Law-enforcement technologyNot your father's police dept.: Tarrytown police adopts latest technology
Tarrytown police cruisers are now rolling with the latest technology and software; two of the software systems at the fingertips of the police are the Mobile Plate Hunter 900 and the TraCS (Traffic and Criminal Software) system; used in conjunction with dual, rear-mounted license plate readers, an officer can catch an offending driver, check a driver’s background, and print up a ticket and a court summons in a matter of minutes
Policing has changed a lot in the last thirty years. “When I started in 1981 we had a manual typewriter, with a letter ‘D’ that stuck I might add,” said Tarrytown Police Chief Scott Brown. “The blotter was a white piece of paper we had to glue together and it had probably been done that way for a hundred years prior to that.”
The Tarrytown Police Department is doing away with the days of old and delving into the twenty-first century with the recent purchase, and implementation, of numerous technological advances that have revolutionized how the department does police work.
Sean Roach writes in Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch that probably the best example of this radical change can be found in the department’s police cruisers, most of which have been retrofitted with license-plate scanning cameras, database software, digital radios, printers and laptop computers.
“It’s become a mobile office,” said Tarrytown Police Sgt. John Barbelet. “All of the New York State Police cars are setup like this now, as well as about 350 departments, so we’re really bringing the department up to the new standard.”
Two of the more unique software systems at the fingertips of the police are the Mobile Plate Hunter 900 and the TraCS (Traffic and Criminal Software) system. Used in conjunction with dual, rear-mounted license plate readers, an officer can catch an offending driver, check a driver’s background, and print up a ticket and a court summons in a matter of minutes.
The Mobile Plate Hunter system works in tandem with the plate-reader cameras. The system scans every license plate it passes, on both sides of the car and at varying angles. The reader will still register a clear picture, even if a car passes going 40-miles per hour. The images are digitally processed and immediately scanned against a constantly updated Department of Motor Vehicles database that alerts on things like stolen vehicles, suspended registrations, or stolen license plates. It can also hunt out full or partial plates of vehicles known to have been involved in criminal activity.
Roach notes that so far the license plate scanner has not had any positive hits for stolen cars, but there have been a number of arrests for suspended registrations, often due to insurance lapse.
“While that may not seem like a big deal, if they are the ones that hit you, your premiums will go up unless you want to pursue it through civil court,” Barbelet
