The Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) is rolling out an agency-wide field trial of Axon Citizen, a public evidence submission tool from Axon, a global leader in connected law enforcement technologies.
Fort Worth, a Major Cities Chiefs Police Association member, joins a dozen other agencies who are also testing the technology.
Axon Citizen, is a public safety portal that allows community members to submit evidence directly to law enforcement agencies only for crimes under investigation.
There are two ways in which officers can solicit help from the community:
- One-on-one between an officer and the citizen, or
- A community-wide broadcast requesting information on a specific crime.
The one-on-one tool is available now for Axon customers signed up for early access.
It will be available to all U.S. customers on the Evidence.com Pro, Ultimate, or Unlimited licensing tiers at no incremental cost, with no additional storage fees, later this year.
(Must see video – See Axon Citizen in Action! For both One-on-One & Large-Event Broadcast tool. Courtesy of Axon and Vimeo)
The large-event community broadcast Citizen tool will include additional software capabilities to help triage the massive amounts of data that may be submitted and will be available for an additional enterprise license based on the size of the agency.
“Axon Citizen is a great example of the power of our cloud based technology model,” says Axon CEO and founder, Rick Smith.
“Our customers will receive the breakthrough ability to collect one-on-one information from members of the community via a seamless software update.”
“Similar to when we launched multi-cam sync… we endeavor to delight our customers with unexpected new features that extend the capability of their Axon experience.”
With the increasing prevalence of photos and video recordings being captured on mobile devices, Axon Citizen enables law enforcement agencies to securely receive and manage community submissions relating to a specific crime.
The citizen receives a URL via text message that they can click to upload their photos or video footage.
The evidence goes straight into Evidence.com so community members do not need to hand their phones over to police.
(Learn More. Axon wants you (yes, you!) to submit photos, videos to police Enlarge / An officer demonstrates Axon Citizen, a new Web portal to submit data. Courtesy of Moviestarplanet Vip and YouTube)
The direct upload to Evidence.com eliminates any need for officers to download, print and transfer data to a USB drive and physically place it inside an evidence locker at the agency.
Axon Citizen includes the following features and benefits:
- Accelerates the review process: Axon Citizen’s triage tool allows the reviewer to quickly decide which submissions to accept or decline.
- Streamlines searching: All submissions are automatically categorized and searchable within Evidence.com to simplify case building.
- Keeps community privacy in mind: For people who prefer to submit evidence without formal attribution, Axon Citizen allows the community member to submit without inputting any personal information.*
- Offers network reliability: Axon Citizen provides agencies the infrastructure and tools needed to support large volumes of submissions, so agencies can remain confident during large-scale events.
- Seamless integration with Evidence.com: Data submitted with Axon Citizen is maintained at the highest levels of security and compliance on Axon’s Evidence.com solution.
More than 1,700 officers at FWPD have the capability to utilize the Axon Citizen tool, which allows community members to submit evidence related to specific crimes directly to law enforcement from their smartphones.
“We are excited to trial Axon Citizen as we think it will help to significantly decrease the time spent sorting through publicly submitted data,” says FWPD’s Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald.
“Several patrol officers have used the Axon Citizen tool already and, so far, they really like the immediate accessibility provided to citizens to be able to turn in digital evidence.”
There are two ways in which Axon Citizen works: one-on-one between an officer and the citizen, or with a community-wide broadcast requesting citizens to upload evidence to a public portal.
The one-on-one tool is currently being trialed by FWPD and several other agencies including:
- Oxnard Police Department, CA; Belmont Police Department, CA
- Clear Lake Police Department, WI; Twin Falls Police Department, ID
- Methuen Police Department, MA; Cherry Hill Police Department, NJ
- Surprise Police Department, AZ; Spokane Police Department, WA
- Richland County Sheriff’s Department, SC; Pullman Police Department, WA
- Independence Police Department, OR; Nevada Department of Public Safety, NV
“We’re thrilled to see that these agencies recognize the value of working with community members to help solve ongoing investigations more quickly,” says Noah Spitzer-Williams, Principal Product Manager at Axon.
“Axon Citizen will help to maximize efficiency for officers by streamlining the process of gathering evidence.”
These agencies began field testing Axon Citizen as part of the Axon Insider program, which allows customers early access to new products.
The one-on-one tool is available now to Axon Insiders and will be available to all customers by the end of February 2018.
The public portal tool will be field-tested by Insiders starting in April 2018 and will be available to all customers later this year.
Axon is a network of devices, apps, and people that helps law enforcement become smarter and safer.
The company’s mission is to protect life, and their technologies give law enforcement the confidence, focus, and time they need to keep their communities safe.
Axon products impact every aspect of an officer’s day-to-day experience:
- In the field – Our Conducted Electrical Devices offer a less-lethal intermediate use of force response and our body-worn and in-car cameras collect video evidence to capture the truth of an incident; and our mobile applications enable simple evidence collection.
- At the station – Our secure, cloud-based digital evidence management solution allows officers and command staff to manage, review, share and process digital evidence using forensic, redaction, transcription, and other tools.
- In the courtroom – Our solutions for prosecutors make collaborating across jurisdictions and agencies easy so that cases can be resolved quickly.
Axon works hard for those who put themselves in harm’s way for all of us.
To date, there are more than 187,400 licensed users from around the world and more than 195,000 lives and countless dollars have been saved with the Axon Network of devices, apps and people.
