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New System Links
CSRA's Crime Databases.
Local Chiefs and Sheriffs Met
with Officials to Discuss COPLINK.
By Karen Daily
Aiken Standard, Staff writer
04/11/07
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"It just got a lot harder to be a criminal in the CSRA," said Dr. Todd
Wright, Savannah River National Laboratory Director.
Seven law enforcement agencies from Aiken, Burke, Columbia, Edgefield
and Richmond counties are about to form a computer information sharing
network the likes of which would make the investigators on CSI green
with envy.
In as few as six months, an interstate information highway will be
running through the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, Aiken Public Safety,
Burke County Sheriff's Office, Columbia County Sheriff's Office,
Edgefield County Sheriff's Office, North Augusta Public Safety and
Richmond County Sheriff's Office.
Funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the $1.4
million COPLINK database will allow investigators access to seemingly
unrelated data stored in dozens of different databases at the various
agencies.
After reviewing several commercially available products, representatives
from the local law enforcement agencies visited Alaska last year where
the COPLINK database is in use statewide. The agencies voted to apply
for the funding and SRNL assisted with preparation of the proposals.
On Wednesday, representatives from the law enforcement agencies and
several officials met with the media to unveil the network plans and
explain the collaboration.
"It uses our existing systems and dumps all of the information into the
same system," said Lt. Phil Kestin with Aiken Public Safety.
Any information gathered on a person would be accessible with just a few
keystrokes — be it a speeding ticket or arrest.
"Our community has a river that runs through it, but that can't stop the
flow of information because it doesn't stop that criminal element," said
Sheriff Michael Hunt.
COPLINK's success was displayed on a nationwide stage in late 2002 when
the Washington D.C. snipers went on a rampage in the metro area.
"A number of agencies in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia had
gathered information about each shooting, but it was the COPLINK
database that compiled witness accounts," Aiken Public Safety Chief Pete
Frommer said. "Investigators learned the same blue Chevy was spotted
within minutes of three shootings."
More recently, a string of armed robberies in Arizona was solved when
one witness volunteered information about the suspect. He told police he
thought he knew the man from high school. His nickname at the time was
Peanut. Officers searched the database and learned a convicted criminal
with the nickname Peanut was living in the area and was released from
jail about the time the robberies began.
Those detectives used "good old-fashioned" police work to connect the
dots and arrested the suspect. He is currently incarcerated for those
crimes.
Agencies from Hawaii to Massachusetts are using the computer system that
ideally could one day link with one another on a national level.
"This technology is more useful to all of us than it is to any of us,"
U.S. Georgia Representative Jon Barrow said Wednesday.
North Augusta Public Safety Chief T. Lee Wetherington said the database
would have been an essential tool during the early phases of the Huddle
House murder investigation in 2005. A gunman killed one man and injured
two others after going on an early morning shooting spree at the North
Augusta restaurant.
That killer is still at large.
"The border is an obstacle, if not a wall, for information," he said.
"This changes that."
Aiken Public Safety investigator Capt. Ray Scott said he remembers the
days when he would use a map and pushpins to track a crime spree.
"When I heard about this, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning," he
joked. "This is taking us well into the 21st century."
Frommer said the local agencies have received assistance and the backing
of U.S. representative Gresham Barrett (R-SC) and Senator Lindsey Graham
(R-SC).
The cost of the maintaining the system annually will cost each agency
approximately $5,000.
"But, it's something we can't afford to be without," Scott said.
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