Imagine trying to identify a suspect of an armed robbery with only a description to go on - a female who was in the store prior to the robbery had a tattoo and pink hair. Now what?
Imagine trying to identify a suspect for a burglary and ID theft based on a picture of a person seen in a car near the scene of the crime. How much information do you think you could get?
Imagine pulling someone over and not knowing anything about who that is. Do you need backup?
These are scenarios law enforcement faces every day.
What do you do?
Now imagine that you have access to a system that helps you identify that suspect based on the tattoo and pink hair. That helps you identify the suspect based on the owner of the car in the picture based on a narrative. That helps you get information on the registered owner of the vehicle. And, imagine that this information is not just from your systems of record, but from other surrounding police departments.
This is Forensic Logic COPLINK®. And this is what Lenexa Police Department, outside Kansas City, has used – and is using – every day to help solve crimes faster and provide situational awareness.
Consolidate and Organize
COPLINK® software is designed to help law enforcement organizations solve crimes faster, keep officers safer and disrupt crime and terrorism by organizing and providing tactical, strategic and command-level access to vast quantities of seemingly unrelated data. COPLINK software consolidates and organizes information in ways that help safeguard officers and communities alike through the click of a mouse.
What makes COPLINK so powerful is the ability for agencies to go beyond their own systems of records to identify a suspect, previous criminal activity, or a relationship. State, city and county lines don’t stop criminals - but they do restrict law enforcement agencies in getting access to data outside their jurisdiction, thereby creating geographic silos. COPLINK removes those silos through a network of agencies who agree to share, store and/or search data for all member agencies to use.
Why is this so important?
In 2018, only 19% of arrestees were residents from Lenexa and the remaining 81% were from multiple jurisdictions outside the city. That means, had Lenexa Police Department not used COPLINK, those arrests may have never been made, or if they had, may have taken longer to make.
These stories illustrate the value of having and using COPLINK. Lenexa dispatchers are in the top 10 users in their COPLINK node, despite being part of one of the smaller agencies. Their commitment to using the platform stems from the knowledge that COPLINK not only helps to solve crimes, but it also helps keep citizens and officers safe by providing information for situational awareness. By the time a Lenexa Police officer pulls a car over, the dispatcher has searched COPLINK and retrieved the name of any persons associated to the vehicle and all related details, details that could impact officer safety.
With COPLINK running on Microsoft Azure, data can get added faster, and scale to meet the needs of customers on law enforcement with the best performance possible. The Microsoft Azure cloud also provides a focus on compliance and security that mirrors Forensic Logic’s own views as well as that of the end customers, ultimately making data more actionable and available for agencies when they need it.
Deputy Chief Dawn Layman also uses COPLINK. But she doesn’t stop there. She also champions the use of technology in her department and with her peers across the region.
“We enable our team with the best technology possible so they can efficiently and effectively do their jobs, with safety being the highest priority,” said Deputy Chief Layman. “Our partners Forensic Logic and Microsoft provide the technology to help us do just that.”
Forensic Logic Police Database Software Solutions
Forensic Logic has spent more than a decade collaborating with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to deploy the largest, most powerful network of users, information and technology in American law enforcement.
We’ve combined our industry-leading search engine, LEAP, with COPLINK’s advanced analytics and reporting to offer a full suite of information technology in a single platform. The finest tools and the richest data are now matched with streamlined integrations and rapid deployment.
