After weeks of technical hiccups, nearly every law enforcement agency across the East Bay has now silenced their police radios.

Before sunrise Wednesday, all but one Alameda County agency pulled public access to communications between officers and dispatchers, completing a region-wide shift toward secrecy that has prompted alarm among police accountability and First Amendment advocates.

And in a surprise move, the lone holdout — the Berkeley Police Department — may soon join them.

The process to “encrypt” radio channels faced multiple setbacks over the past two months, as technical glitches delayed an expensive, yearslong effort to end decades of open radio waves. Police radios in Contra Costa went silent last week, but a snafu kept police channels in Alameda County open to the public u

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