Text and voice-to-text notes can be collected and shared easily among your team.
T
STING can hold a lot of information. he number of mobile appli-
cations being created for police offi cers and other fi rst responders is rapidly growing. Some are specifi cally for an offi cer’s personal use, and some are meant to be used to facilitate commu- nications and the sharing of informa- tion between multiple offi cers. STING, created by Orlando-based Intrepid Networks, is one such system. STING is comprised of Web applications and a mobile application. The app is suitable for SWAT, narcotics, vice, surveillance, mobile fi eld force, and advanced traf- fi c/patrol units. STING can also benefi t any integrated response team. Designed for situational awareness in
real time and to address communication issues during operations, the foundation of the suite is integrating offi cer posi- tions and information gathering into a single mobile application. STING pro- vides a live common operating picture (COP) for your entire team to view. You can view an offi cer list, road/satellite map, and radar for greater context and situational awareness, in addition to au- tomatically disseminating information. Each offi cer’s respective location can be adjusted or turned off at any time.
Photo, text and voice-to-text notes can be collected and shared easily among your team. All information is geo-tagged and time-stamped for accuracy. You can receive notifi cations as information is shared with you, and effortlessly view all captured data in chronological order. After deletion, data is not archived to prevent undesired retrieval. One of the main benefi ts is the increased communications effi ciency. “Ultimately, we want to shorten the communication loop to provide safer operations,” said Jason Winslow, business development manager at Intrepid Networks. Tactical teams and other police offi cers
have to rely on radios for communication on a regular basis. When they are called to a scene for an emergency situation, such as a “shots fi red” call, those communications become so much more important—and in- creased radio communication can lead to chaos, which can be dangerous. Increased confusion leads to reduced situational awareness during dynamic situations. “With police radios, you can only trans-
mit so much information at one time, and what STING does is offer a better way to communicate—a better way to create situ- ational awareness,” Winslow said. “For example, let’s say there are three or four tactical team members on a mission trying to exchange information. Team Member 1 tells Team Member 2 where he thinks he is, and Team Member 2 interprets where
Team Member 1 thinks he is, which may not be exactly where that team member is. With STING, any team member can see ex- actly where the other team members are. “Now imagine a situation where an offender is fl eeing, or there are shots fired, or where you have an ‘officer down’—that is going to increase radio traffi c and possibly create some confu- sion,” Winslow said. Being able to use STING to fi nd that injured offi cer is going to increase the speed of response and increase the safety of the operators. “It’s all about enhancing the fl ow of in- formation—the ability to save enough time on the radio simply by sharing locations alone makes a difference,” Winslow said. “But when you combine that with the abil- ity to rapidly collect and disseminate other information like notes or photographs, which can be shared automatically if se- lected on the settings, that adds to opera- tional effi ciency.”
Positive Feedback The majority of STING users are SWAT team members, and they have very posi- tive feedback on the technology, accord- ing to Winslow. “Most of the teams have reported a reduced use of radio communi- cation between 25 percent and 50 percent, freeing up radio time.” One recent fi eld trial included deploying
STING for security operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., where users reported STING was
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