North Carolina and Virginia Law Enforcement Agencies Connect Via Internet Protocol-Based Solution

It's the type of nightmare that can raise a police officer's blood pressure: In the border region between Virginia and North Carolina, a suspect rockets down the highway so fast toward Pelham, N.C., that his car's speedometer creeps into the triple digits. Two Caswell County, N.C., officers follow behind as civilian vehicles swerve to avoid a collision. The suspect blasts through Pelham, and the officers see that he's heading toward Danville, Va. They radio their county dispatch center, which in turn relays the message to Danville's dispatch -- but then things go awry.

The suspect crosses the state line, but the police officers must end the pursuit because Virginia is not their jurisdiction. And by the time Danville's dispatch notifies its police force and those officers are ready to engage, the suspect is gone. The inability of the two police forces to seamlessly communicate has enabled a criminal to avoid apprehension -- an alarming problem that occurs when law enforcement agencies have radio systems that aren't integrated. This is problematic when a chase runs through multiple jurisdictions and affects multiple law enforcement agencies.

"Pittsylvania County [Va.] surrounds Danville on three sides and also borders North Carolina, and the city of Danville borders North Carolina. And right across, sharing that same border is Caswell County [N.C]. There are at least two main thoroughfares that run between Virginia and North Carolina -- Highway 29 and 86," said Maj. Dean Hairston of the Danville Police Department.

Many law enforcement and emergency management forces use land mobile radio technology to communicate, but often each agency has its own frequency and range -- sufficient when talking among colleagues of a single department, but problematic for talking to other agencies. Sometimes a memorandum of understanding permits one agency to switch to another agency's frequency if necessary. However, the drawback is an agency can't use its own frequency while also using another jurisdiction's frequency. In these cases, the long arm of the law can be thrown seriously out of joint.

But there's hope on the horizon for regional authorities and their citizens.

Local agencies in Virginia and North Carolina are working to implement a permanent voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)-based solution that would link IP, non-IP and radio networks inside one system. This would allow officers to talk across jurisdictional lines without ditching the equipment they've used for years.

The work toward this VoIP system began in 2005 with the Piedmont Regional Interoperability Project, a partnership between the city of Danville and Cisco Systems. The pilot was designed to determine how Cisco's IP technology could assist authorities, and after reaching a promising 2007 proof-of-concept benchmark, officers and technicians are configuring the system for long-term use.

How it All Began

It was serendipity when Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot attended a 2005 International Association of Chiefs of Police conference and saw an eye-opening presentation by Cisco about the company's IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS) technology. He was impressed that it integrated various modes of communication. IPICS had been tested in Honolulu and Miami, and Broadfoot figured that his region would make a great addition, so he approached Jeff Frazier, a director in the public-sector practice of Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group.

"They discussed the particular problems we were experiencing, and based on the increased level of deployment, Chief Broadfoot and Jeff [Frazier] both agreed that this would be a good fit for the third phase of product testing because it would allow them to use state agencies, county agencies and municipalities [together]," Hairston said.