Cities Link Up to Fight Terrorism

By Mary Frances Gurton Staff Writer
December 22, 2006

PASADENA - Along with 44 other Southland cities, Pasadena is now included in an electronic database allowing police and sheriff's departments to share crime information to help analyze terrorism threats, authorities said.

"We have been committed to participating in regional efforts for a period of time," said Pasadena police Chief Bernard Melekian. "This is due in large measure to the number of nationally significant events that we deal with."

The change will make the Pasadena Police Department part of COPLINK, a computer technology that allows information-sharing between several major databases of the Los Angeles Police and Los Angeles County Sheriff's departments.

Other participating cities include Whittier, Long Beach, Burbank, Beverly Hills and Inglewood, officials said.

"The 45 cities will create a third component and expand the system's capability dramatically," said Deputy Captain Mark Leap, head of the LAPD's counterterrorism unit. "Officers using the software can inquire into LAPD, sheriff's, or any of the 45 cities' databases."

COPLINK is also to be used by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, the largest in the nation, which opened in Norwalk in July.

Although the regional agencies may coordinate with each other and the FBI, the FBI's information is not yet available to all, Leap said.
Run by the LAPD, the FBI and the sheriff's department, the regional center creates a crime-sharing forum to assist in analyzing terrorist leads, according to the FBI's Web site.

Accessible information includes names of people arrested, cited or interviewed by officers, or thought to be involved in such crimes.

"This takes information sharing to a new level of sophistication," Melekian said. "It will add to the communication that is so crucial in counterterrorism efforts."

Hundreds of tips and other information have flowed through the center since its opening, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Einmiller.

"The JRIC is an intake center staffed with analysts from all \ agencies," Einmiller said. "What it does is in-take intelligence, fuses, then refers the information to the proper agency. It's a first line of defense in the intelligence area."

About a year after the 9/11 attacks, the Pasadena Police Department requested funding to create a specific counterterrorism liaison position, which was approved by the City Council, Melekian said.

"The purpose of that position was to ensure that Pasadena has a direct line of communication with the big players, including the LAPD and the sheriff's department," he said.

The department has responded to nearly a dozen terrorism-related incidents in Pasadena in the past several years, he said, without elaborating.