By Scott M. Bruner
Police1 Product Editor
As law enforcement moves further into the technology age, the number of software applications to meet police needs continues to grow. In January, E•SPONDER, who has been developing incident management software for 10 years, joined the ranks by offering a law enforcement crime mapping application as part of their E•SPONDER suite.
E•SPONDER works off of Microsoft’s SharePoint Server and has an interface similar to all Microsoft Office Suite applications. The software connects CAD and RMS feeds, from dispatch and the court system, to provide street officers with data on local crime in realtime. It uses Microsoft’s Bing maps to plot the data.
“Our goal in developing this application was simple – minimize the gaps in efficiency law enforcement faces every day and help officers focus more on solving crimes in their community,” Robert Wolf, E•SPONDER President and CEO, said.
The crime-mapping feature is an evolution of the E•SPONDER suite, which had been originally developed as an incident management program. It has been used in a variety of applications, from assisting with security at the 2004 Presidential Debate to providing emergency assistance for the 2008 China earthquake.
The new crime-fighting application was developed in conjunction with and beta tested by the Tampa Police Department, which had used the incident management software for over 800 events.
“E•SPONDER has been an integral part of our incident management work for years now, so it was a natural fit to utilize the software’s information sharing capabilities to more efficiently track crimes,” Tampa police chief Jane Castor said. “Providing officers with fingertip information about criminal activity to cross check with potential offenders will undoubtedly help officers solve crimes more quickly and therefore make Tampa a safer city.”
It’s designed to allow users to receive and manage information based on the agency’s needs. Because it’s based off of Microsoft applications, E•SPONDER has been designed to be user-friendly.
“Ease of use is one of its best features. We can train the average officer in 15-20 minutes on how to use it. If you can run Word, you can run E•SPONDER,” Wolf said.
E•SPONDER runs through any IP network, including over an internet connection. The system costs $20,000 and includes hardware, software, licensing, and installation.
E•SPONDER provides government and commercial enterprises highly customized communications and collaboration applications as well as providing the commercial market with a wide variety of information technology applications. For more on E•SPONDER, visit www.e-sponder.com.