Captain Perera was assigned back to the Communications Bureau July 22, 2013.

Prior to his arrival

Captain Perera was contacted by several members of the staff to begin being brought up to speed on
what projects were ongoing at the Bureau. The largest of which was the Radio rebanding project. This
project Captain Perera was advised was in horrible shape with a complete lack of leadership and
direction. Captain Perera was advised the vendor was dictating what was to be done and what was
acceptable. Additionally Captain Perera was advised that the EDACS system was responding poorly and
failing routinely as documented in numerous emails prior to his arrival.
On July 23, Captain Perera met with Bureau staff to get brought up to speed on what had been
happening with the radio project as well the state of the radio system. Captain Perera was advised the
project was a mess with a tremendous backlog of routine radio request approvals waiting for Lt Sliman.
This prevented moving the P25 project forward. ITD was given instruction to bring all of the pending
items forward to me for approval. When discussed with Sliman he stated that he could not get direction
from command staff. Additionally Captain Perera identified the following shortcomings with the radio
project with resolution, if any, following. Captain Perera immediately brought them forward to the
chain of command as well as Harris and ITD. There are supporting emails that can be obtained via Public
Records Requests.
1. The NICE recording solution The system was not recording the new P25 system properly. Harris
said that is was not their issue. Ultimately after several months it was determined that it was in
fact a Harris trim PC issue. Once correct the system began recording, but this continues to be an up
and down issue due to the weakness of this solution. There have still be recurring issues with
garbled audio that have been brought to the attention of Harris, ITD and NICE. With each saying
the issue belongs to the other. NICE has purchased and made some changes to the original
configuration that has worked for years to accommodate the radio. It remains to be seen if this
corrects the issue.
2. OTAR/OTAP The new system was supposed to be capable of over the air programming and
reprogramming, however thus far it has been incapable of doing so satisfactorily, with an
unacceptable time frame as well as success rate.
3. Encryption Miami-Dade County is the largest (volume) system in the world for Harris. It is the
largest deployment for a digital system and the largest potential for an encrypted digital system. In
looking at the design of the system Captain Perera became concerned that it looked identical to the
old system. This was of concern because in a digital environment the system reacts differently and
can result in packet loss due to poor coverage. The fact that we were using the same infrastructure
(towers) was a significant concern, especially in light of the fact that the plan was to go full
encryption. Captain Perera began to voice his concern regarding this as well as the over state of
the old system in weekly radio meetings that Captain Perera resurrected. Captain Perera was
assured during these initial meetings that Harris and ITD had conducted coverage testing and it,
according to Sliman and ITD was better than EDACS. In speaking with other members of the
team they were not so optimistic, indicating that was not in fact the case. Captain Perera asked for
the coverage testing results and said it would be forth coming.
4. Coverage As Captain Perera said above from the beginning Captain Perera expressed that there
was coverage issues with the new system. From July 22, 2013, when CAPTAIN PERERA asked for
the coverage maps to November 6, 2013 when Captain Perera received them Captain Perera was
told time and time again that the coverage was perfect and not an issue. The contract calls for 65
buildings within the county to be identified for a BDA to help with in building coverage with a cap
of $250k. Captain Perera advised this was not enough and too little money as a solution as
complex as need in JMH or the MIC is in excess of $250k alone. Was told that the contract is what
it is. Despite Communications Bureau testing which indicated there were significant issues with
coverage ITD said Harris passed the acceptance test plan and accepted the system. In June??
Harris finally accepted and admitted that there is coverage problems with the system and said it
will pay for a new site to be added as well as retuning of several other sites to try and increase
coverage.
5. Emergency Button It was determined that during one of the code revisions a change was made
regarding the emergency button feature resulting in it not working properly. This was one of the
driving forces to returning to the EDACS system. This was later corrected in rev 16 of the code.
6. Patching between systems In order to cutover there would have to be some patching between
systems. We were advised by Harris that this would not be an issue and there were several ways to
accommodate this, each with pros and cons. Ultimately all methods failed and a hard patch
using the Federal interoperability channels (identified by me) had to be used. This works marginally
at best with limited functionality, but at least it is a method that can be employed if necessary.
7. Training - Harris pushed training of the staff early on. They were trained the week of August 5, too
early to be of use due to the delays. They did not offer any refresher training prior to the cut. The
original cut date was in December but was pushed January of 2014.
8. Old System ITD had stopped working or conducting PM on the EDACS system with the
implementation of the P25 system. This caused a myriad of issues and failures. Captain Perera
demanded that they continue and preform maintenance on the existing equipment. While doing
so they found broken antenna, some filled with water from rain and even some with animal nests
inside. It is unknown if some of this is causing part of the issues that are still being experienced
today.
9. Network/Audio quality at Lighspeed There is a significant difference between the audio quality
at Lightspeed and DPCC. When the system was designed and implemented the system uses the
county network to send the audio from DPCC to Lightspeed. This issue was brought up on
numerous occasion, from the beginning because the proper method for transmitting the signal is
via a dedicated microwave link, utilizing the network as a backup. Captain Perera was advised that
the network was fine and that there was no money for a microwave link. Captain Perera still firmly
believe this is causing some of the continuous network issues that are encountered with the system.
In August Harris finally admitted there were network issues with the system and has taken some
steps to fix them. The microwave is still outstanding.
10. Vocoder issue - Industry-standard codecs (or vocoder software) that convert spoken voice to digital
data cannot adequately compensate for high pitched sounds. For example, a is a police officer
who is trying to announce his or her location during a pursuit. The officers digitized voice may be
unintelligible because of the siren. A canine officer with a dog that is barking loudly may not be
heard because of the competing noise from the dog. It has been identified and brought forward
multiple times that higher pitched voices are having problems with the system. On September 2,
2014, Harris has finally said there may be an issue with the vocoder.
11. Airport DAS - Another project that was stagnant. Airport had built the MIC and had no radio
coverage. That had been brought forward to Sliman more than a year ago. Captain Perera
engaged ITD as an officer safety issues and finally resolved at the end of December 1013.

