As the police put it, the gunfire and related problems stemmed from two rival families having beef in a specific part of Laredo, a city that hugs the Mexican border in southern Texas.
Just a year or two ago, investigators would have methodically gathered evidence and other information and then spent days trying to unravel the specifics of the problems, including mapping out the incidents.
Now, the department used a digital heat map, allowing police to quickly fix the location of the incidents, which in turn helped them figure out what was really going on and deploy extra officers.
The result? A 19 percent decrease in firearm-related incidents in just a couple of months.
Heat maps are hardly new, of course, but this serves as an example of how fresh cloud-based software — in this case, sold to Laredo by Tyler Technologies — can help departments keep up with crime waves, even as some agencies deal with staffing shortages and other issues that can stress municipalities.
Even so, the deployment of such technology can present its own problems.
The move to the cloud was all but necessary in Laredo, according to Officer Stephen Garza, who works in the department’s information technology division.
“We have a very small IT division here,” he told Government Technology*, “and we’ve been hit or miss with the network administrator, getting that position filled.”
Cloud-based tech, he added, also makes it easier for the department to meet digital security compliance requirements.
The software package from Tyler does more than just heat maps.
Other tasks include bringing manual reporting and analytics work into the digital realm — which the department credits as saving three workdays per investigation — and using traffic data to better identify the most dangerous intersections and roads.
The software also supports the department’s real-time crime center.
As well, the tech plays into the natural competitive nature of many police officers. That’s because the software offers a clear view into the latest policing statistics in Laredo, numbers that officers can review.
“Everyone is real competitive, so when they see someone’s stats go up, they work harder,” Garza said. “It’s an alpha male mentality.”
That’s not to say every officer totally bought into the tech, at least if one judges by the instruction required to bring officers up to speed on the software.
“Training became a little bit of a headache,” Garza said, because some officers seemed more interested in highlighting what they perceived as shortcomings in the tech than showing their colleagues how to use it.
The lesson? Take care when selecting a team of trainers.
But as older officers retire, that job should get easier, according to Investigator Joe Baeza, the department’s public information officer. He’s been a police officer for more than 20 years, which means he learned the job while using many paper-based processes.
But “the department is fairly young now,” he said. “Technology for them is not really a scary thing.”
*Editor's note: This story originally ran in Government Technology, a sister publication to Industry Insider — Texas.
Gunfire, Training and ‘Alpha Males’: Lessons of Police Tech in Laredo
When the police department in Laredo deployed new software, they used it to reduce firearms incidents while also mapping dangerous roads. But other lessons followed — lessons other agencies can use.
