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‘Google’ for Cops
Software
Helps Police Search for
Cyber
Clues to Bust Criminals
4/4/03 ---
Tech TV
By Jim Goldman
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Detectives Tim Petersen
and Jim Schultz of the Tucson, Ariz., Police Department were investigating a
brutal crime in which the victim was shot, stabbed in the neck, and run over.
But aside from the gruesome forensic evidence and the nickname of a potential
suspect, they had little else to lead them to whodunit. "We had 'Shorty' and not
much else," says Schultz, remembering the case and the scarcity of investigative
leads.
That was until they plugged in some of the data on their computers. Within a few
hours, the detectives nabbed their suspect.
Sound impossible? It would have been, if not for a new software package that is
helping law enforcement take big bites out of cyberspace. Like Google, But for
Cops.
The software they used is COPLINK, made by Knowledge Computing Corporation,
which lets the police link their databases together and search them
simultaneously, even across different departments.
Company CEO Bob Griffin walked a visitor through the process.
"This is the way police would actually be using COPLINK," he says, typing in the
nickname of a suspect. Police simply type in some clues — a nickname, a location
of the crime, a weapon used, even what seems to be the most insignificant piece
of information. The program will then search out any relevant matches.
"It has a set of analytics that allow you to understand that this person has a
relationship to this person who may have a relationship to this vehicle that may
have a relationship to this gun," says Griffin.
Hsinchun Chen, an artificial intelligence expert and professor at the University
of Arizona, says COPLINK's capabilities are astounding. The software uses
specific algorithms that build a kind of digital bridge, according to its
creator, from one platform to the next.
"From data to information, information to intelligence, and from intelligence
you can derive knowledge," he says.
"A search previously I might have been able to do in two or three weeks time, I
can now do within two or three minutes," says Petersen. "It's just phenomenal."
More COPLINK Users, More Arrests?
The Tucson Police Department was the first in the nation to use the technology.
Several more have signed on since, and now dozens of other jurisdictions are
examining whether they want to deploy it. Even the FBI and CIA have expressed
interest.
Washington, D.C.-area law enforcement officials say software like this could
have dramatically cut down the time it took to arrest the sniper suspects last
year. That's because police could have simply typed in the locations of all the
shootings and asked the software to return any relevant data connected to those
locations.
Knowledge Computing's Griffin says police would have instantly seen that the two
suspects later arrested in connection with the sniper killings had been stopped
for unrelated incidents at several of the locations where victims had been shot.
It would not have named the two men who were later arrested as suspects in the
sniper case, "but it would have given police a place to start. It would have
turned them in their direction," says Griffin.
As more agencies sign on to use the system, the bigger the searchable database
becomes, making the software even more valuable to investigators.
"It is a blessing," says Schultz.
COPLINK won't solve the puzzle, he admits, but it should give him all the pieces
he'll need.
As for "Shorty," who had been released from prison only 24 hours before the
Tucson attack, he's back in an Arizona prison, serving an additional 16 years
for the attempted murder.
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