New computers speed police work

CHENEY – The Cheney Police Department is now fighting crime with high-tech tools to let its officers spend more time patrolling the streets and less time doing paperwork.

Police Cmdr. Rick Campbell said the new computers in patrol cars went live the evening of Sept. 11 and were used a short time later during an early morning arrest on Sept. 12.

Officers spending five to eight minutes on routine traffic stops will now spend about two or three minutes on them, thanks to the new computers, Campbell said.

The computers, or mobile data browsers, are connected to servers at the Police Department and use wireless cards and radio frequency modems to move information back and forth between the police on the street and the office.

The MDBs can connect officers with several criminal databases throughout the area, where officers can find mug shots and police reports from their vehicles. Officers can access the Internet to find addresses through Google or other mapping programs and can send instant messages to other officers.

The MDBs also allow officers to run license plates – up to 10 at a time – vehicle identification numbers, and driver’s license information from all 50 states.

Officers can see all the dispatch activity on their screens, which includes the calls that come in, the number of officers available to respond to calls, and the number of officers that are involved in other activities on the streets.

They can also take pictures of suspects and send them to the Police Department where other officers can show the pictures to victims, which allows the police to keep the suspects and the victims farther apart.

Police can complete police reports from their cars, which allows them to stay in an area where there has been some trouble to make sure nothing else happens.

The monitors allow for silent dispatches, so if there are loud parties in town where people monitor the police scanners, they probably won’t know when the police are coming.

There is also an emergency button on the MDBs that police can hit silently to send alerts to dispatch and will appear on every other MDB in the city.

Campbell said that this new technology will allow the department to make other upgrades to the system, such as thermal-imaging cameras to scan areas in the dark while they are looking for suspects, cameras in the back seat to monitor suspects, and cameras in the front of the vehicle that will activate when the officer turns on his or her patrol lights to monitor traffic stops.

Campbell is attending presentations on technology that will allow officers to write e-tickets. The officer can scan a driver’s license, hit some hot keys on the MDB, the computer will calculate the cost and print out an e-ticket to give to the driver.

The system was paid for through funds generated by grants from the Department of Homeland Security and the Law Enforcement Terrorist Prevention Program. Campbell estimates the total cost was somewhere in the range of $750,000.

“Chief (Jeff) Sale has done an outstanding job of bringing money to the city,” Campbell said. He added that since Sale came to the department in 2004, the chief has brought around $1.5 million in grants to Cheney.

As of Sept. 17, Campbell said, the computers have assisted officers in four incidents. They have found warrants and drivers with suspended licenses.

“So, not bad in less than five days,” Campbell said.