On November 12, 2013, Captain Perera was advised to attend a meeting at ITD with Angel Petisco,
Felix Perez, and JD Patterson. Captain Perera was acting Major at the time and had been for about
two months. The meeting tone was very adversarial, with all parties saying Captain Perera was not
working with Harris. ITD went so far as to infer that Captain Perera had an alternative agenda to
cause the project to fail. Captain Perera defended himself and said then that all Captain Perera was
trying to do was ensure that the officers on the street had the communication they needed.
Petisco said that Captain Perera was making noise about encryption. He said that MDPD wanted
full encryption and that he had negotiated for it as additional and that MDPD was going to be fully
encrypted whether Captain Perera liked it or not, regardless of the facts that Captain Perera
presented to him on the rate of failure. Petisco said that Captain Perera had too much on his plate
and perhaps MDPD should off load this to a new person. Patterson nodded. Because of all of the
issues with the system the date for cutover had to be pushed from December to January 14, 2014.
It was as if Captain Perera had caused the problem and delay. After the meeting Patterson took me
aside and said that he was going to assign a Major to the Bureau to handle the radio project so that
it would be implemented smoothly. Captain Perera told him Captain Perera was doing fine and did
not need someone else to manage it. He told me to begin sending updates as to the status to him
weekly.

On November 25, 2013, Rey Valdez was assigned to the Bureau and given the marching orders to
ensure the radio project was implemented smoothly. Captain Perera transitioned the radio project
to the Major and began to let him run it. He spearheaded the reprogramming of the radios in
consult with me. Captain Perera disengaged for the most part from the project but provided
feedback when asked up until the point where we cutover and he went out due to health issues for
a couple of weeks. Even though it had been brought to Harris and ITDs attention by not only
himself, but Midgley and the dispatchers that the system was not function properly prior to the
cutover, we went live anyway. While Valdez was out the complaints regarding the system by both
the dispatchers and officers continued to mount, including the emergency button and all other
previously identified concerns.

