Expanding Tactical Capabilities and Community Engagement with Mobile Technology

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office has deployed smartphones to all sworn personnel resulting in improved operational effectiveness, increased situational awareness, and expanded tactical response capabilities. Helicopter, drone, robot, bomb squad, and SWAT operations all benefit from the ability to live stream videos of evolving situations. After a fatal school shooting incident in 2017, the agency developed a comprehensive partnership with schools throughout the county to allow access to thousands of cameras during incidents. Undersheriff Dave Ellis, who also serves as the Chief of Police for Spokane Valley, was the incident commander at the 2017 school shooting incident. He oversaw the expansion of response capability and will share best practices, lessons learned, and recommendations for going mobile.

Learning objectives:

• Understanding of the benefits of smartphones in tactical operations, to include real time video feeds from school cameras, coordinating with geolocation at an operator level, and real-time streaming from both helicopters and drones.
• Recognize the value of public/private partnerships with schools and businesses.
• Comprehend the benefit of synergistically blending a real time crime and fusion center with a robust smartphone deployment to provide developing information to frontline personnel.