Newswise — How can new technology be used to keep law enforcement officers as safe as possible? This issue was thrust into the spotlight in May 2015, when President Obama signed into law a measure to require instant nationwide “Blue Alerts” to warn about threats to police officers and help track down the suspects who make them.
The new law was inspired by the December 2014 murder of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, by assailant Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had traveled to NYC from Baltimore—and who had made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill New York area police officers. But this information was not communicated to officers in New York until roughly the same time as the murders.
As it turns out, a similar tragedy in Texas 15 years ago inspired the development of new technology that could offer a key to minimizing the risk of future tragedies like this one. In August 2000, Trooper Randall Vetter of the Texas Highway Patrol was shot in Texas during a routine traffic stop for a seatbelt violation. The assailant had told officers in another town that he was going to shoot the next cop who pulled him over for wearing a seatbelt—but that information was never effectively disseminated. That incident led to the development of the innovative system, called the COPsync Network.
According to Ronald A. Woessner, CEO of Dallas-based COPsync, Inc., which created the COPsync Network, any effective technology of this type must fulfill some basic requirements. For example, it ought to allow officers to communicate and share information in real-time across jurisdictional boundaries. Typically, law enforcement officers from one agency are not able to provide information to officers in other agencies in real-time, nor are they able to communicate among themselves as if they were a single agency. This occurs because each of the approximately 18,000 U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies typically has its own record-keeping and communication systems and they are not linked through a centralized database. These lapses could result in preventable officer deaths and injuries, and criminals—even extremely violent ones, like terrorists—moving undetected from one jurisdiction to the next.
In addition, says Woessner, technology can be harnessed to allow an officer in need of assistance to easily contact the closest officers right away. Technology has also been developed that will allow an officer to automatically run a plate or license before contacting dispatch on the phone to see if a car pulled over during a routine traffic stop was stolen or if the driver is a convicted felon.
So far, COPsync has attracted more than 1,100 law enforcement agencies, courts and schools to its subscriber base, with subscribers in Texas, Louisiana, California, Mississippi, and New England; and; the company hopes to expand its network nationwide.
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