February 24, 2006
By Stephanie Harrington
You definitely want to think twice before you make that illegal U-turn across the double line on Mamaroneck Avenue to grab a parking space that just opened up. If you do, your car's image, it's registration bar code, and possibly the color of the coat you're wearing as you are caught in the act, will be instantly transmitted to the monitor of the duty officer at the Village of Mamaroneck Police Department (VOMPD).
Yes, the future has come to, indeed been avidly pursued by, the Village of Mamaroneck Police Department. That has its downsides, like the one just described. If an officer in a patrol car is nearby, he or she can produce a citation on the spot, on the nifty little printer that, in addition to the mobile touch screen data terminal mounted just in front of the dashboard, forms what tech team trainer Sgt. Regan
Kelly refers to as a complete auto "office environment." If the system registers a break-in at premises served by the department's alarm network, the computer will, at the same time, cough up information on whether the client is behind on payments for the protective service.
The system runs a software program called Total Enforcement and connects with the New York State Police Information Network (NYSPIN) in Albany, which allows local police departments to share data with each other. Through NYSPIN, the local departments can interact with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
Also on the upside of this innovative technology is that it increases efficiency in administrative, as well as policing tasks. During a tour of the equipment inside police headquarters on Mount Pleasant Avenue, Kelly explained that data the department has to share with Village Hall can be instantly transmitted and filed in both places, that the issuing of permits is now a matter of one-stop shopping and that, even in planning the department's budget, Chief Edward Flynn can be in direct communication with village officials. And this upgrade in efficiency, he stressed, saves the tax payers' money.
Kelly also noted that the system enables different village departments--police, fire and sanitation--to communicate with each other on a regular basis and instantaneously in emergencies, like the recent blizzard. It enables the village, he pointed out, to avoid the communication gaps uncovered in the investigations of 9/11 and the tragically inadequate responses to Hurricane Katrina.
Kelly credits Flynn and Executive Officer Lt. James Gaffney, with spearheading the department's effort to be on the cutting edge of law enforcement technology.
The result is that Mamaroneck is only one-of-three local police departments in Westchester County equipped to instantaneously, from patrol cars as well as from headquarters, interact with NYSPIN and NCIC. The other two Westchester departments with this capability are Peekskill and Croton-on-Hudson.
What Kelly describes as the brains of the operation, the department's very own 2006 version of Hal, is a server dripping a literal mess of wires, that is tucked into a closet-like space in one of the department's offices. In another compartment in another office is Hal's lady friend, an electronic finger-printing and mug-shot machine.
As for the field operation, riding in the front seat of a patrol car does give one a sense of omniscience that brings to mind big brother. When the siren or the lights are turned on, so are the electronic signals. On the plus side, if an officer pulls a car over, he or she can, through a quick license plate check and the reception of data on stolen cars or suspicious incidents, ascertain, without even getting out of the squad car, whether the driver of the stopped vehicle might be dangerous.
As we drove around Harbor Island and Orienta in car 312, Kelly also talked about the system's usefulness in more day-today operations, like reporting flooded streets, downed trees or impending bad weather that seems to be gathering over the Long Island Sound.
Less helpful, though, to a driver who doesn't think it's a very big deal to run a red light, is the fact that big brother will soon have little brothers everywhere: handheld computers are being distributed for use by officers on foot and on bicycles and to Park Rangers. And boaters--don't underestimate the marine unit.
