The Yale University Police Department recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that will allow the campus force to install mobile data computers in all of its marked patrol vehicles. The $42,750 grant was awarded by the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. Yale's is one of four area police departments -- including New Haven's -- that received a total of $597,472 under the initiative. Currently, only one Yale patrol vehicle is equipped with a mobile data computer, which gives police officers access to the entire law enforcement network of information -- from state motor vehicle and license information to outstanding warrants. The grant will allow the units to be installed in all 10 of the force's marked patrol cars. The Yale and New Haven's police departments are currently linked directly through a shared Computer Aided Dispatch and Management System. Under this system, calls for service that come in either through the city's 911 system or the campus' 111 emergency system can be switched between departments and dispatched at either site -- thus insuring rapid response. These calls for service will be displayed directly on the computer screens of the patrol cars' laptop units, thus reducing the need for radio communications between the vehicles and the police station. Officers can send messages online indicating whether they are available to respond to a call or when they have arrived at the scene. Furthermore, since all Yale police officers enter their reports online, equipping the force's patrol vehicles with the mobile data computers is expected to result in savings of hundreds of man hours, since officers will no longer have to leave their assigned areas and come into the station to complete reports. "Installing these laptop computers in Yale's marked patrol vehicles will make a world of information available to University police officers," says Chief James Perrotti of the University Police Department. "These mobile data computers will also make it easier for dispatchers to convey important information to Yale police officers in the field, ensuring that those officers will be both safer and more effective when they respond to calls for service." Currently, the Yale University Police Department has 58 officers who patrol the campus. Its patrol fleet consists of 10 marked patrol cars, six bicycles and four motorcycles.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL MARSLAND  Sergeant Brian Logan of the University Police Department enters information into a mobile data computer. The department will add similar units to all of its marked patrol vehicles, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.