Police Using New Technology to Fight Crime in Tempe, AZ

Tempe Crime News

Tempe Police Officers recently used new technology to arrest robbery suspect.

Witnesses of an armed robbery reported seeing vehicle and driver fleeing from the crime. They described the vehicle and license plates to police following the incident. Police were unable to find or detain the suspect immediately.

However, one day after the crime, an officer was conducting a different investigation in a high crime area on Priest Drive in Tempe AZ. While in a parking lot, the officer received an alert from the new system on a wireless electronic device. The message indicated that there was a vehicle in that parking lot that was suspected as being part of a robbery the day before.

In response to that alert, police officers set up surveillance in the area where the vehicle was parked. Shortly thereafter, they obtained a search warrant and found the victim’s property, which led to the finding and arrest of the suspect. He was charged with robbery and aggravated assault.

Surveillance was set up. Evidently the police gathered enough information to acquire a search warrant. During the search, detectives located and recovered property belonging to the victim, according to police.

A short time later, Jake was taken into custody. A subsequent search warrant was done on the vehicle and room where Jake was staying.

New Police Technology

The alert was received from a sophisticated dispatch system being used by police called the Records Management System. The Records Management System (RMS) allows a police officer to be alerted to new information if they if come into contact with a suspicious vehicle or suspect. The new technology enables the dispatcher to see where all officers are located at a glance on a map and other identifying information about the patrol vehicle such as “already on scene” or “in-route”. This enables them to get patrol officers to crimes in progress faster, since the dispatcher calls the patrol unit nearest to that location.

The RMS is just one modernized tool police are using to fight crime. They need only to look at their computer their patrol vehicle laptop computer or mobile data screen to see comments in the form of text messages which show on their screen when they come in contact with a suspect or suspicious vehicle.