Mobile traveler

Yesterday's snowstorm was a bit of a surprise in eastern Nebraska. We are certainly familiar with March snowstorms in Lincoln, but this one was supposed to hang further to the east, with Lincoln predicted to get only a dusting. I will be blowing about 8 inches of that dust off the driveway shortly.

The snow caused all sorts of traffic woes, especially on the Interstate. I was headed to Omaha for lunch with my daughter. An inch of snow wasn't going to deter me, until I started checking the Nebraska Department of Roads web cameras. It was pretty obvious from the cameras between Lincoln and Omaha that the conditions on I-80 were horrid, so we hunkered down and bagged the lunch date.

The NDOR network of traffic cameras is a mighty nice resource for such purposes. The main interface is a map application, the Advanced Traveler Information System. Personally, I prefer Mobile Traveler --which is optimized for a smart phone or tablet. Mobile Traveler presents a simple table of links to the cameras. Despite the fact that I am obviously a GIS and mapping geek, I just find it a little easier to navigate quickly.

You can't beat the near-real time view of conditions these traffic cameras offer. They are great for winter travel, and for checking traffic conditions. The City of Lincoln's extensive network of traffic cameras at major Lincoln intersections provides the same benefits.

Two years difference

Over the course of the past year of two, Google has been quietly adding oblique aerial images to Google Maps, beginning with the largest cities. These type of images, shot at an angle, are very useful in public safety. Pictometry has been a leader in this field, and their images have been used in Microsoft's Bing Maps for several years.

Within the past few months, Google has added Lincoln to the list of cities where oblique images are available. The oblique images in Bing maps were shot in the spring of 2010, whereas those in Google were taken in the spring of 2012. The difference of two years is quite evident at places like Kloefkorn or Kooser Elementary School, and the Haymarket Arena.  Here's an example, catercorner from Lincoln Fire & Rescue's Station 1. This is the Assurity building and part of Union Plaza. You can click these images for a larger view.

Lincoln is acquiring fresh Pictometry images this year, and I expect the results to be stunning. The prime time for aerial photography of this type is after the grass starts to green, but before the tress have leafed out.  The conditions are right about the time you first see a bud blooming on a flowering crab tree.  That window of opportunity should be coming up towards the end of this month, if you are thinking about laying your giant inflatable Darth Vader (or some other toy) out in your back yard.

Scam interrupted

This week is national consumer protection week, and a good time to relate a recent story about a scam interrupted. A young man who lives around the corner in my neighborhood received a telephone message from someone claiming to be Lt. Goblet of the Lincoln Police Department.  The message said that it was vital that he return the call, regarding an unspecified urgent issue. The teenager, however, is the son of a deputy sheriff and recognized that the call was fishy.  There is nobody named Goblet or anything remotely similar in area law enforcement, and LPD hasn't had any lieutenants since the rank was eliminated 15 years ago.

After reading the initial Incident Report, I subscribed to the case number, so I would stay informed about the case. This is a very nice feature in our police records management system.  You can subscribe to a case number, and whenever a fresh report is created you automatically receive an email including a hyperlink to the new report.  You can also subscribe to a name or to an address.  Over the ensuing couple of weeks, the investigating officer submitted three additional reports concerning his follow up efforts to track down the owner of the phone from which the call originated.

"Lt. Goblet" called from a 402 area code number.  When the records were subpoenaed, however, the number proved to be a burner cell phone with the billing address listed as a post office box in Irvine, CA.  It will be impossible to trace this down. In this case, our caller was a con artist looking for a mark in Lincoln, using a number with a local area code in order to build confidence in the call's legitimacy.  The "urgent issue" was undoubtedly going to be some attempt to convince our victim that he should send money to avoid some embarrassing revelation, or something along these lines.

You might make a thousand calls like this before you eventually hit one victim who falls for the scam.  Cons like this are not uncommon, and every year we will have a few victims who are taken in.  On a few past occasions, the con artists have used my name, working on the angle that the victim would recognize the name of their local police chief.  At any rate, nice job by the deputy's son in recognizing the scamn and contacting the police.  Officer Tu Tran actually returned the call to the number captured on the victim's caller ID, and got a rather colorful earful from the make believe lieutenant.

Heads up

Earlier this week, I read a little bit about Google Glass, a soon-to-be-released augmented reality device comprised of a headset in the form-factor of glasses, connected to the Internet via WiFi, or Bluetooth-tethered to a smartphone.  Essentially, Google Glass will combine the function of a head-mounted video camera with a heads-up display for apps running on the device.

Body worn video is spreading quickly in policing, firefighting, and emergency medical services.  We are already using some of these devices locally here in Lincoln.  I believe the day is not far off when it is common for U.S. police officers and paramedics to be recording and/or streaming video from body-worn systems as they go about their daily work, as many departments do now with in-vehicle camera systems.

What intrigued me about Google Glass, however, wasn't video. Rather, it is the concept of a wearable heads-up display.  I can picture all sorts of potential for this. Imagine this application projected in the upper left corner of your heads up display as you move about, or the response from a registration query on your mobile data computer popping into your HUD, or the patient's vital signs.

