Law enforcement device could land in Aurora Police chief to ask city to invest in COPLINK to nab criminals

By J.C. O'Connell
Aurora, CO 09/27/06

Two decades after a parking ticket led to the arrest of serial killer Son of Sam in New York, law enforcement agencies wanted to use that same type of connection - with a little help from technology - to track criminals in Colorado.

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates plans to ask lawmakers Sept. 28 to invest in COPLINK, a system that taps into different jurisdictions' existing databases to cross-reference information.

"Catching criminals is all about relationships," said Oates, who bought COPLINK technology as chief of police in Ann Arbor, Mich. "(With COPLINK) you can link a phone number to a car to a person."

Oates used the case of David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, to highlight what this service could do for the department. In 1977, a parking ticket written near a murder scene helped lead to the arrest of Berkowitz, who was eventually convicted of killing six people. COPLINK could make the connection almost instantly.

Oates estimates the technology will cost about $425,000 and allow detectives to connect to other jurisdictions' databases throughout the Front Range.

A consortium of eight law enforcement agencies in Broomfield and Jefferson counties are preparing to go live with COPLINK in the next couple of weeks, said Don Wick of the Arvada Police Department.

"Often times investigators, when they are doing follow-up on a case, have to make a lot of phone calls, have to travel to other jurisdictions … the COPLINK software basically allows you to do one search for all these agencies," Wick said.

The consortium raised about $800,000 through federal, county and state grants to pay for the system, and each member could pay annual maintenance costs of up to $20,000 depending on their size.

More than 300 jurisdictions around the county use COPLINK to cross reference the information in gang databases, sex offender registries and traffic ticket logs to generate leads and track down criminals, said Robert Griffin, CEO of the Arizona-based company.

"We're able to tie all that information together," he said, adding that the U.S. military has used COPLINK in Iraq to help track insurgents.

"This is a very popular way of doing business," Wick said. "People have gone through the training and people have seen the demos of this and are very excited."

If the city buys COPLINK, Aurora could link to other jurisdictions that get COPLINK software in the future.

"It's going to reduce crime," Oates told city council when he first requested funding for COPLINK at a Sept. 21 budget meeting. "We're going to find bad guys a lot faster."