Paul Bass Photo
Officer William Hoffman’s going out on a spin today on a police motorcycle wired like no other before it, at least in Connecticut.
Hoffman (pictured above) is a motorcycle patrol cop in New Haven. Wednesday he got a brand new hog with all sorts of gizmos.
The department has bought five 2010 Harley-Davidson FLHP Road King Solo Law Enforcement bikes and developed a way for their riders to have access to the same kind of wireless data access that cops have in patrol cars.
Riders will be able to tap into databases to check license plates of people they stop, as well as outstanding warrants, through a mobile data terminal (“MDT” in tech speak). They’ll be able to communicate silently via computer screen, off the public police radio system, with dispatchers.
No other police department in Connecticut has such high-tech-equipped cycles, according to new Assistant Police Chief Tobin Hensgen, who’s assigned to be the department’s “innovation guru.”
Hoffman, an 11-year veteran of the force, joined the motorcycle unit a month ago. He has the honor of testing out the new hog, bike #180, for any bugs. Assuming all works well, the four other cycles will hit the road, too, in two to three weeks.
The department put the new bikes on display at a press conference Wednesday morning outside the police training academy on Sherman Parkway. The idea is to enable motorcycle cops, who deal directly with quality-of-life concerns like speeders and dirt-bikers, to have the tools that other patrol officers have.
“This is your tax dollars at work — providing police officers with the resources they need” to fight crime, said Chief Frank Limon. He said the five cycles cost $13,600 apiece; the city’s paying for them out of capital funds. The MDT accessories cost another $2,300 each; the city got a state grant to pay for those.
Lt. Bob Muller designed the hook-up. He jimmied with the plating and the wiring in the bins placed on the bikes’ backs to make sure the Panasonic Toughback mobile computers would stay secure and connected. He also reworked the antennae at the front of the bikes for the same purpose, and to insure officers’ safety as they ride.
Other relevant techie specifications: the new cycles have 1690 cc OHV Twin Cam engines. Translated, that apparently means they can go faster than the kind of dirt biker that Lt. Ray Hassett, and then more than a half-dozen back-up cops, were chasing in the Dwight-Kensington neighborhood around 6:30 Tuesday evening.
Muller designed the hook-up to draw less power.
Motorcycle cops will also ride with Bluetooth sets rather than radios on the new steeds.
Muller, who’s been a New Haven cop for 24 years, said he’s received an education in technology and engineering since becoming head of the department’s information services 10 years ago. He wasn’t an especially avid tinkerer before that, he said. “I was a happy patrol sergeant.”
The department also bought 12 new patrol cars at $26,000 apiece. One key feature is a Pro-gard plexiglass screen covering the area between the front and back seats, replacing metal-mesh screens that left room for uncooperative suspects to reach toward the front or spit at cops, said Officer Joe Avery.
“This is much safer,” Avery said.
Motorcycle patrol cops Elias Mendez and Robert Williams (pictured) will be among those riding the new Harleys.