"Using Technology has become part of an officers day in our Department, the Law Enforcement Environment is changing and our department is keeping pace with this change by making this technology available to all our Officers."

David Wrinn, Informational Systems manager and a Patrolman for 18 years in the Norwalk, CT PD, knows first hand about how his City's computer system functions for his fellow officers.

Need for new system obvious

Almost two years ago, Norwalk's PD reviewed the performance of its then 10 year old collection of aging technologies, and decided to make a change. The fact that it was 1999, with the Year 2000 and new mandatory technology standards looming, made the need for both successful and swift change the top priority.

Norwalk PD officials searched to find the most appropriate software and equipment to serve their needs. They examined several different brands before selecting NexGen. "We looked for a vendor who would understand the needs of police work, a vendor whom we would not need to educate, a stable vendor who would be around to provide us with technical support after the sale," explains Wrinn. The department currently has five Servers, 70 Workstations, 15 Mobile Computers in cars, and uses Windows 98 and NT 4.0 as platforms.

179 officers protect the 6th largest City in Connecticut

Wrinn was picked to train the trainers. "I had a varied amount of computer experience through building small networks and Web information, and I found that I took to them very well." he says. Well enough, thought his superiors, to have the task of teaching the 179 officers who protect the 6th largest City in Connecticut. Wrinn says his fellow officers are at ease with technology. "We are providing an increasing amount of the information directly to the investigating Officers so that they can actual make timely use of the information. Officers can enter in small piece of the puzzle, whether it be a license plate, phone number or partial name and then get an immediate display of any and all police involvement to subjects and incidents in our database. In a city this size, with a large case load, this system allows us to make connections between incidents that previously could not be made."

The hub of Norwalk's computerized system is a NexGen designed Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) which integrates with 911. CAD is the beginning point of data collection and management Now, officials have immediate access to all incident information and history from the time a call comes in.

A history of every call and incident in seconds

This module is where officers fill out easy to use screen based forms that include the nature of the offense, involved parties, property, vehicles, and narrative reports. The Case Incident Report form can be printed from this module. Supervisors can assign case activity to personnel, and assignments will appear in a message window to the user when he or she logs on. The Incident Reporting module is fully NIBRS-compliant.

If an officer needs to check an individual name, he or she simply enters the name and starts the search function. The system will retrieve the name from any file in which it appears, anywhere in the entire system. The monitor then displays the person's last known address, social security number and physical description. It also identifies the data files in which this person's name appears, in case further investigation is required. Anything new automatically updates the database and finds all associated files.

Heading off real trouble

Wrinn relates a recent story about how NexGen's Incident Reporting module headed off real trouble before it started.

"A woman from Texas was being abused by her husband, whom, she found out, had been in jail before. She decided to leave him, upon learning that the jail time was actually for beating his previous wife to death.

The woman decided to go to a friends home in Norwalk. Shortly after her arrival, threatening phone calls were being received at the friends home from the husband. The woman reported the problem to us, and an Case Incident was started. It was at first reported and believed that the husband was still in Texas and was calling around attempting to locate his wife.

The friend, through caller ID, was able to provide our investigator with the originating number of the threatening calls. It was then learned that the husband was no longer in Texas but actually calling from a Norwalk exchange!

The question was from where. Our printed reverse phone directory had no information for the number. Knowing there would be a delay with a trace thorough SNET, the investigator placed just the phone number into the NexGen system and was immediately given three other incidents involving that phone number. These incidents were previous 911 hang-ups that the NexGen CAD system had automatically tracked and entered into our database.

The phone number entered into the NexGen system identified a public phone in front of a Norwalk motel. Detectives went immediately to that location-and found the suspect talking on the phone! Upon their arrival he was actually making another threatening call to the friends home. He was apprehended, ending fears that his threats may have turned into violence."

"I would like to be able to say the you just push a button and the computer can do the work for you, but its just not like that. The Patrol Officers and Detectives still do the police work but with the NexGen system we are trying to give them the best tools to accomplish that task. Using the NexGen system we are able to provide the Officers with the information they need to better coordinate investigations, delivers the right information to federal agencies and the courts and hopefully make finding that suspect at the pay phone in front of that motel the norm, not the exception."