Pocket Policing

For more than a decade, police departments have used mobile data to dispatch officers and give them access to law enforcement information in the field. But police who don’t work in patrol cars have largely missed the benefits of laptop computers linked to wireless communications systems. Most officers on motorcycle, bicycle or foot and detectives working undercover have continued to rely on voice communications.

That’s changing today as developers introduce law enforcement software for wireless handheld computing devices.

In Framingham, Massachusetts, for example, some police now use Palm V personal digital assistants (PDAs) to identify wanted suspects and stolen property, receive dispatches and exchange messages. In February, Framingham joined the first wave of police departments to implement the PocketBlue wireless law enforcement system from Aether Systems of Owings Mills, Maryland.

Aether’s PocketBlue became commercially available in June 2001. It’s a handheld extension of the company’s laptop-based PacketCluster Patrol system. About 50,000 police use PacketCluster to access information from state and federal databases, file reports from the field, interface with computer-aided dispatching (CAD) systems and communicate with other offices, said Mike Layman, senior product marketing manager at Aether.

The Framingham Police have used PacketCluster for about five years. Computers in all 24 of the department’s marked patrol cars send and receive data over a Motorola private radio network. With PacketCluster in place, an officer pulling over a car can immediately look up the license plate number through a link to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles database.

“The old way was, if you stopped a car, you had to call the station,” recalled Steven Carl, Framingham’s police chief. “One person in the station was dispatching, maintaining a log, doing office duties and running plates for up to 24 officers.”

Having officers run plates and look up other data themselves is more efficient, he said.

Stolen car?

It’s also safer. In the old days, before calling the station, the officer walked up to the car to collect the driver’s license and registration.

“You didn’t know if you were approaching a stolen vehicle,” Carl said. “Now, you plug the plate number in, you type the location where you are, and it does all that automatically, along with notifying the dispatcher where you are.”

If the system determines that the driver might be a criminal suspect, it automatically notifies other officers so they can head for the scene to offer backup.

PacketCluster can also retrieve and display mug shots.

The Framingham PD was one of three police departments in Massachusetts to beta test PocketBlue last year. Before Aether could introduce the product for commercial use in the state, PocketBlue had to operate there for several months and undergo thorough testing by the Massachusetts Criminal History Systems Board (CHSB).

With CHSB approval secured, Framingham became a full-fledged PocketBlue customer in February. Department officials added the handheld systems to extend the benefits of wireless data to motorcycle, bicycle and foot officers, along with personnel working in unmarked cars, Carl said.

Due to a tight budget, Framingham has deployed only two Palm units so far.

“We plan on adding more within a year,” using money from block grants, community policing grants and homeland security funding, Carl said.

Palm to Blackberry

Department officials also hope to replace the Palm units with Blackberry wireless handhelds from Research in Motion (RIM). These are better suited to use on the street, said Edward Burman, a technology officer at the Framingham PD.

“A Palm breaks pretty easily when it’s dropped a few times. The RIM technology, which is more like a pager, can withstand more abuse.”

Framingham can’t yet make that switch because, so far, the state’s CHSB has approved PocketBlue only for use with Verizon’s CDPD wireless network, Burman said. Since RIM doesn’t make a Blackberry unit with a CDPD radio modem, the department must wait until the CHSB approves PocketBlue operating on Cingular’s Mobitex or Motient’s DataTac technologies.

Along with the Palm and Blackberry handhelds, Aether has validated PocketBlue for use on the HP iPAC Pocket PC and on Nextel’s i95cl and iM1100 wireless handsets. Besides CDPD, Mobitex and DataTac networks, the system works on 802.11 wireless local area networks, Layman said. The laptop-based PacketCluster system supports the same networks as PocketBlue, plus third-generation (3G) wireless technologies and a large variety of private radio systems, he said.

Because PacketCluster and PocketBlue are fully integrated, officers using the two systems can exchange messages with one another even when they’re communicating on different wireless networks.

In the police station, the heart of the system is the PacketCluster server, which communicates over a secure link with the state’s criminal history information system. This provides access to sources such as a state’s motor vehicle department, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications Systems (NLETS). In Framingham, the system is also linked to the police department’s own database and its CAD system.

The PacketCluster server supports communications with the laptops. It is also linked to a PocketBlue server, which handles communications with the handheld units. Aether provides security at the application level to safeguard data transmitted over the wireless network.

“It’s a 256-bit encryption that provides the ultimate in encryption end-to-end from the handheld device all the way through the PacketCluster server,” Layman said.

Silent running

Secure, text-based communications allow police to operate without tipping their hands to people listening on radio scanners. For instance, a detective in an unmarked car “can be simply sitting there in the dark, running plates for information on a Palm Pilot” and not be overheard, Burman said.

Handheld computers are a better choice for unmarked cars, because a vehicle outfitted with a mobile computer and special antenna might arouse suspicion, said Carl.

PocketBlue and PacketCluster provide essentially the same functions, except officers can’t use PocketBlue to write and transmit reports. An optional PocketBlue module called Field Interview Tracking, however, allows departments with concerns about racial profiling to capture data about traffic stops.

In Framingham, bicycle officers patrolling a housing project have used PocketBlue to identify people who were wanted for arrest, Carl said. The police prosecutor has used it in court to look up the driving history of people who were appealing traffic citations. During a snowstorm, foot officers used it to locate owners of illegally parked cars the city was preparing to tow.

“They could run plates and see if they could knock on some doors to get people to move their cars before we towed them,” Burman said.

Adding handheld units to the police department’s mobile data arsenal also make fiscal sense, Carl said.

“It’s cheaper, in the big picture, because although the marked cars need a durable, ruggedized laptop that’s waterproof, administrators, investigators, undercover operatives and motorcycles don’t need the expense of a $4,000 computer, plus the modem, the wiring, etc. in every vehicle.”

With a small number of handheld units, “you could have a whole fleet of vehicles or a whole group of officers who can just sign them out and take them where they need them.”

Other public safety agencies using PocketBlue include the Bridgewater, Mass., Police Department, the Lake County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Patrol and the Port of Seattle Police Department.

Aether also offers a pair of wireless data applications for fire departments — Rescue for onboard mobile computers and PocketFD for handhelds.