The police department of Collin College near Dallas, Tex., has installed mobile fingerprint readers in its vehicles to quickly enable officers to provide ID verification during traffic stops. The MobileCop from BIO-key International, Wall, N.J., provides a wireless query and messaging solution.
“Campus law enforcement faces the same challenges that any police department does,” said Collin College Police Department Captain Michael Gromatzky. “With more than 44,000 students spread across five open campuses with day, night and weekend classes, we’re like a small city.”
With MobileCop, Collin College law enforcement officers are now able to obtain critical information, while at a traffic stop or other incident, on a person or vehicle directly from the Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System using laptops in their patrol cars.
“The biggest benefit of MobileCop is that officers now have at their fingertips the information they need to make the right decision, without having to call a dispatcher over the radio to run a plate or check an ID,” Captain Gromatzky said. “Previously, if the radio was tied up, the officer was tied up too.”
In addition, the secure messaging feature allows the dispatcher to communicate with the officer privately without risk of the message being picked up by a scanner, as was the case if a police radio had been used.
MobileCop is currently used by some of the largest campuses in the country, including the University of Kentucky, the University of Maryland, Indiana University and Boston University. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/cr80news-4.gif)
