Sanford Cops Get ‘Partner’
In Sanford and other cities in Central Florida, police departments are adding systems to patrol cars that enable officers to listen to vehicle data from their computers as they drive on the road. This eliminates the need to gaze downward or stop the vehicle to look at information from a laptop.
The new technology, called Virtual Partner, also lets officers create electronic tickets using vehicle tag or driver’s license data.
The officer simply inputs details about the offense and presses the print button; the entire process takes about two minutes, says Sgt. Greg Smith, supervisor of Sanford’s traffic unit. However, some of the printers have been printing data outside of the appropriate boxes or printing only halfway, he says.
The entire system cost the department about $74,000, including the installation of in-car printers. That amount was financed through state grants and law-enforcement trust money.
The only town in Seminole County that has yet to implement Virtual Partner is Oviedo, which is still mulling the move.
The next step for Sanford is installing Virtual Partner in unmarked squad cars and streamlining the system that transmits citation records so that data can be sent automatically to agencies as needed, says police representative Cleo Cohen.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) from the Orlando Sentinel (FL); 02/18/07; Patterson, Melissa.