Technology saves for North Enid

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North Enid Police Department officer Rick Dominic fills out information before issuing a citation during a traffic stop. Officers in the department use portable devices that allow them to scan drivers licenses and write and print citations. (Staff Photo by SHAWN YORKS)
North Enid Police Department officers use portable devices that allow them to scan drivers licenses and write and print citations. (Staff Photo by SHAWN YORKS)

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March 20, 2010

By Cass Rains, Staff Writer Enid News and Eagle The Enid News and Eagle Sat Mar 20, 2010, 10:20 PM CDT

NORTH ENID — Several hand-held electronic devices are enabling officers of North Enid Police Department make more contacts with public and digitally manage information collected in the field.

North Enid Police Chief Martin Schubert said his department purchased three E-Ticket writers in January and already are seeing the results.

“We’ve made over 400 contacts since we started using these,” Schubert said.

The department uses the devices in issuing citations, previously written by the officers. The wireless devices have a bar-code scanner, digital black and white and color cameras, an audio recording device and a touch-sensitive screen officers can manipulate using a stylus.

Schubert said any of the department’s three full-time officers or three reserve officers can use the devices.

“We trained for three days, one in the office and two in the street, issuing citations and basically learning the system,” he said. “Each device is set up that any officer can pick one up and log in under his name and password and start writing tickets.”

The devices synchronize via the Internet to a secured Web site, and in-formation can be downloaded by the court clerk. The department has access to records created on the devices to use for queries, such as how many citations were issued for speeding or where in town citations were issued.

North Enid Police Department purchased the devices Jan. 16, along with three portable printers.

Schubert said the color camera can be used in an investigation or for making a field contact. He said if an officer sees a suspicious person, he can use the device to take a color photo of the person.

“Instead of describing their clothing to the dispatcher you can actually take a picture of them,” Schubert said.

The device allows an officer to write up to four citations on a single entry. This saves officers the time of having to write a person’s information multiple times for each citation.

Information collected is uploaded to a secured site that can be checked from any computer with Internet access, using a password and user ID. The site also allows officers to edit reports — adding information collected later or a note — from any computer with Internet access.

The site generates PDF documents of all citations written by officers, which are printed by the court clerk for the month and used in city court.

Officers can print citations with wireless portable printers in their police cars. The printers are Blue Tooth enabled and use a special paper that reacts to heat, so no ink is necessary. The devices and printers use rechargeable batteries.

Schubert and Officer Rick Dominic said the devices save officers time and allow them to conduct more contacts while in the field.

“Our traffic stops in general have gone up 60 percent,” Schubert said. “It’s basically because of the time we save writing tickets.”

During the last court docket for North Enid, Feb. 10 to March 9, officers issued 215 citations and 94 warnings.

“I would say it’s averaged us to five minutes a traffic stop,” Schubert said. “It does save quite a bit of time.”

“If it didn’t cut it to half, it’s pretty close,” Dominic said.

The devices also save the city’s court clerk time by not having to re-enter information from the citations into the city’s records. By having the citations in a digital format, it saves the town paper, too.

“The only paper generated is the paper generated during the traffic stop,” Dominic said.

North Enid Police Department purchased the E-Ticket devices from Brazos Technology, which guarantees to extract information from damaged devices.

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Technology saves for North Enid

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