Safe – Smart City

Smart City Elements Enabling Safe Cities Engagement Today

When one thinks of a smart and safe scenario, they most likely imagine a situation where a gunshot rings out in a section of a city, a vehicle speeds away and a person lies on the side of the road.  With audio sensors embedded in a nearby lamp pole it detects the sound of gunfire, identifies where it came from and the information is automatically routed to the communications center, where the information is alerts the dispatch center and as required police and emergency medical technicians’ race to the scene, the streetlights in the area are brightens to its full capacity, making it easier for first responders to see what’s going on. Then behind the scenes, the information collected by surveillance cameras are automatically running run through databases to identify fingerprints, and mugshot information. Real-time license plate and facial recognition technologies are applied, and a data analytics kick in to correlate the data and provide actionable intelligence. The result? The perpetrators can be more quickly captured by law enforcement.

The future?  In fact, some of the is today’s reality and with evolving technology we are finding many new ways to support our public safety system, save lives and, place less first responders at risk, and the public in harm’s way.  But as important as that is, we knew we needed to include the human element, provide tactical solutions, inform and assist personnel and the community with timely relevant information …

The Safe City Puzzle

Imaging someone to hundreds of people in most any environment, a part of a city, an airport, a seaport, a transit system, a stadium, and more, where people are available to receive necessary information and provide the eyes and ears for the community good.  In the past we have relied on individuals to report crime worldwide.  This has been anywhere from a sporadic occurrence all the way to investigators working a case.  Many crimes were unsolved, many could have been prevented.

In 1976, an Albuquerque New Mexico detective closed a cold case murder buy doing a reenactment and having the local news broadcast it.  This triggered minds and leads came forward where they had been none.  This evolved into a U.S. and global program called Crime Stoppers. The number of crimes solved is more than impressive.  Tip software became reasonable available and as the least informally used by law enforcement in communities globally.

In today’s world social media, which continues to command a growing presence in our lives, fits into Safe City initiatives as well. Online and social media applications, such as Twitter, provides an opportunity

for citizens to quickly post information and for government and public safety agencies, such as police and fire departments, to spread the word to the community about a situation, such as a crime scene, fire or accident.  However, we have found, especially in critical events those reports are not accurate, and even false, causing at times panic.

But let’s take that a step further what if through a single global app used by authorities could connect everyone in the community: work, shopping malls, schools, airports, seaports, transit and more.  What if we those citizens could receive information for this trusted source based on where they are located or where something of important to them could notify users of the app of timely and relevant information.  Now think on and look how this would work moving the information back to the authority.  Moving information today via smart technology is becoming more and more common down to each and every individual in the world.

Project Griffin

Globally the world authorities have spent billions to ensure against terrorism and lone actor serious crime incidents.  We learned we had not done enough and had to rethink our mindset after the realization of an incident on November 1, 2013, when a gunman walked into Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport and killed a security officer at a checkpoint, causing panic, a mass evacuation, and the shutdown of the airport for 30 hours.

Based on discussion with our chiefs, we set out to find current technology to address such events and found no satisfactory answer.  So, we have perused this effort, to address not only criminal activities, but communication and collaboration itself, as it has often the Achilles heel during an escalated incident.  Since the LAX incident we have seen so many global incidents that continue to mirror the challenges, from Brussels, Fort Lauderdale, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, and others.   Our goals were to look and find evidenced based practices, one that would encompass the challenges that we were addressing, and even hoping that it could beyond to include daily operational requirements.  In the end we were successful in finding a substantial port of the solution in Project Griffin.

Project Griffin was originally introduced by the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police in April 2004 to help London’s financial sector better protect itself against terrorist threats and multiple bomb events. At first security officers from the financial instructions were train and thousands of them became the eyes and ears to assist the police.  Over the years it was proven so successful it was incorporated into the national practice of the United Kingdom overseen by the UK’s police support unit, the National Counterterrorism Security Office. In April 2015, the INTERPORTPOLICE entered an MOU with the UK Executive Board working with UK Police, to bring Project Griffin(C) to the transportation security sector worldwide under the name Project Griffin International.  But in our mind, we were still left with a void of finding a better solution to the communication challenges that included multi-jurisdiction who could not communicate all using different tools, uncontrolled mass evacuation, and radios being limited not allowing sufficient and effective movement of information, and the challenge of too many people that caused jamming the 911/999/111 emergency systems, not least current cellular technology failing in certain situation while social media methods prevailed. 

Project Griffin International

Project Griffin provides an evidence based  community-based strategy offering a tactical roadmap, and operational structure to implement jurisdictional command collaboration, sharing, awareness, protection, and aftermath implementation that affects an authority internally and externally to ensure safety and security.

We are pleased after several years of working on the communications and collaboration issue we are announcing the Atlas One system.  We are sponsoring the Essential Plan, a community citizen and personnel engagement system that is effective authority wide, moving information effectively through a single global user app, based on information controlled by the local public authority, and moves with the user.  This program is being made available at no cost for an on-going basis.  Although the authority can upgrade capabilities and features, the Essential Plan is an effective tool that delivers the results we were looking for.

​In a joint effort the Morrone 9/11 Center, now a separate qualified nonprofit [501c3] organization and the INTERPORTPOLCE, jointly divide the responsibilities of the program. ​Our mission is to assist in making your environment a safer place.  The practice, solutions and experts can be of help.