VIDEO: Communication and Advanced Technology Are The Heartbeat Of The Amory Police Department

MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Communication and advanced technology are the heartbeat of the Amory Police Department.

For a town with 7,000 residents, and a department with 21 officers, it’s rare to have the technology the department uses.

They were the 7th agency in the state to get the advanced equipment back in 2005, and they rely on it everyday.

It’s called CrimeStar software and it’s a network that feeds all department work into one system.

“It’s running our record management system, our computerated dispatch. It also runs our state interface switch to the state, where we can run driver’s licenses, tags, and things like that from patrol units, but we can also run those from desktops inside,” says Amory Police Chief, Ronnie Bowen.

The wireless network gathers real time data, and lets everybody keep tabs on what’s happening across Amory.

“Everything I can see on my computer, or the dispatcher can see, the officer can see in his car, so he can look over at a map and see where all call locations are. He can see where other backup officers are at.”

One of the biggest advantages of CrimeStar is the jump it gives officers on the paperwork, which comes with the job.

“Everything we do has a given number, but it’s just a record number we keep in the system, so anytime if you have a traffic stop, it has an event number, a calls for service number, and then if you have an arrest that’s affected out of that, then it gets assigned an incident number.”

Efficiency, time saving, and officer safety are three big benefits of the technology.

“It’s a great asset, great tool. One thing is that if the community has some issues that we are not aware of, sometimes the officers don’t actually communicate due to the shifts, you know, we can just log everything, what we call radio log on the computer, we can pull it back up and relay the information to each other a whole lot easier,” says Patrolman Bryan Morrow.