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Sharing Works Wonders

Stearns County's integrated law enforcement solution makes believers out of police chiefs and sheriffs.

Traditionally local police departments tend to be fairly autonomous. They have their own jurisdictions, their own command structures, their own records system -- and the 15 different police departments in Stearns County, Minn., were no exception.

"It was almost as if criminals could keep changing their names, commit crimes in different cities, and probably never be caught," said George McClure, director of the Stearns County Information Services (IS) Department. "There really was a lack of connectivity and communication between the different police forces in the county -- basic things private-sector companies have had for 10 to 15 years. If they didn't, they would be out of business."

"I used to work at AT&T," McClure said. "We would work on a proposal for a customer -- I worked out of the Minneapolis branch, but we would collaborate with people in Chicago and with headquarters in New Jersey and put together a document. There was none of that connectivity and collaboration with law enforcement in Stearns County, and I think that is pretty typical with local law enforcement.

"So that was the problem we wanted to address," McClure continued. "Law enforcement did not share information, and remedying this could have a significant impact of improving the effectiveness of law enforcement and improving public safety in the county."

In 1998, then-Stearns County Sheriff Jim Kostreba set out to do this, and before the year was out, he and the county IS Department launched what they eventually called the Automated Public Safety (APS) system.

According to McClure, the primary hurdle was political -- getting all the police chiefs who are used to calling the shots to collaborate with the county sheriff and form a cooperative team.


Timing is Everything
The timing couldn't have been better. Many police agencies in the county started to evaluate smaller, less robust public safety computer systems. But some of these agencies serve small communities, with populations ranging from 1,000 to 7,000.

"There was no way they could ever have this kind of technology on their own," said McClure. "If they had started to head in their own directions, it would have been hard to get them all on the same page."

The county sheriff and the IS Department started a campaign by going out and talking to all the police departments and city councils and made an offer that was difficult to refuse. Under the direction of Stearns County Board of Commissioners, the county offered to let area police agencies share in the APS system for a small percentage of the system's original $1.5 million cost.

The county selected VisionAir to provide the software. Built from a number of VisionAir modules, Stearns County's APS system forms a complete, integrated law enforcement solution. It includes a computer aided dispatch 911 module, a mobile computing module, a shared records management system, an integrated jail management system and a private e-mail system.

All individual police departments needed to buy were PCs laptops for the squad cars, an office PC for records, licenses. The county took care of everything else --implementation writing, technical support and design consulting.

The county IS Department operates the hub, and all county police agencies all share the same mobile network and records database. McClure said there is a great deal of value created by this apart from officers simply getting dispatches electronically on their laptops.


Obvious Benefits
"If you talk to all the police chiefs now, they tell you what a significant impact the APS system has had on improving public safety," said McClure. "There is a great deal of routine collaboration today, which really helps because our county is 120 miles across. If something happens in the west part of the county, the same individual can be in the east part an hour later. Now police know it. They know what has happened on the west side."

The system allows police agencies in the county and the county sheriff's department to share dispatches, criminal records information, investigation data and other critical information through a secure computer network. From the laptop computer in his or her patrol car, each officer has access to county dispatch information, countywide criminal records, county jail records (including mug shots), and the National Crime Information Center database. Officers also use mobile computers for confidential communications with other officers. All this has greatly benefited county police investigations.

The whole system runs across a wireless IP network, and the IS Department worked with AT&T to get servers that cover the whole county.

"Now, officers don't have to go across the radio at all with their communications," said McClure. "Before, people would sometimes use scanners to pick up police communications and know when something is happening."

The increased security is a benefit McClure emphasizes.

There are also mapping functions. Not only can an officer call up county maps in the squad car, but the location of all county police cars are shown in real time through the automatic vehicle location component.

"As an officer safety issue, we now know where the squad cars are in the county at any time," said McClure. "We get nasty winters in central Minnesota. If a squad car was in an accident and goes in the ditch, or if an officer was not able to respond for any reason, we would still be able to locate the squad car."

Automatic vehicle location has been a boon to interdepartmental collaboration. "A county deputy will see there is a local police officer responding to a call and will often pitch in to help out," said McClure. "Or a police officer can see that a county sheriff is near the incident and come to help."


Leadership Example
Though other counties in the state share some public safety technologies, Stearns is the only county with all law enforcement agencies sharing a single, comprehensive law enforcement system.

"In other counties, some might be on the same mobile network, but they don't share records or this or that," said McClure. "We have the whole solution shared by all police departments."

It is also the only county in the state that has partnered with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to provide a private and secure computer network between all police agencies countywide.

The county's IS Department continues to provide technical support for all the county's police agencies, with the exception of the St. Cloud Police Department. Though St. Cloud is an active member in the APS project, they provide their own technical support.

McClure said the next phase of the APS project is to evaluate an integrated fire module for the area fire departments. The county would also like to expand the APS system to possibly include public safety agencies from adjoining counties.