Darien TimesLive Scan helps officers identify the 'bad guys'Feb 9, 2006If you get arrested in Darien and plan on giving police a false name, do not even think about it, especially if you have a record.
The Darien Police Department uses Live Scan, an inkless fingerprinting process that allows law enforcement to do a background check on an individual within a very short time. The system, which can hold up to 4,000 arrests on its server, replaces the old technique of recording a person’s fingerprints on a card using ink.
Police in Darien installed Live Scan, which cost about $48,000 to be paid off in installments over six years, in November.
“We researched this for a couple of years,” said Lt. Ron Bussell of the detective bureau. “We liked the idea before, but we didn’t like that the systems were mishmashed and becoming obsolete almost overnight. Once the state got involved and made sure everyone was using the same system, we went for it.”
So far, the department does not regret its decision. Before, when someone was arrested, an officer would have to take three sets of fingerprints — one each for the FBI and state police to be compared to their respective databases of known offenders and one remained at local police headquarters.
After the hard copy fingerprint cards were mailed, it would take roughly 11 weeks to get an identification from the state and six to eight weeks to hear back from the FBI.
“In the past, and this would happen quite often, we would arrest somebody and they would give us a fictitious name,” Bussell said. “By the time we got the real name, that person had already been released and disappeared to parts unknown.”
That happened in 1999 when Darien police arrested a burglar who gave them a false name and background information he stole from his cell mate during a previous stint behind bars. Two days after making bond and being released from Bridgeport Correctional Facility, the department received his FBI rap sheet and learned the man was wanted in Florida, where he was supposed to be serving 20 years, Las Vegas and Colorado for burglary. Although the man was arrested a year later in Greenwich, Bussell said in that time he had committed between 100 and 150 more burglaries, six in Darien that he admitted to.
“He would’ve never been out of jail if we got the right name,” Bussell said. “The only reason he gave it up the last time was because Greenwich police had Live Scan already. He also wanted to confess to his crimes so he didn’t have to go back to Florida. He knew he would die in jail there.”
Now local police can avoid such situations. With Live Scan, digitized fingerprints as well as the arrestee’s profile, arrest information, charges, name aliases and court date are entered into the system and sent electronically to the appropriate agencies. Within a half hour, the Darien police will have a complete pedigree of the offender.
“If you’ve been fingerprinted before or arrested before, we will know who you are,” Bussell said. “We haven’t cracked any big cases, but there are a few instances where people are playing with names. A lot of people who know about the system aren’t giving false names; they know it’s not worth it.”
Some still try. He said a man arrested over the holidays for domestic violence told officers he had never been arrested. Using Live Scan allowed police to not only learn he had been arrested in the 1980s, but he had been arrested as recently as last March for drunk driving.
“That came out after the court hearing. We almost missed it,” Bussell said. “In almost a year, the information had not gone through the manual system. Connecticut doesn’t have enough people to file everything.”
Live Scan has its faults. It does not always reveal if an arrestee has any outstanding warrants, may not have complete up-to-date information if other departments are not using the system and may not include juveniles. Bussell said 90 percent of the juveniles arrested in Darien are not entered into Live Scan.
However, Bussell said it will tell officers if the fingers are of poor quality or done out of sequence — both of which “used to happen on occasion.” If the prints were smudged through handling or mailing and rendered illegible, they usually would not be put into a database, he said.
“This machine will not let you take a bad print,” Bussell said. “That’s nice from the detective bureau’s point of view since we’re responsible for making sure prints are done right.”
Equally nice, he said, is the fact that Live Scan compares latent fingerprints, something many local departments are getting away from, particularly because it takes a lot of time to do manually. Also, fewer officers are now able to do it.
Bussell believes he and Capt. Fred Komm are the only two currently in the Darien department who can compare prints and be confident enough to put them on a warrant.
The focus now is to get all officers acquainted with Live Scan. While they received up to two hours of instructions, Bussell said any training comes from on-the-job use.
“There’s still people learning. It’s not an overnight thing,” he said. “But there’s not a lot you can screw up because the machine won’t let you.”
Having seen the benefits it has provided for officers, Bussell is looking forward to when Live Scan will be hooked up to the court system so files can be sent to the courts electronically, reducing the workload for the records department.
“It’s quick, it saves a lot of time for us and keeps a lot of bad guys from getting away,” Bussell said. “Those are the most important things.”
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