Book out, laptop search in for police
Port Richey officers save time in finding charges with a touch of their computer.
By CAMILLE C. SPENCER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 10, 2007
PORT RICHEY - For police officers, protocol can be tedious.
Someone breaks the law. An officer needs to know the specific charge to make an arrest. So he flips through a 3-inch-thick handbook to find the correct statute. He finds the crime and arrests the bad guy.
But a retired police officer from Jupiter figured there had to be a way to make the process faster and easier.
So John Landry and his business partner created a software program called Ten-8 - the "in service" radio call for police officers - that allows officers to use their patrol car laptops to find the appropriate statute.
The first users of the new software? The Port Richey Police Department. Department representatives met Landry in May at a vending booth during a police conference in Jacksonville.
"We're always looking for new things, and we stopped by and spoke to them," said Lt. David Brown. "It really caught our attention. You used to have to flip through page after page of statutes looking for the violation. ... Now you can read a laptop, which walks you through at a quicker pace."
Landry's program has alphabetical headings for crimes and traffic citations that help officers find the appropriate statutes. They can click "A" for animal-related crimes or "H" for home invasion.
Then, the statute pops up. Sometimes, as in a robbery, the program asks questions. Did the suspect use a weapon? Click yes and the statute numbers appear for additional charges.
Landry developed the program two years ago while he was studying for an advanced degree in criminal justice.
"We were doing critical-thinking work, and in the middle of the night while I was doing my homework, a thought came to me," Landry said. "We were trying to identify problems we were familiar with, and I remember as a patrol supervisor, the No. 1 question was, 'I don't know which statute this is.' "
Soon after, Landry and his business partner, an undercover narcotics agent, found a computer programmer who combined Landry's idea with Florida's statutes to create the software.
Although Landry is allowing Port Richey's officers to use the software for free, he plans to start charging for the program next year. The cost will run a law enforcement agency about $15 the average price of a state statute handbook per sworn officer.
Until then, Landry plans to start volunteering as a reserve officer at Port Richey's Police Department, in part because it helps him keep his law enforcement certification up to date.
"Not only are they getting the software," Landry said, "but they're getting me."
For now, Landry spends his time traveling the state to promote his product. He's gotten calls from agencies ranging from the Leon County Sheriff's Office to Tampa International Airport's Police Department, which want Landry to install the software.
Landry said he hopes Ten-8 helps decrease the number of paperwork mistakes and reduces the time officers spend flipping through lengthy statute handbooks.
"If an officer can find the information they need, they can spend more time patrolling and doing what they need to do," he said. "It's a time-saver."
Camille C. Spencer can be reached at cspencer@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6229.
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To learn more
For more information on John Landry's Ten-8 software, go to www.ten-8software.com or call him at (561) 352-1922.