Police connect to other departments
By Caitlyn Kelleher Journal Staff Reporter

Two police departments are going to be able to search the databases of other local departments with the help of a federal grant.

Ashburnham and Westminster will join Lunenburg, Fitchburg, Leominster and Gardner in a regional computer database, so officers can conduct searches about a suspect’s recent activity from their patrol cars.

“It’s going to be for increased officer safety,” said Westminster Police Chief Salvator Albert.

The $500,000 grant was applied for with the help of Congressman John Olver’s office.

Ashburnham will receive its money — $65,000 — for four laptops for the marked cruisers, a server system for the station, six computers for the station, other computer equipment and software.

“We’ll need to update it as we move along, but the core system will be in place,” said Ashburnham Police Chief Loring Barrett.

Barrett hopes to have the computers up in running by the end of January.

“Different departments had different needs from the grant,” Barrett said.

Westminster will receive approximately $40,000. Albert said about $36,000 will be used to buy two computer servers, two laptops of the cruisers, seven desktops, as well as three or four other laptops.

Albert said the computers will allow officers access to more information and give them an opportunity to spend more time on the road because they can write reports from their cruisers.

This is the second phase of the grant, which first help established the connection between Fitchburg, Leominster and Gardner.

“Fitchburg headed the grant,” Barrett said. “They made it a lot easier for us to jump on board.”

Before the computer system is installed in all the patrol cars, officers have access to CORI records but not to pending cases.

“This will give us a little more of an edge,” said Barrett. “It just gives the officers that little extra knowledge.”

Barrett said individual departments will control what information is accessible to their counterparts.

He said data sharing is important because electronic communication between criminals is prevalent.

“We need to stay a step of ahead of them,” he said.