news-record.com

HIGH POINT - When a cop pulls over a car, it's important to know if it's been stolen. That knowledge can mean everything in a situation that could turn dangerous.

In the past, High Point police might have called in the license plate to a dispatcher - a method often quicker than doing a search on their laptops' slow-motion modems.

But with the Verizon Wireless service the department is now using in its squad cars, officers can retrieve that information as soon as they hit the "enter" button.

"Officers have been raving about the network's speed," Maj. Marty Sumner said. "It's far beyond anything we had before."

The department now has 190 cruisers with high-speed wireless devices - or "air cards" - for their in-car laptops. The devices help the department quickly transmit information on everything from traffic tickets and accident reports to tracking wanted criminals while on patrol.

Sumner said the old connections crawled at a sluggish 14.2 kilobytes-per-second - slower than the average cell phone Web browser. Also, they provided access to only certain police databases, but not the wider Internet.

The Verizon Wireless service, which began in trials last October, is 800 to 5,000 kilobytes-per-second and allows officers access to anything they might need online.

"Recently a guy stole someone's ATM card and tried to use it at an ATM," Sumner said. "They got a picture of him from the outside camera, and with their Internet access, officers were able to e-mail the image around. They caught him in a number of hours."

Sumner said that never would have happened before. The suspect's photo would have gone up in the squad room.

"It makes a world of difference to have that speed, to be able to do that so easily," Sumner said.

Contact Joe Killian at 883-4422, ext. 228, or joe.killian@news-record.com