BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Hamilton police investigating a homicide had to drive to Cincinnati last year just to punch a set of fingerprints into a computer database, while Silverton police recently considered pulling officers off the street to be dispatchers.
That won't be necessary anymore.
Vice President Al Gore on Thursday announced 605 police departments nationwide will receive $229 million in federal grants for equipment and civilian personnel to do administrative work now done by officers. The grants are issued under a Justice Department community policing program.
The local police departments awarded grants are:
Hamilton, $58,500 for a computer-generated fingerprint scanner that will cut the processing time by more than half, thereby freeing up officers for other duties. It also will connect the department to fingerprint databases used by police in Cincinnati and Dayton. Silverton, $14,794 to pay civilian dispatchers, whose jobs were to be slashed because the financially strapped city couldn't afford to pay them. The cut would have required some officers to double as dispatchers.
Bellevue, Ky., $13,218 for an Internet-connected computer system and laptop computers.
Crescent Springs, Ky., $21,777 for laptop computers.
The departments are required to pay a 25 percent match.
"Oh God, it's tremendously needed here," Silverton Police Chief Dennis Race said when informed of the grant. "Without the grant, we're losing a sworn officer."
Bellevue police aren't so financially decimated but have been using a slow and inefficient computer system, Chief Rick Sears said. The new system will have digital mug shot capabilities and will allow the department to tap directly into the Internet and set up its own Web site. "It's very needed," Chief Sears said. In Hamilton, fingerprinting now typically takes 40 to 45 minutes. The new system will take 17 minutes to produce a fingerprint image printout.
