| |
Colorado Police Embrace New Communications Technology
POLICE MAGAZINE
06/12/07
BACK...
|
|
|
Law enforcement officials in Colorado's
Grand Junction and Mesa County police departments plan to invest in a
state-of-the-art, cross-reference database that will enable information
sharing, more efficient communications, and expedite case
investigations.
COPLINK provides analytical searching capabilities, shares available
information, and would link the city and county database systems, as
reported in The Daily Sentinel. The databases for the city and county
currently operate on two separate systems and as such don't "talk" to
each other.
But with COPLINK, an officer can provide little or partial information,
such as an incomplete license plate number or identifying tattoo, which
the database would cross-reference and process. The system's
cross-referencing capabilities would enable the officer to access
information other law enforcement agencies may have compiled about the
suspect if the suspect had had a previous run-in with the law in another
county or jurisdiction.
"Combining the information into one system, which also is connected to
agencies on the Front Range, could save law enforcement hundreds of
hours in investigative time," says Deputy Chief Troy Smith of the Grand
Junction Police Department. "Any number of cases could be solved much
quicker than right now."
Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey concurs and says that the COPLINK system
is designed to help law enforcement make connections in cases and
identify and track suspects more efficiently and more expeditiously.
"This [COPLINK] is something that we absolutely want to do," says Hilkey.
"I believe in any kind of system that allows us to access and share
data. That takes the whole conversation to the next level."
BACK...
|
|
