Gilroy – Computer glitches continue to frustrate police, who
complain that the department’s top dogs aren’t taking
responsibility for the dysfunctional systems installed in cops’
cruisers.
Gilroy – Computer glitches continue to frustrate police, who complain that the department’s top dogs aren’t taking responsibility for the dysfunctional systems installed in cops’ cruisers.
Blinking screens, software snafus and sapped batteries have aggravated officers, who use car computers to fetch vehicle registrations, arrest warrants and other data. The problems aren’t just annoying: they’re expensive. Repairs and replacements have drained more than $50,000 from city coffers, and the city has already paid nearly three-fourths of its $684,559 contract with SecureEye Systems, Inc., the Washington company that crafted the computers.
A long-awaited fix was delayed Friday, when SecureEye asked to put off final acceptance tests until Jan. 16. Originally set for September, the process has been delayed four months, as the city waited on SecureEye hardware shipments and weathered low fall staffing levels.
During final acceptance, a 60-day window, computers must be all-but-error-free. If problems pop up, the manufacturer has to fix the error, on the city’s deadline. When bugs are fixed, the final acceptance period starts over. SecureEye will be allowed two restarts before the city has the option of junking the systems and demanding a refund. Until testing is complete, the city is withholding $140,600 in payment, as well as $101,000 in maintenance money.
The flaws have fueled discontent in the department – and not just with SecureEye’s computers.
“My frustration isn’t with the company,” said Jim Callahan, vice-president of the Gilroy Police Officers Association. “My frustration is: Who chose this company?”
Gilroy police began testing SecureEye’s computers in November 2003, according to city purchasing orders. SecureEye’s systems boasted digital cameras, a far cry from the clunky VHS tapes officers used to capture crime on tape. That sparked administrators’ interest – especially after SecureEye offered to install a sample system for free.
“Digital audio/video systems with wireless off-load – that was pretty cutting-edge technology then,” said Capt. Scot Smithee, who presented the systems to Chief Gregg Giusiana and City Council alongside a crew of police representatives and IT consultants. “Before, if you needed to find a case, you had to search through cassette tapes, labeled by date range. [Digital video] was a huge time savings.”
Four months later, City Council signed off on SecureEye’s $684,559 contract. Council member Craig Gartman said he was sold on the system’s reliability: a sticking point from a past, failed attempt to outfit cops’ cars with computers. Though SecureEye’s flashy systems were relatively new, they’d been installed in a handful of departments, said Smithee, and none had reported problems.
“We wanted something proven in the field – nothing special or custom,” said Gartman. “What was presented to us, was they’d been installed in a number of other departments, and they’d worked.”
Now he asks, “What the hell is going on?”
City administrator Jay Baksa has asked Council to wait until the SecureEye contract is wrapped up before discussing the full costs of the boondoggle, Gartman said. But as final acceptance is pushed back, yet again, Gartman’s growing frustrated.
So are patrol officers, faced with finicky batteries and modems on the fritz. Some wonder whether their higher-ups were seduced by SecureEye’s cool cameras, and overlooked the basics.
It’s unclear when problems began to pop up. In a September interview, Capt. Jack Robinson, who has since retired, said the computers crashed before June 2005, when SecureEye outfitted 28 cruisers with the systems. By then, the city had paid half its costly contract. Smithee said he wasn’t sure when the trouble began, but said officers who first tested the technology gave positive feedback.
Next week, SecureEye workers will roll into town, fixing up each car before final acceptance tests begin, said David Chulick, the city’s IT director. The company’s president, Jim Masten, was unavailable for comment Friday. The 60-day window is a narrower slot than the 90 days originally planned: To snap up some new software, the city traded away 30 testing days, said Chulick. He says it’s a fair trade, with little ground lost.
“If the systems are going to work,” he said, “they’ll work for 60 days, or 90 days.”
The problems haven’t deviled every car. More than half of the computers have worked smoothly, and some components – the digital cameras, for example – haven’t caused problems. But the scattered issues have shattered officers’ patience, and left some skeptical of their top brass.
“Last year, I crashed a police car,” recalled Callahan, “and I was written up for it. Here, someone wasted $680,000. Where’s the accountability for this?”
