MDCs arm deputies, officers with information

SANDPOINT — Indispensable information is now a keystroke away for Bonner County Sheriff’s patrol deputies and law officers in Ponderay and Priest River.

The sheriff’s office has received federal funding to purchase 18 mobile data computers, which will put a wealth of information at deputies and law officers’ fingertips. Fourteen of the heavy-duty laptops will be utilized by the sheriff’s office. The Ponderay and Priest River police departments have two each.

“They’re the same computer that the military uses,” sheriff’s Lt. Bill McAuliffe said of the Panasonic Toughbooks, which can withstand 6-foot drops, extreme temperatures and various other forms of abuse.

The MDCs were purchased with $187,000 in U.S. Department of Justice Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant funding. It costs up to $12,000 to get one of the laptops field-ready, largely because of software licensing fees, McAuliffe said.

The MDCs tie into the county’s records-management and computer-aided dispatching systems using wireless technology, which provides quick access to driving records, criminal backgrounds, prior contacts with law enforcement and information on warrants.

“It gives guys access to our entire database, so when they’re out in the field they don’t have to ask dispatch to look something up. They can look it up themselves,” McAuliffe said.

Dispatch Director Marcus Robbins examined call volumes recently and they showed that MDC use reduced the number of inquiries to dispatch by 20 percent.

“It’s reducing the demand on dispatch in a big way,” said McAuliffe.

It also saves law officers’ time. McAuliffe figures at least an hour of a deputy’s day is consumed by communications with dispatch and up to four hours are lost commuting back and forth from offices to examine records.

McAuliffe said the department plans on obtaining peripherals that optically scan driver’s licenses, which would speed data entry.

Bonner County commissioners have accepted the federal funding without dissent.

“The commissioners recognized that we need to leverage technology,” Sheriff Daryl Wheeler said.