Times change, and technology progresses. Solutions that were once state-of-the-art may be surpassed by newer, higher-tech revisions. Even as the older ways still work effectively, alternatives with greater capabilities may produce even bigger benefits.
That’s the case with the LETS Respond crisis-negotiation platform from LETS Corp. For more than half a decade, it’s helped law enforcement bring hostage and barricade-type situations to speedier and more peaceful conclusions. It’s been a key component of successful resolutions in North Carolina, California and elsewhere.
Now the company’s LETS Respond+ platform has expanded and improved on it.
“As we’ve sold and promoted the Respond system, we’ve worked with customers and heard some really good additional ideas,” said Ben Fitzgerald, LETS Corp.’s chief technology officer. “They’ve asked us things like, ‘If I have someone pull a criminal record on the suspect in a barricade situation, how can I share a copy of that with my whole team?’ and ‘How can we message with each other and share information like photos?’ If they get a picture of a suspect, they want to share that with everybody.”
As that kind of feedback suggested new capabilities that might resonate, advances in technology made upgrades increasingly desirable. LETS Respond+ now offers numerous key new attributes in a package that’s attainable for departments of all budgets.
Adoptable, reliable and stable
One of the biggest changes in how Americans communicate – in law enforcement and everywhere – has been the growth of 5G, broadband and sheer coverage. Around 97% of Americans now have 5G access, with Starlink being leveraged to fill the remaining gaps. Dead spots are fewer, and bandwidth and reliability are greater.
“Those kinds of things have made our type of solution much more widely adoptable, reliable and stable,” said Fitzgerald. “We can provide the technology, but having connectivity has been a struggle at times. It’s gotten much better.”
A throw phone can come with the Respond+ package, but that’s only a fraction of what it’s about. Also supported in the new upgrade is broader use of texting – another evolution in how people prefer to communicate. Respond+ also harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI), with automated real-time voice-to-text transcription.
A common theme heard from users was a desire for team messaging – the ability to talk among themselves within the app. With Respond originally developed to communicate with suspects – and given recent trends toward incorporating specialists from beyond law enforcement in crisis negotiations – expanding that was a fertile area for growth.
“Respond+ comes with a whole slew of features for the team to message each other and share photos and videos that are relevant to the negotiation,” said Fitzgerald. “That was probably our No. 1 request.”
A throw phone can come with the Respond+ package, but that’s only a fraction of what it’s about. Also supported in the new upgrade is broader use of texting – another evolution in how people prefer to communicate. Respond+ also harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI), with automated real-time voice-to-text transcription.
LETS Corp.
Sharing that media is also increasingly important – not just images but videos and documents too. Teamwide knowledge of a suspect’s criminal history or clothing/appearance can dramatically benefit situational awareness. A hostage who breaks free may be able to draw a rough map of where in a facility an attacker is and have it shared via Respond+, enabling more precise countermeasures.
Respond+ also provides video calling, another popular user request. Improvements in coverage and bandwidth have reduced latency and extended this to more Americans than ever.
“It works in areas with poor coverage, and it’ll basically scale the quality of what your network can support while maintaining a conversational latency,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s been a lot of advances in that technology. You can kind of chalk it up to COVID-19 – that put a huge emphasis on the adoption of video technologies as people worked from home. So in the past few years there’s been huge improvement in video technology with both the quality and required connectivity to have high-quality, low-delay videoconferencing.”
Add specialists and experts
With the growing recognition that complex incidents involving mental illness, emotional distress and domestic conflict require more than just a law enforcement response, crisis and negotiation teams have become more multidisciplinary. Professionals in mental health, behavioral science and more play growing roles in the negotiation process.
Respond+ allows the addition of guests from beyond the core responding law enforcement department. That could be mutual aid, medical specialists, state or FBI reps, hazmat experts, traffic authorities or anyone else needed.
“Lots of areas have joint response teams,” noted Fitzgerald. “Maybe they have a couple of guys who need to listen in on the phone call with the suspect. We built a system where they can just temporarily add these people into the application for that incident. They can get access to all the situational awareness and features without being paid users.”
That’s an especially useful feature for smaller departments with fewer resources, whose jurisdictions can be just as susceptible to major incidents as larger ones. It can also be used for scenarios beyond hostage and crisis incidents that call for wireless calling and multiparty listening.
Four main functions
The Respond+ platform is built around four main functionalities:
- Negotiation: Its biggest purpose is communication with suspects in barricade-type situations. To that end it’s compatible with LETS Corp.’s Throw Phone+, which provides not only FaceTime-style video and texting capabilities but also serves as a surveillance tool. With front and back cameras that can stream simultaneously, the Throw Phone+ provides a nearly 360-degree video with latency of less than 500 milliseconds and comprehensive remote control. That gives negotiators a visible window into the suspect’s environment and insight into their status even if they’re not directly engaging. It’s locked down against any other access.
Respond+ allows the addition of guests from beyond the core responding law enforcement department. That could be mutual aid, medical specialists, state or FBI reps, hazmat experts, traffic authorities or anyone else needed.
LETS Corp.
- Team messaging: Respond+ facilitates real-time voice, text and video communication between and among team members and outside participants. It supports videoconferencing and allows dynamic creation and control of user groups. “It has a sort of private social media feed where you can essentially post video, audio, photos and text and tag it as relevant so everybody can see it,” said Fitzgerald. “You can pin the most important things – for instance, if you have a photo of a suspect, you can pin that so it stays at the top.” All group chats, direct messages and voice messages are stored for later reference.
- Situation board: A map-based user interface with real-time GPS locations shows personnel, vehicles, drones and other assets. It integrates data from various sources, including CAD, GIS and IoT sensors.
- Incident data: The platform also stores incident data such as location information, suspect descriptions and information, and other key details.
Respond+ maintains some key elements of its predecessor, including its intuitive feel, ease of use and budget-friendly price point. While hostage and barricade-type situations may be rare, the system can also be used to support other kinds of high-stakes operations – major events like parades and protests and dangerous scenarios like no-knock warrants and active shooter responses.
“An active shooter is certainly an all-hands-on-deck moment,” said Fitzgerald. “You want to be able to share information as quickly as possible with as many people as possible.”
It operates on a monthly subscription model, allowing agencies to scale use as needed, and LETS Corp. offers potential new users a free trial.
Visit LETS Corp. for more information and book a Respond+ demo here.
