Police add technology to fight crime

It's a chilly, rainy Friday night, and Springfield police officer Jeff Burnett is on the way to his patrol car in the headquarters parking lot downtown along with other officers who are starting the third shift. One of the first functions Burnett and the others perform when they get in their patrol cars signals a major technological advance for Springfield police.

They log on to laptop computers.

The laptops are the most visible part of a high-dollar computer records database and communication system improvement program that began about 18 months ago.

Eighty Springfield police cars are now equipped with laptops as part of the mobile data system phase of the program, and officers really appreciate the help it provides, Burnett said.

Officers can communicate with one another and the dispatchers via the laptops, retrieve motor vehicle records information, and write and file incident reports. There is a city map/locator program via the laptop, and it is also used to keep track of all police cars in operation.

"It's definitely better than when we didn't have (the laptops)," said Burnett, 25, a policeman for two years.

The computers are a good research tool, valuable in communicating with fellow officers, and they relieve pressure on the radio dispatch operation, he said, leaving it free for higher priority traffic.

"You can get across exactly what you want to tell them," Burnett said of communicating via laptop.

It is also handy for exchanging sensitive information that police are reluctant to mention on the radio. A lot of outlaws have radio scanners to monitor police activity, and the use of the laptops reduces that edge, Burnett said.

On a recent Friday night in the field, Burnett at one point parked the car and quietly used the laptop to run a records check to find out more about a criminal suspect mentioned at the shift briefing.

Later, he used both the laptop and radio center to run a records check after stopping a pickup truck, from which a passenger had fled at a stop sign, on the west side of the city. The driver was arrested on a traffic violation warrant, and a search of his vehicle yielded what appeared to be illegal drugs.

The laptops are built as "semi-ruggedized" computers, mounted on poles to the right of the driver, and are part of a mobile data system designed to improve speed and accuracy of information flow, said Rick Wells, Police Department technology systems specialist.

All the officers appear to be adapting to the system and appreciating how it helps them, he said. By typing in a simple query, they can find out the records status of a vehicle or driver from any state in the country.

"I'm not getting the static I thought I'd get from older officers," he said. "In fact, many officers would rather drive an older car with a computer than a new car without it."

The laptop installation is one element in an ongoing technology improvement program designed to help Springfield police get current with what's been going on elsewhere in the country, said Police Chief Lynn Rowe.

"I came from a system in Cape Coral, Florida, seven and a half years ago where we had a mobile data system," he said, "and I've been working on getting one here ever since."

What really helped get it moving was Greene County's quarter-cent sales tax for law enforcement that was approved a few years ago.

"That is a key to us really catching up," Rowe said.

According to city records, the police operating budget has been about 23 percent of the total city operating budget for many years. This year, the police budget is $17.7 million of the total $74.4 million city operating budget.

Records show that the police are usually allotted $400,000 to $500,000 each year for capital improvements. Rowe noted that those sums are important, but don't provide enough for big-ticket improvements.

However, with the addition of the law enforcement tax revenue, the situation has changed markedly. The Springfield police share is currently adding in excess of $5 million a year to its budget for the addition of police officers and capital outlays.

So far, nearly $2 million has been spent on the records management and mobile data system with the help of the law enforcement tax and grant monies, Rowe said. GTE was the successful bidder on the mobile data systems project. Tiburon is the low bidder for the records management system, which is still in process.

"The idea of the records management system is to put everything in one bucket," Rowe said. "We've got information in about six different places now, and we want in it a central system."

In doing so, information can be reported, stored and retrieved by police staff much more thoroughly, readily and efficiently, he said.

"Things are going to be more structured," Wells said. "Before, a detective might not be sure he has all information on a case when several people are involved."

But with the consolidated records, a detective will be able to use queries to one system in order to build a case, then add it back to the "bucket," Wells added.

With the new technology, "we can also manage community policing and neighborhood watch," he said.

The laptops, he said, make it easier to do the racial profiling reports now required by state law. Mug shots can be put on disks and given to officers to see on their laptop screens.

Someday, they will be equipped to get digital mug shots sent directly to their cars.

As Burnett noted, police like the benefit of the secrecy the new mobile data system can provide, keeping critical information away from the bad guys.

But Rowe and Wells acknowledge the system is not media-friendly, either, since it will reduce some of the helpful information news organizations traditionally get from their radio scanners.

However, Wells envisions putting a computer terminal in the police building lobby, where the public and news people can obtain reports and information that is open to the public.

And Rowe talks about posting crime incidents and locations on the Internet so city residents can track what's going on in their neighborhoods, alert police and keep themselves safer.

Plans also call for the addition of a computer-aided dispatch system that instantly locates and dispatches the police car or cars closest to an incident that has just been reported, thus improving response time.

A related part of the global positioning technology is the capability to quickly locate and dispatch the vehicle best equipped to respond to a particular incident such as a K-9 unit or other specialized vehicle.

Some of the new capital improvements money will also go toward the police share of the $5 million building at Battlefield Road and Clifton Avenue that will house a fire station and the city's first satellite police station.

A $28 million radio system, which will make it possible for city police, emergency medical services, firefighters, City Utilities and the county to talk to each other, is scheduled to be operational next year.

Another public safety technology under consideration by City Council is the installation of intersection camera systems to catch red-light violators. This is something a growing number of communities are doing to try to cut down traffic accidents and accident risk.

Tom Eubanks , sales manager at Electronic Video Systems in Springfield, estimated that the cost of equipping an intersection would cost at least $70,000.

He has consulted with the city and state on camera systems that monitor traffic for use in signal light management.

Debbie Walker is a sales representative with Nestor Inc. in Providence, R.I., a provider of an intersection-monitoring product called Crossing Guard.

Walker said it can cost anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 to equip an intersection with the technology, depending on the extent of needs, and it costs a minimum of $25 to process a violation ticket.

Nestor is one of four companies that the Police Department has talked to about intersection monitoring systems, according to Lt. Ron Hutchinson.

Eventually, Rowe said, he sees the police and county sheriff tied into a common information system via computer, and the availability of court records to help police on the move do a better job of tracking people and situations important in solving crime.

"Records management is a core product for us, and we need it all connected," said Wells, giving credit to Rowe for the project initiative. "He ought to be really proud of what he's doing."