Few shootings still too many

While in Ohio last Friday, one of the presentations by the eight police departments comprising the Northern Ohio Violent Crime Consortium included some data about murders and shootings last year. The City of Akron (population 198,402) had 25 murders in 2012, and slightly over 250 people were shot. By comparison, the City of Lincoln, (population 262,341) had four murders, and there were 17 people shot, which  includes two of those murders.

That's a whopping difference in gun violence.  Actually, Akron is pretty typical of cities in our size range, and would be well below the really violent cities of similar size. I think Akron has an excellent effort underway, and I was impressed by their strategy, but it also made me glad to live in Lincoln. Sometimes it is good to put things into perspective and be reminded that despite the daily reports of mayhem, Lincoln is still incredibly fortunate to have an unusually low rate of serious violent crime. Despite the low numbers, 17 shootings is still too many. If you are one of those victims, it is small consolation.

I get a daily email containing links to interesting news articles from the Police Executive Research Forum. Yesterday's clips included an article from last Friday's Chicago Sun-Times, in which police superintendent Gary McCarthy suggests that FBI start tracking shootings in the Uniform Crime Reporting program. McCarthy thinks this is a more accurate barometer of violence than murders, since whether the victim dies or not is dependent on a variety of other factors. He may have a point there, but it's probably not going to make Chicago look much safer. The Sun-Times article mentions that as of last Thursday (he 53rd day of 2013), 56 people had been murdered in Chicago and 221 shot.

While I basically agree with Superintendent McCarthy's belief that it would be good to have some national data on shooting incidents, I also wonder how many of the 17,000 or so police agencies in the United States would be able to accurately and reliably produce the data. It's easy in Lincoln--and apparently Akron and Chicago--but I suspect some agencies might be hard pressed to tell you how many people were shot last year without some digging in the stacks.

Celebrating John Clarke

Yesterday morning, Officer John Clarke passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, following a workout at his fitness center.  I first met John when he was a University of Nebraska student, taking a criminal justice class I was teaching in the late 1980's.  John was a tackle on the Nebraska football team, and like every lineman who ever took one of my classes, he was a very bright and a conscientious student.

John joined LPD in 1991, while I was away at the Sheriff's Office, and I am certainly glad that he did.  For over 21 years, he brought the same dedication to the police department that he displayed as a student and Division 1 athlete. For most of his career, John served as a canine handler.  He and his latest partner, Remo, were quite an imposing team. You would find no Lincoln police officer more well respected by his colleagues than John Clarke.  He was even-tempered, reliable, polite, compassionate, and you could depend on him to do the right thing in all circumstances.  This was the man I want showing up at my own door in a personal crises. John set a tone that influenced all those who worked around him.

As tragic as his passing at such a young age, John Clarke had a tremendous influence on others, and in that respect his foreshortened life was still a full one.  Few people will ever have the opportunity to have the experiences, and to make the difference in the lives of others, that John did.  While we mourn with Lisa and John's family, we also celebrate his life, and the contribution he made to his community. May God grant him rest, and may his family and friends be comforted by One who lived life intensely in the service of others, as did John Clarke.

Budget woes

I spent last Friday in Cleveland, as a guest at a meeting of the Northern Ohio Violent Crime Consortium.  NOVCC is a group of eight of the largest police departments in the region, who are all working on projects to improve their analytical capability, in order to practice what is known as intelligence-led, or information-led policing.  The basic concept is to use the techniques of crime analysis to drive policing strategies that are more effective and efficient than merely responding to radio calls and investigating each case independently.

My role at the meeting was twofold.  I gave two short presentations, both on topics extensively discussed here on the Director's Desk.  My second role was to critique the ILP plans of the participating agencies, after a series of half-hour presentations by each city. These were very interesting to me, and I took copious notes.

Driving these agencies move towards ILP is the new budget imperative: the necessity of doing more with less. Nebraska for the most part has avoided the most severe effects of the economic downturn, whereas these Ohio agencies are in the geographic heart of the recession.  I talked with three agencies during breaks who are forced to operate from 15% to 25% below their authorized strength due to their municipal budget woes.

This is a budgeting practice I oppose.  We all understand that times are tough, but if we only have the funds for 75 police officers, that's what the budget book and the organizational chart should reflect.  To claim that the authorized strength is 100, when the money is actually there for only 75 is an illusion, and obfuscates a reality of which citizens and elected officials should be keenly aware.

It was an informative day, and I really had a good feeling that my participation was helpful and productive. The United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio plays a key role, and academic partners such as the University of Akron and Kent State University are also working with NOVCC. It is an impessive collaboration, and I was honored to be asked to help them navigate the path towards information-led policing.

If we had immense resources

...like the New York City Police, we'd probably be able to develop some really cool applications like this, described in a story sent to me by Officer Justin Darling, who likes to remind me that I helped coach his fifth grade baseball team.  If you click the label tag for "Technology" however, and keep going back to older posts, I think you'll find that we do rather well out here in flyover country.