PDAs Lengthen Long Arm Of The Law

Police departments across the U.S. are using wireless handhelds to share and gather data on the move - foiling crime big time, and informing you of your parking ticket via e-mail. DCLnews reports.

"Disturbance at a local hotel," went the call to Peabody, Mass., police department. Detectives promptly gunned their squad cars to the scene. On arrival they discovered 22 gang members in a room, including minors, along with a firearm and alcohol.

Historically this type of situation would take an hour or more just to call in names or licenses for criminal history checks. Officers would have had two options: The 22 suspects could have been marched down to the patrol car to perform the checks; or they could have been made to wait in the room with another officer, while all the license and names were run.

But because Peabody detectives have now been issued with wireless handheld computers, all they had to do was enter the 22 individuals' names, hit submit, and the results from the criminal history databases came back in seconds.

Detectives were able to determine that one of the 22 was a juvenile previously reported missing by the Department of Social Services. And that the firearm located in the room was unregistered - which resulted in an arrest for illegal possession of a weapon.

Eavesdroppers thwarted

Not only was this approach a lot faster, it cut out the need to call in each person's identification over the radio. This prevented the public - and more crucially, other gang members - from eavesdropping with handheld scanners. As a result, the situation was far more contained, controlled and safe.

"Prior to deploying (the handheld wireless system), detectives had to use the radio to call in criminal checks because they typically didn't have access to the laptop outside their patrol cars. And since gangs and drug dealers often use radio scanners to track police activity, it can put our guys at risk," says Detective Scott Richards of the Peabody Police Department. "Now detectives can quickly access criminal information and send silent messages over a secure system without worrying about criminals knowing where they are and what they are doing."

The software running on the handheld devices is PocketBlue, developed by Aether Systems Inc, based in MD. It enables foot, bike or mounted patrol officers to access secure, real time data about vehicles, guns and people by tapping into the National Crime Information Center, the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, and the Department of Motor Vehicle databases. They can also send and receive e-mails.

"...detectives can quickly access criminal information and send silent messages over a secure system without worrying about criminals knowing where they are and what they are doing."

Undercover

The Lake County Sheriff's Office in Florida, which runs PocketBlue on BlackBerry handheld devices, has found the system useful in undercover work.

"Unlike PCs, laptops and radios, the handhelds drop into the officer's pocket or under the seat for quick and inconspicuous access to critical information, which is particularly useful when an officer is undercover," says Sheriff George E. Knupp.

Traffic control

This new technology isn't just confined to the United States. Law enforcement around the globe is being transformed by wireless handheld systems. Traffic police in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, for example, have been issued with handheld computers to assist them in traffic management. Pocket PCs enable them to instantly call up information about any vehicle from a central database, simply by keying in its registration number.

Police are also able to issue fines immediately and send a mobile phone message, fax, or e-mail to the vehicle owner informing him or her of the details of the fine - dispensing with the need to maintain a manual traffic fine register.

DCLnews Editorial

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