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Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.), MPA
Cops are constantly adapting their equipment to the environment. Our kit bags
have grown larger and larger as we collected equipment to deal with the job.
Our departments gives us the basics and as we face new situations we think about
what we could have used as a tool to have made the task easier. Then, we go out
and get that tool for next time. Much of the commercially produced police
equipment used by our peers today was developed on the fly by those who walked
the beat before us. The concept of the cruiser as a mobile office was developed
by those of us who worked long shifts and thought What could be added to this
car to make my job easier? Make me more comfortable? Help me to hunt down
dangerous offenders?
By looking at the historical development of technology used in our mobile
office, we can gain a greater understanding of how to employ the technology,
integrate it into our field tactics and investigations, and look at possible
future applications. This series of three articles will look at the historical
development of the mobile office, the current tactical and investigative
advantages of today's mobile officer and, finally, the future.
Mouse
Ears and Bench Seats
My first patrol car was a 1979 Plymouth Fury. There were no rotating lights
just the two can lights on the roof solid red to the front and flashing amber
to the rear. Of course, they looked like ears on the black and white rodent
thus the term mouse ears. Mounted between them was the siren which was much
louder inside the car than outside. The Plymouth had a radio with a single base
frequency and two tactical frequencies. Mounted on the rear panel above the
seats was the cheater box which allowed you to hear the uplink transmissions
from other cops. Lastly, the microphone weighed enough to be swung like a flat
sap.
Once you got out of the car, you were out of contact with the station. Indeed,
as an adaptation between the complete demise of call-boxes and advent of
portable radios we carried a dime in our speed loader, under our ammunition, to
make emergency telephone calls. Yes, 9-1-1 was operational, but in a large city
the lines were so clogged with calls you were better off using one thin dime to
call the watch commanders inside line.
It wasnt all bad. The Plymouth was fast and could really move. Unfortunately,
during a freeway chase you simply out ran your own siren. Throughout the 1970s,
it was innovations coming from individual police officers and not organized
efforts that improved our mobile offices. Indeed, President Lyndon Johnsons
crime commission noted in the late 1960s that in the thirty years since two-way
radios were introduced into police vehicles, law enforcement had not adapted
many other technologies. The first adaptations to our mobile office were fairly
basic. For instance, someone cut a length of radiator hose and clamped it to
the inside panels of the front doors providing us with a place to put the
baton.
The Age
of the Add-on
Beginning in the 1980s, larger agencies began to introduce portable two-way
radios and computer terminals in vehicles. These early Mobile Digital Terminals
(MDT) or Mobile Dumb Terminals provided the officer with access, through their
agency, to motor vehicle information, some wanted persons databases, like the
National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and local stolen vehicle information.
The first computer terminals were dumb because they were access ports to the
agency's computer system. Early MDTs were simple gateways to whatever mainframe
computer your agency was using. Unlike your desk top PC, laptop or the computer
you likely have in your cruiser today, MDTs could not perform simple computing
tasks like word processing or even act as a calculator.
There were tons of challenges to the early MDTs. For instance, through the
1990s, installation of new electronic equipment was done on an ad-hoc basis.
Because new technology was being added into the police cruiser as an after
thought, it was spliced into existing systems. Splicing could create officer
safety problems like, getting your feet caught in wires protruding from under
the dash. Splicing also exacerbated maintenance problems because more
connections meant more failure points and more places to check to locate failure
points. Moreover, previous ad hoc installations tended to over-taxed the
vehicle battery. So, you ended up with wires going everywhere. In today's
mobile office the police vehicle is pre-wired to accept the technology. By
the late 1990s, the installation of computers, radios and high-end light systems
were accomplished by a specially designed wiring harness.
The advent of the wiring harness was a larger leap that you might think. Of
course, it simplified after market installation and maintenance by greatly
reducing the number of electrical connections and thus potential failure
points. But, it also greatly enhanced your communications platform. By having
the wires leading from the computer, radio, lights and siren taking defined
paths departments were able to reduce signal interference. Think about driving
along in your personal car and listening to your AM radio. If you pass
underneath electrical transmission lines you often hear interference. Before
the use of wiring harnesses and specially adapted cables, power for lights and
sirens were often run along side cables, cords and wires used for your radio.
You got interference.
This type of serious adaptation of electronic equipment to the police service is
generally referred to as ruggedization. Simply put, ruggedization is the
designing and installing of equipment that can withstand the rigors of police
work. At first blush, some police officers think that it would be relatively
simple to just install a laptop into their vehicle. There are a lot of
technical concerns, including ruggedizing the equipment to survive you and the
job.
Of course, wiring the vehicle isn't the only practical problem. Early police
vehicles had bench seats. So, terminals were mounted on a pole in front of the
dashboard, between the passenger and driver. In order for the driver or the
passenger to access the terminal it was mounted on a swivel. At first, a
resistance ring was used so that the terminal did not swing freely. Consider
that most police cruisers are run like hot bunks on a ship. That is, once
you're done with it, the next person moves in, leaving little time for the bunk,
or the car, to cool off. Police work is 24/7 and, except for maintenance
periods, cop cars are often handed off from shift to shift. Constant use
weakened the swivel resistance mechanism so that it wasn't long before the
terminal swung with the motion of the car, occasionally striking your knees.
Police equipment is exposed to extreme temperature variations and constant use.
For these and the wiring issues, you just cant slap your laptop into your
vehicle. Today's technology has been improved and adapted so that is highly
usable in the field. The ad-hoc period of police mobile computing wasn't all
bad - it brought about many of the innovations you use today real computing
power in the vehicle, technology adapted to your environment, and improved
maintenance.
From
Free Form to Icons
Almost everyone uses icon-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) software. This
is the point and click or touch screen technology. An icon (a symbol on your
computer screen) represents a task you want your computer to perform. Today,
you click or touch and an NCIC or motor vehicle input screen appears. It
wasn't
always so. Early terminals used a Disc Operating System (DOS) like software
system. In early MDTs, the screen was blank. You typed the command string (to
run someone for warrants it might look like this - @Nsmith,john@D010160@h509@w165@hblk@eblu@rw@sm.
After typing the command string, you hit enter. Of course, one wrong field
identifier or a bit of mis-typing on your part and you either received an error
message or perhaps did not properly check the system. In contrast, today if you
want to run a license plate you like click an icon or push a button the
keyboard, or if you're really luck touch the screen and the proper format
appears. The progress from a DOS like environment to a GUI
environment was a major step forward for law enforcement. The GUI environment
undoubtedly increased the amount and accuracy of use of our mobile office data
systems.
Tactical
Applications Today and in the Future
There are many aspects of technology that have improved police work. Perhaps
more importantly, there are some aspects of technology that tempt us to violate
basic officer safety field tactics. Now that we have a little understanding in
how the historical development of mobile computing technology in policing
developed the idea of adaptation to the environment, or ruggedization, we can
look at integrating field tactics and investigations in our next article.
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