Washington police agencies unite in data-sharing

SEATTLE – Thirty-eight law enforcement agencies across the state, from the FBI’s Seattle office to the Spokane Police Department, have joined a regional information-sharing network designed to solve crimes, protect officers and possibly prevent terrorist attacks.

Not taking part: the Department of Homeland Security.

About three dozen federal, state and local law enforcement officials met Monday at the federal courthouse here to demonstrate the system, which they described as the most extensive of seven such pilot projects around the country. Through the Web-based system, called LINX, officers can quickly obtain background information on people, weapons, vehicles, addresses and crimes from widely disparate jurisdictions – information that was not previously readily accessible.

Officials said the project marks the first time the Justice Department has granted local law enforcement one-stop access to records from the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshal’s Service; and the Bureau of Prisons.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which historically has investigated crime on Navy bases, began developing the regional information networks in 2003, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks showed a need for greater information sharing by law enforcement. It provided about $3 million for the Washington state-based system, which eventually could include agencies from other Northwest states and British Columbia.

Initially the FBI refused to join, but after much lobbying by Seattle-based U.S. Attorney John McKay and others, the Justice Department agreed this summer to include records from FBI and other agencies’ investigations in the Northwest.

But the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Coast Guard – all in the Department of Homeland Security – still are not taking part. McKay said Monday that concerns about what information those agencies can share with local law enforcement proved to be a hurdle.

The system is only accessible to agencies that agree to share at least some information. No classified information is available through LINX, nor are juvenile arrest records from the Washington State Patrol.

“Our hope is that in creating a pilot program, that we will develop the changing of policies” to allow Homeland Security records to be shared, McKay said.

A Homeland Security spokesman in Seattle was traveling Monday and could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., did not immediately return a call.

Local police chiefs and sheriffs said they’ve been waiting decades for such a system.

Kitsap County Sheriff Steve Boyer recalled a case two years ago in which his deputies were investigating an attempted abduction of a young girl by a man in a black SUV. With the LINX system, they would have known immediately that the Poulsbo Police Department was working on a similar case just a few miles down the road.

The system will also allow officers to learn not merely that a suspect has previously served time for second-degree assault, for example, but also the details of that assault, because actual police reports from other jurisdictions will be available through the system. Previously, it might have taken hours of legwork to obtain an old police report.

“The reality is that it’s going to make the officer on the street safer,” Boyer said. “They’re going to know who they’re dealing with.”

Officers statewide have recently started LINX training.

The Naval Criminal Intelligence Service is developing similar networks in Norfolk, Va.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Corpus Christi, Texas; Hawaii; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Washington, D.C. Eventually, officials hope, law enforcement agencies nationwide will share information through the networks.