Has anyone heard of the LAPD new police vehicles?? I heard they were being compared to something like the cars that James Bond would drive. But from what I read, they are nice but not close to a bond vehicle!!It's equipped with a device just above the front bumper that will shoot darts embedded with a GPS tracker at fleeing vehicles, reducing the need for high-speed chases. When linked wirelessly to headquarters, another device allows cops to view live feeds of networked surveillance cameras from the driver's seat, once they're within a mile of a crime scene.
Two durable-looking gadgets stashed between the front seats, set back from the docked Dell laptop computer, let officers scan the faces and fingerprints of people they detain -- and check them instantly against databases through a wireless connection. ONe of the coolest things is this....cameras mounted on the roof read license plates as the car is in motion, out on patrol. Plate data is coded with the time viewed and geodata, then stored on servers and checked against databases of stolen or suspect cars.
After testing on the single car, the interconnected gadgets are gradually getting installed in other LAPD vehicles; 20 will get license plate recognition cameras by year's end and two full divisions will get in-car digital video cameras trained on the back seat and front of the car, according to Cmdr. Charlie Beck, head of the department's office of operations. Officers on patrol will be able to send live video from the cameras back to their stations.
So is this where the tax payers money is going?
That's not a bad idea, though. I don't like the idea of cameras (cops can pull pranks, too, and they're not nearly as funny), but the darts with GPS tracking and fingerprint identification are both fantastic ideas. Imagine how much money is saved by that GPS tracking! In gas, in damage to signs/mailboxes/houses, and of course the unestimatable value of human lives - that's worth taxpayer money.
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If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
wonder when all teh department will get this
Nice to know that the police are using the latest technology in their work. And like melissa_fox, I too am wondering when all of the police departments in the US are going to use this technique or technology.
Stephen