OHP to get police radios, but say more is needed

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma Highway Patrol received 21 police radios Thursday as a donation from a fund established in honor of a trooper and an Oklahoma City police officer who were killed in a fiery crash.

The radios, paid for out of the Special Trooper Radio Fund, were presented to OHP officials in a formal ceremony at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

The fund was set up in honor of Oklahoma City police officer Jeffery Rominger and trooper Matt Evans. Rominger and Evans died Aug. 31 in a fiery crash on Interstate 40.

Rominger was pursuing a car driven by Patrick Kiplinger and entered the wrong way onto an I-40 off-ramp.

Evans, who was coming from the other direction, didn't know about the pursuit and collided with the cars head on.

The man Rominger was pursing, Patrick Kiplinger, and Kiplinger's teen-age nephew, Martin Hughes, also were killed in the crash.

OHP officials have been pushing for a statewide communications system that would be used by all emergency agencies. The system would cost $50 million.

The 800 megahertz system for patrol cars and other vehicles would allow all law enforcement agencies, emergency services and transportation agencies to use the system and listen to communications.

Officials believe such a system might have prevented the accident that killed Evans and Rominger.

Fund coordinator Jay Dunham called upon the Legislature to fund more radios for trooper vehicles, and pledged further support "for those who would lay down their lives for us."