Police departments, individual cops, and citizen groups are hosting Web sites designed to reach the public with everything from high-tech wanted posters to child-abduction hotlines. In an increasingly mobile world, some of these sites are helping officers accomplish what traditional police work cannot.
Last fall, an inspector in Puerto Rico was preparing to attend a conference put on by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. To prepare, Jose Berrios was surfing the Internet and found the nonprofit agency's impressive Web site, which provides easy access to information on and photographs of thousands of missing children.
The agency Berrios works for, the Interpol division of the Special Investigations Bureau of the Puerto Rico Justice Department, had been looking for the identity of an 8- year-old girl who had been rescued from an abusive home a few months earlier. During the investigation, Justice Department agents learned that the woman charged with abusing the girl was not even her mother, but a woman with a forged birth certificate for the child. They had no idea who the child was or where her real parents might be. Berrios pointed out a Web site he had stumbled across to his superior, who then assigned three agents to an impromptu computer search.
Two hours and 500 photos later, they cracked a mystery that had baffled Interpol, the FBI and local police officers for months. The girl had been kidnapped from her home in San Diego when she was only 8 months old.
"Without the Web site, I don't see how the child would ever have been identified," said San Diego Police Department Sgt. Jim Munsterman.
Funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Justice, the center is relied on by law enforcement and families, helps train police officers in child-related cases and has helped those same officers on 52,000 cases, resulting in 34,000 recovered children. The site is one of the hottest on the Web, averaging 1.8 million hits a day. That exposure is helping the center recover more kids than ever and has been designed to facilitate rescues as quickly as possible when an abduction occurs.
On the Road with the CHP
"The first Web site we had was largely informational, with a few pictures of missing kids on it," said Rick Minicucci, chief technology officer for the center. "But this Web site is a much more effective tool for us. We have developed a ystem that allows the victim's family to scan in a photo and e-mail it to us; immediately it is formatted with the necessary information in poster form and uploaded on the Web site. From there, volunteers across the country are notified and they can download the poster, print it out and begin distribution. In addition, local law enforcement can use our system to create posters that show their own logo and contact information instead of ours and, with instant translators built in, we are expanding our reach worldwide."
Not all public safety sites have provided results as dramatic as this, but across the country tech-savvy cops are providing the public with instant information that would have taken a drive and several hours, research to glean before. Some sites offer general information -- where to file a report or who is the local chief of police. Other sites are more specific.
In the land of the freeway and fast cars, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) hosts a unique site that provides realtime accident reports with a few clicks of a mouse. Every 60 seconds, the CHP's realtime accident center updates a list of accident reports through out the state. From spinouts to fiery collisions, they're all there, within seconds of the report being handled by a dispatcher. Anyone curious can find out what has happened, exactly where the accident occurred, status, incident number and the responsible CHP office. A click on the incident in which you are interested will quickly yield any additional information provided by the responding officer.
The trend in law enforcement Web postings has resulted in a new breed of cops as well -- officers who either host department sites in their spare time or land indoor duty assignments to manage the sites. For some, the training has all been on the job.
"I have been a freelance graphic artist on the side for a long time and, when the Web came along, I knew right off that I wanted to be a part of it," said Hector Gonzalez, a motorcycle cop with the Pacific Grove Police Department along the central coast of California. "The first site I worked on was strictly for motorcycle cops -- a place to interact and network, trade tips, information and stories. Since then I have done everything from our city P.D. site to a site for Seabourne Cruise lines."
Gonzalez also networked with cops from New York City and Canada to create Cops Online, a site designed to provide information for both the public and law enforcement professionals. Despite his acknowledged ability at creating and maintaining high-quality sites, Gonzalez said he taught himself from books he picked up at a bookstore.
"Anyone can get a book and have a text-based Web site up in 10 minutes, but it does take time to get it right," Gonzalez said. "The biggest challenge newcomers to the Web run into is getting a clear idea of what they want to convey. They either start with no idea at all or a plan so grandiose, it is impossible to realize with their level of experience. I recommend starting small, keeping a clear idea of your audience, and not getting distracted by all the bells and whistles out there."
Raymond Dussault is a Sacramento, Calif.-based writer.
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