More info at police agencies' fingertips. A new $1.6 million computer system will connect cities, courts and county.

02/07/05
by JOHN McDONALD

NEWPORT BEACH - A $1.6 million computer system is being installed this year to give police officers throughout Orange County a litany of information about any person they question about a crime.

Police now generally have access only to computer information kept by their own department and obtained through the California Department of Justice. That will begin to change in about three months, when the first phase of the system called COPLINK goes on line.

COPLINK will give patrol officers and investigators nearly immediate access to vast banks of computer information stored by all 22 police agencies in the county, along with records from the courts, the District Attorney's Office and the probation department, said Newport Beach police Capt. Paul Henisey.

Information will be available through laptop computers in many police cars. It will give an officer information that includes whether a person has had previous traffic offenses, been involved in an auto accident or was the victim of a crime, said Bob Griffin, chief executive officer of Knowledge Computing Corp., the Arizona company providing the system.

Investigators will be able to use the system to find whether similar crimes were committed anywhere in the county or whether any other agencies have information on their suspects, Griffin said. Vague descriptions of suspects associated with certain cars, types of weapons or nicknames can be checked through scores of databanks to provide leads.

Orange County agencies use a wide range of computer equipment and databases that ordinarily are incompatible. The new system will standardize data from the otherwise incompatible databases.

The system is currently used in 115 jurisdictions, Griffin said.

Knowledge Computing won the contract after bids were solicited by the Orange County Chiefs' and Sheriff's Association, an informal group of police executives. The chiefs selected Knowledge Computing from the nine companies that applied. The project is funded by grants from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

The Newport Beach City Council voted recently to accept the grants. No other public agencies were required to consent to the contract, Henisey said.

The first phase of the project will incorporate into the system data from Garden Grove, Brea, Irvine, Newport Beach, the sheriff's department, Cypress, Seal Beach and the Orange County courts. Henisey said the agencies were selected based on their existing computer systems. Those agencies have a variety of systems that will serve as a first step toward expanding access to other police in the county this year.