Police Department Streamlines Reporting

“Since implementing Omnigo Records Management, the time spent on reporting and paperwork has been drastically reduced, enabling our officers to focus on policing, which has made our community safer. I’ve already recommended Omnigo to several other organizations and colleges in the area, so we can expand our network of communication and data sharing.” Troy Kennedy, Officer for Signal Mountain Police Department

Customer

Signal Mountain Police Department, Signal Mountain, TN

Challenge

Signal Mountain is a small community of 8,753 people covering an area of 7.7 square miles (19.9 km2). As the Signal Mountain Police Department actively patrols in town, officers also perform drug detection and enforcement, criminal investigations, call response, and community relations. In addition, the department supports a PD in the neighboring town and the unincorporated jurisdiction. With officers dispatched by the county’s centralized E911 system, staff was still using a paper-driven system implemented in the 1950s until 2017.

“The majority of our calls involve noise complaints, ordinance violations, and misdemeanor property crimes, but we didn’t have a way of tracking trends,” Officer Troy Kennedy pointed out. “It’s a tight-knit community here, so we’re more apt to give a warning before we start issuing citations to our neighbors. But sifting through the filing system to see who’d been warned or cited for which infraction—and when—was time consuming. Some reports and citations were filed under year, some were filed under name, and all on paper going back to the 50s. Although well-organized, the system wasn’t efficient.”

Prior to Kennedy, paper reports were typed from handwritten notes taken in the field and then placed into a bin for review by the shift supervisor. Once reviewed, the report was put in another bin to be entered into the criminal statistics computer system and registered in the state computer system by the records clerk. Reference cards by name and crime were created and the report was filed in a cabinet. Citations, on the other hand, were separated by type, whether it was referred to court, and whether it was associated with an arrest, before being filed in another cabinet.

Solution

The priority for decision makers in Signal Mountain PD was an all-in-one records management system (RMS) that offered asset, fleet, and personnel management capabilities as well as an easy-to-use and reference duty roster. Having the ability to access and integrate data on demand from TN NIBRS (TIBRS) into the system was also a prerequisite, as was mobile accessibility to platform tools in the field.

Stakeholders also needed a solution capable of providing critical data to help inform budgetary decisions and bolster appeals to the State for grant funding. Because officers frequently attend court to defend citations and work overtime securing events, detailed duty roster management was high on the list. Another desired feature was the ability to address state accreditation needs by providing staff with insight to identify opportunities for improving their knowledge base.

“We realized Omnigo’s RMS platform checked all of our boxes, including some features we didn’t anticipate. The system offers great value for the money and the support is excellent. It paid for itself within the first week,” said Kennedy.

Results

By deploying the fully integrated Omnigo solution, Signal Mountain Police Department has drastically reduced report writing and processing times. The customized platform has enabled on-demand access to historical data by name, address, and vehicle, in addition to tracking warnings and providing detailed reporting and data analysis to help identify trends that aid investigations and support budgetary decisions.

In addition to realizing a quick ROI, the department experienced nearly immediate results through use of the new system. Within days of onboarding the Omnigo platform, an officer in the field accessed the system to investigate a stolen vehicle and recognized a pattern associated with a ring of car burglars who were using other access roads to move stolen items into neighboring jurisdictions. Utilizing the tools included with the Omnigo platform, Signal Mountain PD partnered with a police department in another jurisdiction to establish what is now an ongoing investigation.