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Cities Link Up to Fight Terrorism
By Mary Frances Gurton Staff
Writer
12/22/06
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PASADENA - Along with 44 other Southland
cities, Pasadena is now included in an electronic database allowing
police and sheriff's departments to share crime information to help
analyze terrorism threats, authorities said.
"We have been committed to participating in regional efforts for a
period of time," said Pasadena police Chief Bernard Melekian. "This is
due in large measure to the number of nationally significant events that
we deal with."
The change will make the Pasadena Police Department part of COPLINK, a
computer technology that allows information-sharing between several
major databases of the Los Angeles Police and Los Angeles County
Sheriff's departments.
Other participating cities include Whittier, Long Beach, Burbank,
Beverly Hills and Inglewood, officials said.
"The 45 cities will create a third component and expand the system's
capability dramatically," said Deputy Captain Mark Leap, head of the
LAPD's counterterrorism unit. "Officers using the software can inquire
into LAPD, sheriff's, or any of the 45 cities' databases."
COPLINK is also to be used by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center,
the largest in the nation, which opened in Norwalk in July.
Although the regional agencies may coordinate with each other and the
FBI, the FBI's information is not yet available to all, Leap said.
Run by the LAPD, the FBI and the sheriff's department, the regional
center creates a crime-sharing forum to assist in analyzing terrorist
leads, according to the FBI's Web site.
Accessible information includes names of people arrested, cited or
interviewed by officers, or thought to be involved in such crimes.
"This takes information sharing to a new level of sophistication,"
Melekian said. "It will add to the communication that is so crucial in
counterterrorism efforts."
Hundreds of tips and other information have flowed through the center
since its opening, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Einmiller.
"The JRIC is an intake center staffed with analysts from all \
agencies," Einmiller said. "What it does is in-take intelligence, fuses,
then refers the information to the proper agency. It's a first line of
defense in the intelligence area."
About a year after the 9/11 attacks, the Pasadena Police Department
requested funding to create a specific counterterrorism liaison
position, which was approved by the City Council, Melekian said.
"The purpose of that position was to ensure that Pasadena has a direct
line of communication with the big players, including the LAPD and the
sheriff's department," he said.
The department has responded to nearly a dozen terrorism-related
incidents in Pasadena in the past several years, he said, without
elaborating.
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