New Haven Independent

Posted by: anon | May 20, 2008 2:40 PM

Is this an April Fool's Day post?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 20, 2008 3:07 PM

speaking of ...what's up with the Crime Log???

Posted by: True New Havener | May 20, 2008 4:26 PM

Okay this is . . . what's the word I am looking for . . . IDIOTIC!!

The city built its own computer system for crime reporting and relied on one guy to build it and run it and nobody could see this coming?

Thousands of police forces have computerized crime tracking. Even the New Haven Independent does. Is there not an off the shelf solution for this.

Are we missing something? Oh my god I just googled ICON and nothing related to crime tracking came up. New Haven really did rely on one guy to build a crime tracking system.

And the acting chief's response is that this has no impact???? Removing a computerized system from service has no impact? Then why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on computers. Of course it has an impact.

This is just like back in 1930 when Chief Finnerty said, "We don't need no cars, the horses serve us just fine." Of course this led to a crime wave as criminals consistently drove away from crime scenes and were generally lost by the hoof patrol around Milford.

Someone should:

1. Give the chief some pointers on how to deal honestly with the public when a stupid mistake occurs. Dumb things happen even to smart people -- no need to make us all worry that you have no idea what you are talking about.

and

2. Figure out who supervises this seemingly massively important part of the police department and lash into them mercilessly before disciplining them in some appropriate way. Then take the responsibility and give it to someone who actually knows something about supervising technological services.

Then New Haven should actually buy a state of the art crime tracking system -- not one jerry-rigged by a former employee. A simple google search found dozens of options used by hundreds of departments. There is even federal help available to pick a system: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/

Posted by: Ira (the 'techie') | May 21, 2008 7:31 AM

Just to clarify some of the assertations made here, the system being referred to (ICON) is by no means the city's "internal crime database". New Haven Police's dispatch/records management system is a highly redundant, fully supported solution used by hundreds of public safety agencies with 24x7 support for both hardware and software. My former colleagues at the Office of Information Technology continue to work tirelessly to enhance, maintain and support PD technology services, and the inaccuracy of this article somewhat trivializes their contribution to insure system integrity.

Having said that, the system in question, ICON, is an internal bulletin board/foruming system used to relay timely information between units and shifts, in an attempt to better aid commucation and and collaboration, giving department members access to information used to perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

Sgt. Muller and I have been communicating frequently since the system crashed last Wednesday in an attempt to rectify the situation. In the meantime, it is my understanding all mission critical department services are fully operational.