CHP Squad Cars Slowly Entering the Computer Age

After pulling a speeder off the freeway, a CHP officer is forced to wait 15 minutes to learn whether the car is stolen or the driver is considered to be armed and dangerous.

It is a scene repeated often because most California Highway Patrol officers must rely on radios--rather than computers--to receive valuable and potentially lifesaving information. As a result, law enforcement officers are left waiting at a critical time: traffic stops are the most dangerous for the CHP, which makes about 2.5 million a year.

Two weeks ago, a seemingly routine stop turned deadly. A speeding Granada Hills man failed to pull over when ordered, shot a CHP officer and then shot himself before being killed by pursuing police. Officer Rafael “Ralph” Casillas is in critical condition at County-USC Medical Center, where he is suffering from extensive internal injuries.

The assailant, ex-convict Terry James Parker, had a violent history, including a strikingly similar confrontation with police two years ago in which Parker was shot and wounded.

Although CHP officials acknowledge that even a computer in his patrol car wouldn’t have saved Casillas, they say the shooting of the 31-year-old officer highlights the need for technology.

“Should we have them? Absolutely,” said CHP Deputy Chief Edward Gomez, who commands the Los Angeles area. “If we could have had them yesterday, I would have liked that.”

The CHP has lost more law enforcement officers than any other agency in the state--178 since 1929.

“Who arrested Charles Manson?” said Aaron Read, the lobbyist for the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen. “We did. Where do bad guys go after a murder or robbery? They hit the road.”

But while police departments in small and large cities throughout the nation are installing computers in squad cars--as the Los Angeles Police Department did in 1983 and the Sheriff’s Department did five years later--state troopers appear to be lagging.

“It’s really a funding issue--that’s what it comes down to across the country,” said Mike Canning of the National Troopers Coalition in Maryland. “In Maryland, we have folks driving cars with 150,000 and 160,000 miles on them. That’s the priority.”

Former Los Angeles Police Chief and state Sen. Ed Davis, who pioneered the city computer system, said CHP officers “should all have them now” because not knowing quickly whether a car is wanted or stolen “puts every officer into unnecessarily dangerous positions.”

But CHP Commissioner Dwight “Spike” Helmick, head of the 6,000-officer force, said the agency is just where he wants it to be when it comes to computerization.

“I do not think I’m putting my officers in a perilous situation at all. We are trying to build a system with different technology much more cutting edge,” Helmick said. “It’s not as simplistic as it appears.”

About a dozen state police departments, including those in Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin, have computers in their cars. More common are small pilot programs in which computers are being tested in some police cars, such as in Illinois, where state police have equipped 10% of the 1,450-vehicle fleet with computers.

In California, money has been allocated by the Legislature for the last several years to slowly phase in the computers. But CHP officials and others say they struggle to maintain the funding in tight budget years, noting that last year’s allocation was cut then ultimately restored. The agency also seeks federal grants: The largest--$3 million--was used to equip the entire San Francisco Bay Area fleet with computers last year. Total cost for the system is $60 million, Helmick said.

*

Currently, the CHP has a pilot program using laptop computers mounted with industrial-strength Velcro in squad cars in Sacramento, San Diego, parts of Los Angeles County and Riverside.

CHP officers working in those areas say the computers are more efficient--reports can be written faster--and arrests for stolen vehicles have increased in all areas.

“I love it,” said CHP Officer Jennifer Pendergast, a spokeswoman for the South Los Angeles-area station in Torrance, which received the computers three years ago. “You’re taking out the middleman and you don’t have to wait.”

Still, only about a quarter of the 130 CHP stations statewide have the so-called mobile digital computers with the rest set to receive them well beyond 2000.

“Slowly, as we get funds from the state and grants, we’re going to expand the program,” said CHP Sgt. Bruce Moncher, who oversees the patrol car computer training. “We’re looking at the busiest offices with the most [radio] traffic. It does get awfully frustrating when you’re waiting and waiting and waiting” to reach a dispatcher.

Currently, most CHP officers do not routinely check license plate numbers before stopping motorists unless they have a concern about the car or driver. More often, the officers radio the dispatchers after they receive the driver’s license information.

But the officers who have mobile computers are more likely to punch in license plate numbers before making the traffic stop--a routine practice for the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments.

“If you can get information back within seconds that you’ve got an armed and dangerous suspect, you’re going to react differently,” said LAPD Sgt. Jon D’Amico, who oversees the patrol car computers.

But by all accounts, CHP Officer Casillas and his partner, James Portilla, wouldn’t have learned much about Parker. A recent license plate check by the CHP on the pickup Parker was driving found that it was registered in Arizona to his father, James Parker.

Santa Ana CHP Officer Don Burt, who was shot seven times and killed after a seemingly routine traffic stop July 13, also did not have a computer in his patrol car. It remains unclear how much Burt would have learned about the driver of the car from a computer check--he did learn through the dispatch system that the driver’s license was suspended.

Nonetheless, CHP officers say they need whatever is available to help them do their jobs.

With the advanced system, Helmick says, the CHP is developing, officers can tap into myriad state and national law enforcement databanks. The officers identify stolen vehicles and stolen firearms as well. They know if a suspect is wanted anywhere in the country, and if the vehicle is linked to a crime. Missing persons information also is available.

Officers also can type reports directly into the machine and communicate with other officers, bypassing the radio dispatcher.