Police Get New Computers For Cruisers

Life for local bad guys just got that much more difficult. Thanks to a grant from the state Department of Transportation the were able to outfit their police cars with new laptop computers.

Wendy Shmidle, the IT director for the town, said nine new Panasonic Toughbook laptop computers were installed in police cruisers before Thanksgiving. They are called Toughbooks because they are meant to be used by those who don't necessarily use a computer at a desk, such as police officers and military personnel.

Prior to the new machines being installed, officers had laptops from 2003. They were not only technologically dated and physically worn out, they also didn't have the latest law enforcement software.

The new Toughbooks, which cost the state about $65,000 to purchase for the town, do. In fact, RIDOT offered the grant because it wanted local police departments to start using eCitation software, which will allow local police officers and the state court system to process a violation in one unified platform.

"It basically streamlines the process of writing a citation and resolving it in court," Schmidle said.

But that's not all the new crusier computers can do. Officers can tell where their fellow officers are on their computers, and whether or not they are in their cars or not. They also have a chat function, allowing officers to communicate with each other without doing so over the publicly-available airwaves.

"The bad guys with scanners can't listen to us," said Officer Al Marcello.

And, of course, East Greenwich Police officers can not only look up your car before they pull you over - they can also look you up.

"I can be at a traffic light and before it goes from red to green, I can find out who that car is registered to, it will give me license information, whether that license is valid or suspended, it will tell me if the person is wanted," Marcello said.

The suite of softwares and applications is known in law enforcement as computer assisted dispatch. It won't replace the time-honored tradition of a person at the station, but it will make both jobs easier.

"I think the key thing is officers are going to be safer and more efficient," Shmidle said.

The old laptops that were taken out of the police cars will be redeployed to other town departments, she said. Public Works or the highways department might use them to process and track work projects from the field.