New System Links CSRA's Crime Databases. Local Chiefs and Sheriffs Met with Officials to Discuss COPLINK.

By Karen Daily, Aiken Standard, Staff writer
April 12, 2007

"It just got a lot harder to be a criminal in the CSRA," said Dr. Todd Wright, Savannah River National Laboratory Director.

Seven law enforcement agencies from Aiken, Burke, Columbia, Edgefield and Richmond counties are about to form a computer information sharing network the likes of which would make the investigators on CSI green with envy.

In as few as six months, an interstate information highway will be running through the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, Aiken Public Safety, Burke County Sheriff's Office, Columbia County Sheriff's Office, Edgefield County Sheriff's Office, North Augusta Public Safety and Richmond County Sheriff's Office.

Funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the $1.4 million COPLINK database will allow investigators access to seemingly unrelated data stored in dozens of different databases at the various agencies.

After reviewing several commercially available products, representatives from the local law enforcement agencies visited Alaska last year where the COPLINK database is in use statewide. The agencies voted to apply for the funding and SRNL assisted with preparation of the proposals.

On Wednesday, representatives from the law enforcement agencies and several officials met with the media to unveil the network plans and explain the collaboration.

"It uses our existing systems and dumps all of the information into the same system," said Lt. Phil Kestin with Aiken Public Safety.

Any information gathered on a person would be accessible with just a few keystrokes — be it a speeding ticket or arrest.

"Our community has a river that runs through it, but that can't stop the flow of information because it doesn't stop that criminal element," said Sheriff Michael Hunt.

COPLINK's success was displayed on a nationwide stage in late 2002 when the Washington D.C. snipers went on a rampage in the metro area.

"A number of agencies in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia had gathered information about each shooting, but it was the COPLINK database that compiled witness accounts," Aiken Public Safety Chief Pete Frommer said. "Investigators learned the same blue Chevy was spotted within minutes of three shootings."

More recently, a string of armed robberies in Arizona was solved when one witness volunteered information about the suspect. He told police he thought he knew the man from high school. His nickname at the time was Peanut. Officers searched the database and learned a convicted criminal with the nickname Peanut was living in the area and was released from jail about the time the robberies began.

Those detectives used "good old-fashioned" police work to connect the dots and arrested the suspect. He is currently incarcerated for those crimes.

Agencies from Hawaii to Massachusetts are using the computer system that ideally could one day link with one another on a national level.

"This technology is more useful to all of us than it is to any of us," U.S. Georgia Representative Jon Barrow said Wednesday.

North Augusta Public Safety Chief T. Lee Wetherington said the database would have been an essential tool during the early phases of the Huddle House murder investigation in 2005. A gunman killed one man and injured two others after going on an early morning shooting spree at the North Augusta restaurant.

That killer is still at large.

"The border is an obstacle, if not a wall, for information," he said. "This changes that."

Aiken Public Safety investigator Capt. Ray Scott said he remembers the days when he would use a map and pushpins to track a crime spree.

"When I heard about this, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning," he joked. "This is taking us well into the 21st century."

Frommer said the local agencies have received assistance and the backing of U.S. representative Gresham Barrett (R-SC) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

The cost of the maintaining the system annually will cost each agency approximately $5,000.

"But, it's something we can't afford to be without," Scott said.