Friday, Sep. 26, 2008

Sheriff's deputies use new ID system in field

Sometimes, people who get pulled over don’t have their driver’s licenses. Other times, they lie to conceal their identity.

They won’t be able to get away with that anymore — at least not in Johnson County. A new tool to identify people using their fingerprints is already paying dividends for the Sheriff’s Department.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation provided the department with five portable fingerprint-identification devices called RapID that are manufactured by Sagem Morpho, Inc. of Tacoma, Wash. The department is one of the first law enforcement agencies in the Kansas City metropolitan area and state to use it.

The device, which is basically a PDA with a fingerprint reader attached to a handle, looks like a small radar gun. It allows deputies to fingerprint anyone who is not telling the truth or is without identification, said Master Deputy Tom Erickson, a sheriff’s spokesman.

“Usually, if they’re lying to us, they have something to hide,” Erickson said.

Erickson said the wireless device uses the Internet to access the state’s fingerprint database, which includes prints for anyone booked into a Kansas jail, in near real time. If there’s a match, deputies will get the person’s name, sex and date of birth.

In the past, Erickson said, if someone wouldn’t reveal his or her identity, that person would have to be fingerprinted at a jail. Those prints would then be referenced with the state database. Erickson said if that person lied, deputies would have to backtrack and fix the error.

Jeff Brandau, special agent in charge, said the KBI gave the devices to sheriff’s departments in Johnson, Douglas, Shawnee counties and the Liberal Police Department to test.

“We’ve got them out to several agencies that would be high-use agencies that would be able to utilize them and give us some feedback,” he said.

Erickson said that so far the department has had great success with the devices. He added that just seeing the device has forced some suspects to confess.

In the future, Erickson said, the department would like to be able to see a mug shot and warrant information with the fingerprint identification on the device. He also said it may be helpful to be able to access a national fingerprint database.

According to Sagem Morpho’s Web site, the company introduced a third-generation RapID device in August that incorporates facial-recognition software for identifying suspects. It also includes capability to list warrants. Brandau said what the department has is only the beginning. Future improvements may be as simple as getting software updates for the existing devices, he said.

Despite the early positive returns about the devices, Erickson said he’d prefer if people didn’t lie.

“It would make our lives and their lives easier,” he said. “That’s why we have these.”

Submit an ad