New equipment takes Danville Police Department to another level

The Danville Police Department has had a very good year in terms of upgrading a lot of its equipment.

Police officers now have shoulder cameras, some patrol cars are outfitted with license plate readers, an armored SWAT vehicle now makes its home in Danville, a communications link has been established with more adjoining counties and a new fingerprint identification system is identifying crime suspects faster.

Not only does this equipment make law enforcement a little easier, most of it was fully funded through grants, according to Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot.

The shoulder cameras are useful in recording everything that happens at an incident, and other equipment is making crime-fighting a little easier.

Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)

Fingerprint comparison can be an extremely tedious process, and the department had to send all fingerprints to the Virginia Department of Forensic Science to see if they could find a match.

“You have to package them and mail them, and it can take six to 18 months to get a reply,” Broadfoot said. “It’s very labor intensive.”

Danville, however, got a grant that gives the department its own fingerprint database — the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).

“AFIS is a similar system (to the one at the state lab) just for us,” Broadfoot said.

The state still has to approve the match, but sending in a print and a suspect’s name and asking for confirmation generally gets done in a day.

Broadfoot said the quick turnaround means quick arrests — and, in burglary cases, a better chance of recovering stolen merchandise.

Part of the system is a handheld unit that can be taken into the field, to do on-the-spot fingerprint matching.

Lt. Scott Eanes, head of the department’s crime scene unit, said the time it took for fingerprint identification meant a frustrating wait for officers who often know who the criminal in a case is, but can’t make an arrest without state confirmation.

“You’d wait months, and they’d be out there, still committing crimes,” Eanes said. “With this, we can find out in a few minutes and get it back from Richmond in a day.”

License Plate Readers (LPR)

Affixed to the back of some of the department’s patrol cars are scanners that can spot stolen vehicles or the vehicles registered to wanted criminals.

“Every day, we download from the FBI all the cars in the U.S. and Canada (that are stolen or wanted),” Broadfoot said.

The plate readers constantly scan the license plate of every vehicle it drives past, storing the tag numbers, a photo of the vehicle and its location. When it gets a match, the machine beeps, altering the officer to check a specific car and verify it is wanted.

Broadfoot said the system has been very effective, noting that in a shoplifting case where witnesses could tell the police what kind of vehicle the thief drove and had a partial plate number, the system was able to narrow potential matches down to about a dozen, then officers could look over photos of the different matches and eliminate them until they located the suspects.

Communications Links

Broadfoot said that Danville and Pittsylvania County have long had a cooperative relationship and a good communications system, but other neighboring counties do not have the same degree of communication.

A new communication link is now making it easier to share information with Caswell County, N.C., and other counties are being worked on, Broadfoot said.

“This is a fiber optic microwave link that allows all agencies to funnel information through our link,” Broadfoot said. “We got grant money to do beta testing on equipment from Cisco.”

Until the link was established, the only way to communicate with the police department in Yanceyville, N.C., or the North Carolina Highway Patrol was by telephone, Broadfoot said.

Ultimately, Broadfoot said, plans call for links with Halifax County, South Boston and the Virginia State Police in Salem.

Armored Vehicle

Through a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, localities have been receiving armored vehicles for use in dangerous situations, Broadfoot said.

The grant placed 14 of the armored vehicles at various locations throughout the state, and Danville was chosen because it is centrally located in the Southside and is able to maintain the vehicle, Broadfoot said.

The vehicles are to be shared regionally, as needed, and Danville’s SWAT commander, T.E. Merricks, said the SWAT team has been training with the vehicle and other SWAT teams are being invited to train with it as well.

Homeland Security wanted the armored vehicles placed strategically, so they could get to as many places as possible quickly, should the need arise, Broadfoot said.