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LOWELL -- When Lowell police received a 911 call Monday
that Ross Elliot was suspected of threatening to kill his
girlfriend and then fleeing, they immediately turned to a
computer.
Within seconds, the BLAZE alert system was broadcasting
Elliot's mugshot across computer screens in cruisers
throughout the city.
Using this cutting-edge software developed by
Cambridge-based DropFire Inc., patrol officers instantly saw
Elliot's mugshot on their cruiser screens. They also received
an emergency message about the incident, Elliot's biographical
information and his arrest record.
Police are still on the lookout for Elliot, who had a
run-in with police in December when he came within a heartbeat
of being shot after holding the same girlfriend hostage.
Officials say it is only a matter of time before he is caught.
Last February, Jesus Pizarro
was caught within 20 minutes of
his photo being broadcast through DropFire's software. Lowell
police surrounded the Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro State Forest and
Pizarro, 24, finally surrendered.
DropFire is the latest in wireless communication focusing
on public-safety communication. While police radios are
verbal, DropFire adds the ability to display the suspect's
photo, a critical feature when police are searching for
someone, says Scott Cohen, the company's owner and chief
executive officer.
“A picture is worth a thousand words,'' he said.
Lowell is one of just four communities in the state that
have a version of the DropFire software, according to Cohen.
Brookline, Burlington and Plymouth also use it. Lowell police
began using it within the past year.
Burlington police Officer Robert Healey said his department
is about half-way through a development project in which
DropFire's software will allow for the storage of digital and
video images, such as mugshots, photos of evidence and suspect
interviews. Oracle, the software company, also gave the
department a $4,000 grant to provide each patrol officer with
a digital camera.
Lowell's initial cost was $12,000 for the software with a
yearly fee of up to $700 per year, said Lowell police Capt.
William Taylor. The city saved money by recycling each
cruiser's old laptop. The laptops are now mounted in the trunk
and used to essentially power the system.
“This is cutting-edge stuff,'' Taylor said. “Fifteen years
ago, you would get a booking photograph, photocopy it and hand
it out to the patrol officers,'' Taylor said.
Now it takes seconds for an officer in a cruiser to have
access to that mugshot.
DropFire can access 20,000 digital images from the Police
Department's own booking system, as well as those from the
Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Before DropFire, cruiser laptops could check licenses,
registrations and do warrant sweeps, but displaying a mugshot
wasn't possible, Cohen said.
“This is the wave of the future,'' he said.
DropFire will also be used to find missing children and
Alzheimer's patients who have wandered off, Taylor said.
Using their own digital cameras, family members can send
e-mail a digital photo of their missing child or Alzheimer's
patient to the police, saving critical time.
Taylor said he hopes that by the fall, the Police
Department will provide a database of digital photos of
Alzheimer's patients to be used in case of an emergency.
“For an Alzheimer's patient who has wandered off in winter
weather, minutes can make all the difference,'' he said.
The DropFire company, which employs a team of seven, was
started two years ago by Cohen, an MIT grad and steel
sculptor.
The name DropFire has nothing to do with police work or
computers, he admits. Cohen, who sculpts steel at his studio
in Haverhill, said dropfire is the name for steel that drops
when the torch hits it.
“I just liked the name,'' Cohen said.
The key to DropFire's success is cell coverage, said
Officer Craig Withycombe, the Lowell Police Department's
information-systems manager. The system can't work effectively
if there are too many dead zones, he said. The explosion of
cellular technology has been a boost for emergency
communications.
“The sky is the limit” for this technology, Taylor said.
The next step is to get the officers who work the walking
beats and those on bicycles hand-held versions of the
equipment in the cruisers, Taylor said.
At some point, officials hope to link the cruisers with the
video-surveillance cameras the police have on buildings around
the city. Officers could use the cameras for surveillance,
while being out of sight in a cruiser blocks away.
Lisa Redmond's e-mail address is lredmond@lowellsun.com.
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