Los Angeles Police Department
Assistant Chief George Gascon is seeking $750,000 in grants and donations to
purchase a new computer application that consolidates nationwide crime data and
arrest reports, which would aid local detectives in solving criminal
investigations.
COPLINK®
searches through millions of pieces of data in various computer arrest reports,
crime records, field interviews and traffic citation reports, and delivers a
list of leads to detectives instantaneously.
"My goal is to find money in the
next couple of weeks," Gascon said. "I want to have this up and running by
February. I think we can save lives with this thing."
COPLINK®,
developed at an artificial intelligence lab at the University of Arizona in 1996
and procured through a $1.2 million grant through the U.S. Department of Justice
in 1998 is being implemented in cities, counties and federal government agencies
nationwide.
Several metropolitan police agencies
in cities such as Boston, New York and Tampa
have been considering using it or already are using it. Even federal agencies
such as the CIA and FBI are seeking the system.
LAPD Detective Jeffrey Godown said
COPLINK®
would cut hundreds of hours out of detectives' work and would offer up clues
that could be overlooked by human error.
COPLINK®
would be attached to the 20 criminal databases the LAPD already uses. The new
system would search any kind of police contact with suspects, victims and
witnesses that has been recorded in their databases.
"With all those database systems we
have, it makes it difficult to query each one," Godown said. "It makes it
difficult to take all the information and tie it together to ultimately find the
bad guy. COPLINK®
searches it all at once. It's like a one-stop shop system. There isn't anything
like that in this department."
Gascon has been looking for funding
from private firms, which he would not identify. He's been talking to city
officials to get input on ways to raise money for the project.
"I'm not looking for city funding
because I know we don't have it, but for some help," he said. "I'm on the
warpath right now."
Eventually, Gascon said, he hopes to
get terminals installed in every station in across the city, so that officers
and detectives can access the new database.
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