On May 2, 2014, Captain Perera made the decision to cut back to the old system due to ongoing
officer safety issues. This was discussed with the chain of command and fought by ITD and Harris.
This issue went up can down the chain and we finally went back on May 15, 2014. It resulted in an
appearance before the Commission and explanations required by all. Again, Captain Perera was
blamed for not working with Harris and ITD. Captain Perera said that MDPD would not go back to
the system again until it was stable and had been extensively tested. Captain Perera also began
researching other Harris implementations and found the Oakland case. Captain Perera reached out
to Oakland PD and was advised of their ongoing issues. They provided me with reports
documenting all of the problems they had. At the next radio meeting Captain Perera presented
this information to Harris and ITD since the systems and issues were almost exactly the same. This
was not well received and again Captain Perera was told by ITD that Harris was taking this well as
Captain Perera was not a good partner and was trying to hurt the implementation. The
relationship with Harris continued to degrade although Captain Perera was actively supportive and
trying to facilitate the project.

After receiving a new set of code (rev20) in the first part of July, we began testing. Testing
occurred from then until July 27, 2014The handheld code seemed stable, but there were issues
with the mobile code still. Harris and ITD were pushing for an aggressive schedule due to time
constraints imposed by the FCC. Another extension was granted to January of 2015 with no others.
A decision was made to move forward since the majority of radio use is on the handheld and Harris
advised they had corrected other issues with towers and the network. A second radio was marked
and issued to South District personnel so that they could test the system as they were working. This
was not what Harris and ITD wanted, they wanted to cut back over and began pushing for that
saying they were incapable of getting enough data from the testing being conducted. Harris had
advised that the system had stabilized and needed to be load tested. On July 31, 2014, a decision,
which Captain Perera supported, was made to migrate South only to the new system to see how it
would react. If it was functioning properly we would bring another district on. South initially
appeared to be stable and worked on the new system for a week. It was decided that Northwest
would be brought on the system on Monday, August 11, 2014. Almost immediately complaints
started coming in, including multiple instances where officers needed backup and could not
communicate. A meeting was convened on Tuesday, August 12, 2014, wherein the issues that
were occurring were brought forward and Captain Perera said that due to officer safety we needed
to migrate back to the old system as the new one was still too unstable with the increased load.
Harris asked to keep one district on so that they could continue testing. Captain Perera agreed only
if the system stabilized. South District migrated back to the old system at 5PM. As Captain Perera
was the acting Major Captain Perera contacted the acting Chief R. Cordero-Stutz and advised what
had transpired. At approximately 6:30PM Captain Perera was called by the Director and
questioned regarding what had transpired. He advised that Petisco had contacted him and told him
of his decision. Captain Perera explained all, to what Captain Perera thought was his satisfaction
and did not hear further until Captain Perera was called to his office on Tuesday, August 19, 2014
and told Captain Perera was being transferred to an administrative position rewriting the
departmental manual. When asked why he said Captain Perera had too much history and he was
tired of all the barbs being thrown. That it was for his own protection so they could not blame me
for the problems. Captain Perera tried to explain all but he did not entertain any explanation and
said he had made up his mind. Later Captain Perera learned through Felix Perez that Harris also
had requested that Captain Perera be removed from the project. The project still has many of the
aforementioned issues, with only a few being partly resolved.
This is clearly a retaliatory action in response to all of the concerns Captain Perera had expressed
during his tenure regarding this project. Everything Captain Perera has identified and brought
forward regarding the shortcomings of this system has been proven true. Captain Perera is a
recognized subject matter expert in communications by the Department of Homeland Security. No
one in MDPD has his credentials or background in communications or 911.