The Kologik COPsync network was born from a tragedy, with a clear, consistent purpose.
By Rob Powell, Vice President of Customer Support
The Kologik COPsync network was born from a tragedy, with a clear, consistent purpose: to improve communication between law enforcement agencies so that pertinent--sometimes even lifesaving--information gets quickly disseminated among all public safety departments and into the field, where it can make all the difference.
Kologik now offers a full suite of applications in addition to COPsync, with the overarching goal of protecting public safety personnel through information-sharing. COPsync, Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD), Records Management System (RMS), and Jail Management System (JMS) work together, creating a system of interoperable applications that save time and improve officer and community safety.
There are four key ways in which the Kologik applications prioritize and promote officer safety.
1. Share information in real time.COPsync gathers data electronically as officers perform their routine activities such as traffic stops, writing reports and interacting with citizens. That information is immediately made available systemwide to all subscribers on the COPsync network. This allows user agencies to exchange information even from disparate record management systems through a common, secure communication platform.
Prior experiences with an individual, vehicle or location can be lifesaving—as long as that crucial information reaches responding officers in a timely manner. This is what Kologik COPsync offers: pertinent information that helps officers determine the resources necessary for a particular situation. And when officers have a better understanding of what’s going on, that also helps protect the community.
Not every incident is criminal, of course. The country’s growing substance abuse problem and increased police involvement in homlessness and mental health disorders present significant challenges to law enforcement. Knowing beforehand that an individual suffers from a mental health issue or addiction, for example, enables the officer to approach the incident appropriately.
Complete real-time information is also important when considering the totality of a situation. An officer may be looking at an individual apprehended for a petty crime but by accessing the COPsync network might uncover a criminal history or a reputation for carrying and discharging a gun—information essential to officer and community safety.
2. Easily create “Be On The Lookout” (BOLO) alerts.
When officer safety alerts, missing person alerts and other kinds of alerts are entered into the COPsync database, officers making contact with a person, vehicle, place or associate of a person with a BOLO are notified.
The BOLO feature is like a virtual memory bank for officers—a place where they can share hunches, inklings and other bits of information that may come in handy when coming in contact with an individual. Often officers gather snippets of information from other officers, briefings or dispatch that should, ideally, be disseminated throughout the department. An officer might note the information in their flip pocket pad but as they go through their shifts, days or weeks may pass and that important information is no longer in an officer’s ready memory.
The COPsync BOLO feature enables any officer using the platform to call up those pieces of information easily and quickly before approaching an individual or vehicle. Small but critical information like this can sometimes mean the difference between life and death for officers on the street.
3. Find an officer’s vehicle, no matter where it is.
The COPsync Global Positioning/Auto Vehicle Locator (GPS/AVL) feature provides the location, direction, speed and current activity of every officer’s vehicle in the system and is available to all COPsync network subscribers. Officers in dangerous situations—under attack or, in the worst case, having been assaulted or shot—may only have time to radio that they are in trouble without sharing their location. GPS/AVL can immediately inform other officers where their troubled colleague is and get guidance on the fastest way to get there.
Another situation where GPS/AVL becomes crucial: when an officer is involved in a motor vehicle accident and is incapacitated. Using GPS/AVL, other officers and rescue personnel can follow the disabled officer’s GPS trail and find him or her quickly through the information on the screens in their vehicles.
4. Share information across jurisdictions.
Information-sharing at the point of incident is available to all COPsync subscribers, regardless of state or agency jurisdiction. Criminal and vehicle history queries can be run by the officer from the vehicle against any of these databases: the COPsync network; National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) database; federal, state, regional, and international law enforcement databases; and other proprietary databases.
COPsync is based on a simple but powerful idea: to build a software solution not for one individual agency but for multiple agencies across the nation that gives officers the tools and visibility to protect their communities safely and efficiently. Billions of dollars have been spent to make agency radios interoperable so they can share information; but so far that hasn’t happened. Departments located in adjacent jurisdictions often operate on totally different bands, making communication between them impossible. COPsync solves that problem by allowing multiple districts, regardless of where they are, to share vital, lifesaving information.
