New cop technology doesn't replace police instinct -- it builds on it

As the cop car burned rubber, peeling out of the Oakland Police Department parking lot, I felt a familiar rush of adrenaline -- the same kind that I experienced back when I was a CIA operative, running a surveillance detection route, or on my way to clandestinely meet a foreign agent.

I was seated in the (highly uncomfortable) back seat of the police car, behind Officer Brian Hernandez, not because I'd committed a crime, but on a ride-along. My mission was to experience and examine for "TechKnow" the ways in which cutting edge technology is changing police work.

I couldn't help but think about similar ways that technology has changed the field in which I once operated -- human intelligence. Just as spies rely on increasingly sophisticated and technical means to spot and counter their "targets," so do cops.

In fact, the car in which I was riding was equipped with two of three technologically advanced mechanisms; each has drastically changed a police officer's typical night on the beat. The first is ShotSpotter -- a powerful and scalable gunshot detection system that enables police officers to know precisely where and when a weapon is fired. Turns out, on the tough streets of Oakland -- as in many other high-crime cities -- gunfire has become so commonplace that most of it goes unreported, according to Captain Ersie Joyner III, who oversees the ShotSpotter program for his department.

This fact didn't surprise me: I thought about when I lived in Washington D.C. and occasionally heard gunshots that I too failed to report; or when I was stationed by the CIA in former Yugoslavia, then teetering on civil war, and routinely fell asleep to the sound of shelling in the not-too-far-off distance. When the sound of guns being fired becomes familiar background noise, alerting anyone else to such incidents seems pointless. This is precisely why policemen like Joyner think this technology is so critical to the efficacy of their force. When gunfire goes unreported, he says, police don't respond, and so the community's confidence in the system erodes.

I thought again about when I once reported our car stolen, only to be told by a Washington D.C. police officer there that with all the other crime in the city, "car theft is just not a priority." Even when my husband and I spotted our stolen car being driven by some rowhouse squatters in our very own neighborhood, and called with descriptions of the perpetrators, the local police couldn't be bothered to respond. So, yeah, I know what it's like to live in a place where it seems like the police have just given up.

That's why I was intrigued by another piece of technology being used by Oakland P.D. -- a license plate reader that can identify possible stolen cars in an instant. Officer Hernandez' car wasn't equipped with an LPR so he had to input suspect plates manually into the car's computer. When he did so, a Siri-like voice  indicated whether the plate was associated with a "suspect stolen vehicle." While this computerized system helps police track wanted vehicles even if they have only partial license plate information, the LPR does that much and can also scan up to 1000 plates in a single hour --- hundreds more than any officer can do during a shift. Police officers say that the license plate reader won't report on plates that have unpaid parking tickets (phew!), just ones associated with serious or violent crime. Still, the mere notion of police officers with eyes and ears "everywhere" --- in the form of ShotSpotter sensors around the city, and superhuman license plate readers --- does have privacy fanatics more than a little concerned.

Public concerns about privacy aside, Captain Joyner and others maintain that the long-term effect of these technological tools will be one of improving relations between cops and the communities they serve. Another piece of new tech with which Hernandez was deployed was a barely noticeable video camera affixed to his uniform. He used this body-mounted device to record any and every interaction -- routine or otherwise -- during his patrol. He switched it on when stopping a vehicle that had committed a traffic violation, as well as when he and other officers apprehended an armed robbery suspect at the suspect's home. The whole event was recorded, including explosive verbal protests from the teenage suspect's mother. The philosophy behind body cameras? It protects both those detained and police officers. When the camera is rolling, it seems, everyone is on his or her best behavior.

As I watched Hernandez and his colleagues deal with the suspect and the fuming mother, I was reminded that there are some ways in which technology will never change police work, or even human intelligence. You still have to rely, at some point, on your gut instincts, your experience, and your ability to diffuse volatile situations. And no matter how high-tech police work becomes, you still have to put in your time on the streets.

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