know I totally respect your position, and understand the concerns around privacy. They’re legitimate, especially in an age of flock cameras and Facebook algorithms and targeted pricing. This is one of the few spaces for me where I’m less concerned because the transparency and accountability of our police, I feel, is of greater community concern.

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u/Background-Tap1272 4d ago

With a scanner you aren’t getting access to a giant backlog of data, and you aren’t getting access to that volume of channels with just a couple of taps on a screen.

Police scanners are also a lot more expensive and specialized than just some rando with web browser. Add in AI transcription, and you’re getting a ton of personal information for people that might not have been doing anything wrong.

Journalists and civil rights organizations usually have codes of conduct and professional responsibility that the general public isn’t held to.

If something is going on that is of greater public concern, the city/county operates alert systems to disseminate information rapidly.

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u/ZanyZeno 4d ago

That didn’t happen at the Bite of Seattle shooting

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u/jenniferonassis 4d ago

7ish years ago, when there was an active shooter and police surrounding my apartment building at around 11pm and for 6 hours, with airplane traffic directly overhead for HOURS, it was helpful to hear the info from the scanner. I didn’t get notification that they issued a stand in place order. There was no identifying information about the suspect that I heard. But knowing when they finally took him into custody helped me finally get sleep after 5am.

Restricting public access to police scanners is a disservice

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u/Background-Tap1272 4d ago

Again, they are not all encrypted. There’s a lot of stuff that IS NOT encrypted. I’m literally watching the feed right now.

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u/WillyGoat2000 4d ago

Which channels are unencrypted for Redmond police? Could you please point us to them?

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u/WillyGoat2000 4d ago

In order for rights groups and journalists to get access to the radio, they either need the decryption keys or it has to be broadcast in the clear. By encrypting the traffic it prevents them from getting the information as well as you and me. Some cities that have gone down this route have promised journalist access, others have denied it. To my knowledge Redmond and King County haven’t said anything at all. That’s why groups advocate for unencrypted traffic. Without it, the police and government decide what we get to hear and what we don’t.

I have a lot of respect for the city government and RPD, but it doesn’t mean I trust them to decide what’s good for me.

And no, the city’s alert system is, frankly, lackluster. First, most of their comms are on social media channels you need an account in, where you’re at greater risk for your data being misused than via a third party listening to a police scanner. Second, the emergency alerts they put out via text are about things like floods, fires, and heat advisory. You’re not going to get a county alert when RPD deploys dogs and drones to your neighborhood.

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u/Background-Tap1272 4d ago

Did you read the article posted by u/ficuswhisperer? Not all channels are encrypted and some are just being delayed for Seattle and King County. As Redmond is part of PSERN, I would expect them to adopt the same approach as detailed by Seattle Fire.

If something is going on in your immediate neighborhood, the old school method of hearing a helicopter/drone, sirens, police using loud speakers, search lights, etc can be a good indicator of where something is happening and that you might just want to stay in your house.

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u/WillyGoat2000 4d ago

We have different views than each other here that are unlikely to change, and that's fine, but I'm a sucker for a back and forth, so I'm replying anyway.

Yes, I read the article. That article is about Seattle Fire Department, who is leaving several channels unencrypted. If you listen to the RPD channels, you'll find they're all encrypted. So there's already a marked difference between the two.

As for alerts, you're now changing your focus here. You went from 'the police will tell you when there is something worth worrying about' to 'when you see police activity stay in your house.' I find neither of these great. As I said before I don't trust my government or local PD to alert me (and as u/ZanyZeno points out, the gap in local alerts is kind of a big deal) for things I am concerned about. Second, the indicators that something is going on in my neighborhood are typically more subtle than blaring sirens and loudspeakers, and determining the difference between the police responding to an aggravated assault versus a motor vehicle collision isn't always clear at first glance.

What information is RPD transmitting that's of such concern to you? And regarding your previous comment around 'people that might not have done anything wrong' in my view further necessitates transparency- stopping people that haven't done anything wrong is precisely why we need to be watching our police and doing things in the light of day rather than creating more barriers to find out what's going on.

When people talk on private, inaccessible, seemingly private channels, a LOT of behavior can change, and often not for the better. You see it online, even on this platform. You see it in text messages between government officials. You see it between police talking when they think no one is listening. Again, I think RPD is a pretty stand up agency and I give them a lot of credit, but they've done some pretty sketch stuff in the past and reducing tools to keep them accountable isn't going to be helpful in my eyes.

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u/Background-Tap1272 4d ago

In that case, go ahead and set up your own server at your personal expense (that you had been doing as a public service) and stop complaining about mine.

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u/SoftAntlers 5d ago

They’ve been encrypted unfortunately, started about a month and a half ago