BY RYAN O’CONNOR

A whole country  worth of information is now available at the fingertips of Bow police officers.

On Feb. 20, Bow police cruisers were equipped with laptop computers for the first time since incorporating the systems into its 2006-07 operating budget.

“The number one reason we went toward laptop computers is efficiency in patrol,” said Police Chief Jeff Jaran. “What it does is it keeps officers out on the road and in the public eye where they belong.”

Now, officers on patrol can type a report between traffic stops, accidents and other incidents, export the data and print it when they return to the station.

“The cruisers are essentially a mini-office,” said Jaran.

With the laptops, officers to can access information on vehicle plates, drivers’ licenses and criminal records, rather than calling dispatch.

Though officers on the roads can now assume a lot of a dispatcher’s responsibilities, Administrative Assistant Gale Horton said it doesn’t take away  a dispatcher’s job, but rather benefits both sides.

Officers must still stay in constant communication with dispatch, but can now access vital information more quickly.

Should a license be flagged for being expired or suspended, or a vehicle be identified as stolen or any other discrepancies be identified, an alarm alerts the officer to a potential problem.

This, said Jaran, drastically improves officer safety.

In addition, the officers can communicate with each other and with dispatch.

If a situation occurs where it is unsafe for officers to transmit through digital radio transmission, they may still communicate through the system.

There is also an SOS button, alerting dispatch and other cruisers to an officer’s location in the event of immediate danger or distress.

The laptops were ordered in July, but connecting to the state interface system proved lengthy.

Jaran credited Horton for her time and dedication setting up the system. Horton said the project became especially meaningful over the last several months.

“I’m extremely excited about this because it has been like a baby to me, and now I feel like I’m getting ready to send my kids out,” she said. “It’s been a long, tedious process, getting approval from the state, performing the technical setup and training the officers, but it’s nice to see these laptops finally active and in the cruisers.”

Michael Lavelle, owner of Certified Computer Solutions of Northfield said setting up the computers took more than two months because of the complexity of Bow’s system.

Lavelle said many agencies were involved, including Information Management Corp., which writes police records software; Sprint Wireless cell phone network; and the state SPOTS system, or Standardized Position Oriented Training System.

“This has been done in other places, but not quite the method the Bow police is using,” Lavelle said. “So, each one of those entities had a lot of preparation work in order to make this happen, which resulted in a pretty lengthy process. Once everything came together, it was only a one- or two-day process to get all the mobile units up and running.”

Lavelle said the Bow system is more secure than most towns around the state. Sprint, he said, provides a wireless digital connection from the cruiser to a cell phone tower, then back to the police department through a virtual private network, as opposed to other towns, which use Verizon antennas directly out of police department headquarters.

Bow is the first department to use the more secure method, which is certified by the state information services department.

“It gives the officers in the cruisers tremendous tools to use, which they didn’t have before. In this day and age, the more information you have available the better off you are,” said Lavelle.

“If anybody has committed a crime or has been a witness to a crime or a victim of a crime in the town of Bow, officers have access to that via police records through the town and have access to traffic violations or outstanding warrants throughout the state system,” he said.

But, Lavelle said, improvements should be made to similar systems statewide so each town can access criminal history of a suspect charged with a crime outside the town’s jurisdiction.

The system is termed “multi-agency,” said Lavelle.

“If someone created a crime in Concord and the case was totally closed, the police officers in Bow wouldn’t have access to that information because it’s kept in Concord.

Lavelle said if the state decides to use the multi-agency system, Bow could easily introduce the additional data and information into its current system.