RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The Richmond Police Office (RPD) is employing new technology to fight every thing from site visitors violations to shootings in the metropolis, and is already looking at effects.
In the course of a criminal offense briefing before this thirty day period, RPD Performing Main Rick Edwards introduced the department’s use of license plate readers and firearm testing, both of those of which he said could speed up felony investigations.
“It provides impartial investigative prospects and allows clear up all varieties of crimes,” Edwards explained about the license plate visitors.
The license plate visitors are operated by a software package identified as Flock. The solar-run cameras sit on top of black poles and capture “snapshots” of every car that passes by it. It does not file 24/7 as a surveillance video clip would, but it does place perhaps essential data at the finger guidelines of officers.
“Our officers can use their metropolis-issued mobile phones to get alerts of stolen cars, Amber Alerts for missing young children, or they can use it right after a crime to see which cars have left the scene,’ Edwards mentioned.
The department has invested in 36 flock cameras in the course of the town. The office did not specify the actual locale of the cameras, but say they’re strategically put in higher criminal offense neighborhoods. 8Information located two of the cameras in the Fairfield and Mosby Courtroom areas.
“It’s a genuinely useful device and force multiplier for us,” Edwards mentioned. “It’s a part of our tactic of leveraging technologies to combat criminal offense.”
In addition to Flock, the division is also using a NIBIN machine, which stands for National Integrated Ballistic Data Community. The community is a partnership with the Bureau of Alcoholic beverages, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and provides testing skills for every single firearm identified at a criminal offense scene.
“Every time a semi-computerized pistol or rifle fires, the cartridge is ejected,” Edwards reported. “We match the microscopic particulars, just about like a fingerprint, and it links to other crimes,”
RPD has analyzed 1,611 firearms so much, and officers say the technologies has presently led to an arrest in an officer-associated taking pictures. In December 2022, an officer was shot at within a patrol vehicle in the city’s southside. Minutes afterwards, officers responded to a crash. Via NIBIN, the division was capable to join the two incidents.
“While officers had been investigating the crash, they uncovered a gun that was regular with the casings they uncovered,” Edwards said. “Within one day we were being able to and connection them together and we were being ready to cost Kevon Johnson with attempted cash murder of an officer.”
Detectives imagine this procedure could speed up other investigations by months. Edwards said this could make a big change, considering that every single day is very important throughout these investigations.
“We want brief turnaround on these situations, and with our have NIBIN machine we’re equipped to get that,” he stated.
