STATE, LOCAL POLICE SEEING IN THE DARK

WASHINGTON - It's time for tribal rangers to saddle up for patrol on the
sprawling Tohono O'odham Reservation in southern Arizona. But first, an
equipment check:

Saddlebags. Shotguns. Backpacks. Canteens. Infrared imaging surveillance
system.

It's all accounted for. And no one thinks twice about toting an infrared
device that can detect the body heat of a drug suspect hiding behind a
cactus.

It's just the sort of Star Trek-meets-Gunsmoke duality that is being
repeated in many states because of an Arizona-based federal program that is
delivering sophisticated, futuristic crime-fighting equipment to even the
smallest police forces.

Suddenly, the Sierra Vista Police Department finds itself with a thermal
imaging night vision scope, similar to those used in Desert Storm. And it
has a device that can detect a bullet lodged in a wall. Gilbert police got a
thermal imager last year, too, as did several other Arizona departments.

State and local police around the country are gaining access to everything
from a vehicle tracking system to a digital wiretap device to a locator
database that can pinpoint toilets in a drug suspect's house.

Toilets, you ask? It's so police can know in advance where the suspects will
run to try to flush away any evidence.

The technology is being made available to the departments free under a
federally funded program administered at Fort Huachuca's Electronic Proving
Ground. The proving ground manages the 3-year-old program on behalf of the
federal drug czar's Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center, or CTAC.

Because some of the equipment is derived from the military, federal
authorities are bound to encounter some citizens concerned that the gadgets
will turn local authorities into "Big Brother." Some of the equipment is
quite powerful - the thermal imager can detect a person out to 2,400 feet.

"The more information a cop has before he closes in on a suspect or on a
suspect location, like a private home or a business or a vehicle, the less
likely that cop is going to have to resort to force to gain entry or to make
an arrest or, in a worst case, to defend himself," CTAC Director Albert
Brandenstein said in a statement for The Republic.

"Rather than outshoot them, cops prefer to outsmart criminals every chance
they get," Brandenstein said.

Local departments can receive the equipment if they demonstrate a need, meet
certain requirements and are properly trained. The idea behind the program
is that the best technology should not be held only by the large federal
agencies but should be in the hands of local cops, too.

Nearly 1,000 police and sheriff's departments around the country had
participated in the $13million-per-year program as of Feb.1.

"With the high-tech equipment you're less apt to make mistakes," said Rafael
Anton, an electronic engineer for the program at Fort Huachuca.

Anton and other operatives can barely contain their excitement about the new
technology.

Describing the hand-held thermal imager, which is about the size of a
camcorder, Anton said, "If the (suspect) had the gun in his hand and was
holding it and was running and he ditches the gun, you would be able to find
that gun because the heat transferred from his hand onto the weapon. Say he
drops it, it'll be like it's glowing in the dark."

Night vision is critical on the remote stretches of the Tohono O'odham
Reservation, which shares 100 miles of border with Mexico. Using equipment
from the technology transfer program, the blue-shirted tribal rangers scout
for everything from cattle rustlers to people stashing drugs in bushes.

"People think of desert as Saudi Arabia, but the desert here has a lot of
brush and cactus, and it's easy to lose a target," said Lawrence Seligman,
the Indian nation's chief of police.

A suspect hiding behind a cactus or tree may appear on the thermal imager
scope "like a halo around the tree. The heat signature will bleed out (from
behind)," he said.

Because the program is overseen by federal drug fighters, there is an
emphasis on equipment used to ferret out drugs.

There is a software package for cops to detect suspicious financial
transactions associated with money laundering.

Another popular item is a digital wiretap system that allows police to
quickly scan hundreds of hours of recorded conversation to find a particular
name, keyword or subject.

"This system dramatically reduces paperwork and tedium long associated with
wiretaps," Brandenstein said.

Sierra Vista police Officer Jon Kosmider said there are countless other uses
for the equipment besides battling drug crime.

He said police might use the thermal imager "if we were looking for somebody
that maybe was a suspect, and they had fled into a field or there is no
light … or there is a lost child at night.

"I'm sure the more we use this, the more their value is going to become
apparent to us."