By Daniel Drainville
The Day, New London, Conn.
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NORWICH, Conn. — The police department is about one month into use of a new computer-aided dispatch/records management system, replacing a system the department had used since 2003.
Chief Patrick Daley called the CAD/RMS system as the Apple operating system of the police department.”
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“It’s the repository of everything we do. As far as receiving and dispatching calls — computer-aided dispatch (CAD), and then the reports that we generate — the records management system (RMS),” he said.
Daley said “an officer’s entire day is captured” in the CAD system, while it also helps public safety officials call the right fire departments and direct them to the correct location.
Meanwhile, the RMS system keeps track of the department’s digital records.
The switch to the PremierOne system from Motorola was about four years in the making, Daley said.
“They’re huge investments,” Daley said. “It’s not something departments like to jump to too much.”
IMC, the department’s old system, had been bought three times by new companies, Daley said. The newest company then decided to no longer support the software.
“So, we wanted a company that would be stable. PremierOne’s not going anywhere. Motorola’s not going anywhere. We know that if we were hoping to get to 2070, 2080 with this system, that it’s not going anywhere. No one’s going to buy Motorola. Motorola buys people,” Daley said.
The City Council approved the use of $3.5 million from the city’s capital budget, and American Rescue Plan Act funds for the new CAD/RMS system, new radios for the city fire department and installation of mobile data terminals into fire trucks. Those have been installed, Daley said.
The new system went live the morning of March 24. Daley said Sgt. Chris Chastang, the department’s records division supervisor, and Capt. Thomas Lazzaro spent hundreds of hours with software engineers to build the system.
Norwich now becomes the first department in the state to use PremierOne. Daley said because of that, the installation received “extra attention” from Motorola, which wants to expand its market here. At some points, Daley said there were up to 10 Motorola employees at the department at times to help resolve any software bugs.
Chastang added that a lot of different outlets require the department’s data, including the media, the courts and the federal government. They all want to receive the information in a different format. The system had to be able to accommodate those needs.
Daley said most bugs have been worked out, and the department is now in the “nitpicky” stage, where only minor changes are needed.
“But we think the product that we have now, we’re in a better place,” he said.
“But for the complexity of the software, it’s like going from a Model T to a Tesla,” Daley said. “We’re not used to such a powerful software. We’re still learning what to do with the information we have.”
Work also involved transferring decades-old records.
“Think about taking the last 20-plus years of information and trying to get it into a new system,” Lazzaro said.
The ability to search and collate data, and to build reports is “exponentially better than it was,” Chastang said.
Reports are of better quality, Daley added, and evidence management is more secure.
The ability to now easily access data helps the department make decisions on policing strategies such as where to put cruisers and where accidents are occurring,” Lazzaro said.
Daley said the system currently does not use artificial intelligence.
“We’re not into the AI world yet,” he said. “I’m sure that will get added in. But there’s a lot of concern in Connecticut , and across the country, in policing. Because courts want the officers’ reports, not the computer’s interpretation of what the officer did. I mean there’s some powerful software out there that will take your body cam, watch the footage, and then write a report based off that.”
Chastang said he and Lazzaro are in the process of teaching the department’s entire staff how to navigate the new system.
“And we’re still learning,” Lazzaro said.
With the recent, $2.7 million replacement of the department’s antiquated radio system, city police and fire both have now “state of the art radio communications, records management and a CAD system, Daley said.
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