The Cops Just Threatened To Sticker ......

[MattyP]

lol NY cops now have cars that auto read a number plate and check to see if its stolen. without the occupants having to do anything. the car also shoots a gummy GPS chip onto cars in a chase so they can track them without causing a hazard to other drivers

true story

prove it?

Now I don't know what NY means, but police here do have cars that computers equipped with number plate checking devices. Could be for the use of people with warrants out for them, unpaid fines, licensed suspensions etc. I've seen it up close and personal in action, and its pretty niffty gear.

Was doing photos of the LAPD using this stuff a couple years ago, and saw this fully kitted orange VL drive by the car at normal speeds, not attracting any extra attention..however it attracted the attention of the computer and the cops up the road pulled out from a side street up the road and pulled the car over.

However I haven't seen these units out on the road of late... :S

[Daniel R32]

Im guessing NY is New York. . .

[dan_the_man]

woops... LA police not ny

LOS ANGELES - The LAPD's new "smart car" isn't quite KITT, or even one of James Bond's weapon- and gadget-laden rides. It is, however, making the snazzy bad guy-fighting technology of such fiction into fact.

It's equipped with a device just above the front bumper that will shoot darts embedded with a GPS tracker at fleeing vehicles, reducing the need for high-speed chases. When linked wirelessly to headquarters, another device allows cops to view live feeds of networked surveillance cameras from the driver's seat, once they're within a mile of a crime scene.

Two durable-looking gadgets stashed between the front seats, set back from the docked Dell laptop computer, let officers scan the faces and fingerprints of people they detain -- and check them instantly against databases through a wireless connection.

And, perhaps most intriguingly, cameras mounted on the roof read license plates as the car is in motion, out on patrol. Plate data is coded with the time viewed and geodata, then stored on servers and checked against databases of stolen or suspect cars.

That gives detectives the ability to go back and possibly track where a suspect's vehicle has been, a technique that's already been used in at least one rape investigation, said Sgt. Dan Gomez, who heads the department's smart car program.

"It really changes law enforcement," Gomez said. "Having this new technology, this wireless environment, is like having radios in the 40s. This will again reshape law enforcement. It'll change how we respond, how we police, how we make decisions." Latest Videos

Smaller police departments around the country have rolled out similar gadgetry depending on their needs -- and budget. But change comes slowly to the massive LAPD, with about 9,600 officers and an annual budget pushing $900 million.

After testing on the single car, the interconnected gadgets are gradually getting installed in other LAPD vehicles; 20 will get license plate recognition cameras by year's end and two full divisions will get in-car digital video cameras trained on the back seat and front of the car, according to Cmdr. Charlie Beck, head of the department's office of operations. Officers on patrol will be able to send live video from the cameras back to their stations.

Officers in the gang-heavy Rampart section have already made 50 arrests using the seven of the facial recognition devices and several mobile fingerprinting devices are being used in the San Fernando Valley, Gomez said. But the smart car, which has already been used on patrol, is the first in which such gadgetry is interconnected wirelessly.

Starting next month, officers in six patrol cars will be able to view live video feeds from surveillance cameras mounted at the Jordan Downs housing project in South L.A., a notorious Crips gang haven.

The GPS dart device is still in early phases of testing, and has been deployed nowhere else. Gomez said it's unclear whether it will ever be rolled out department-wide.

Similarly, the rest of the technology may never expand beyond a few dozen cars due to budget constraints. Motorola paid for most of the car's coolest gizmos -- and linked them together -- through a partnership with the city.

"It's a testbed both for the PD and for Motorola," company account manager Hugh O'Donnell said, "to try out new technologies and arrive at a combination of those technologies that's going to best serve the needs of the officers on patrol."

[turboedsloth]

being wireless someone will break into the frequency code and do something to mess with it