Police steal cue from 'Knight Rider'

Electronic license plate readers help tag violators

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 3, 2007 at midnight

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AURORA - Aurora Police Lt. Troy Edwards lacks David Hasselhoff's long, curly hair.

His Ford Crown Victoria isn't as sleek as the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that Hasselhoff's 1980s TV character, Michael Knight, knew fondly as KITT.

But Edwards is pretty close to living the Knight Rider dream, thanks to a new gizmo that turns cruisers into artificial intelligence machines.

As Edwards handed one man a ticket during a traffic stop this week, the two cameras mounted to the roof of his patrol car scanned the license plates whizzing by.

When Edwards returned to his driver's seat, the laptop in his passenger seat sounded a siren and flashed a red bar next to a photo of a green Kia up ahead.

Edwards didn't need a sarcastic one-liner from his car to know what to do next.

The lawman dutifully fastened his seat belt and floored it, 60 mph, until he caught up with the driver, who had a warrant out for his arrest.

Two stops in 20 minutes. Nice work, KITT.

Edwards arrested the man, whose wife then arrived to drive the Kia away.

"Why was he pulled over?" she said. "Because his license plate showed that he had a warrant," Edwards replied.

"Wow, that's modern," she deadpanned, eyeing the cameras.

Aurora Police bought two of the plate readers in March, for about $25,000 each.

In the past six months, Denver Police and the Colorado State Patrol also have each equipped three cars with the devices.

"We're confident they are going to pay big dividends in the future," Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said.

Growing out of a partnership between gun manufacturer Remington and Italian information technology company Elsag, the Mobile Plate Hunter uses optical character-recognition technology developed for Italian postal workers to sort letters and parcels.

The readers tell officers whether a driver's license has been canceled or revoked, if the car or plates are stolen or if there are any warrants out for the driver's arrest.

Without the cameras, officers must radio in a suspicious looking vehicle's tag or enter it manually into a laptop computer.

The cameras, by contrast, read 1,500 to 2,000 plates per day automatically, without requiring any attention from officers in the patrol car.

The cameras are so effective that Edwards had to ignore sirens alerting him to three drivers with canceled or revoked licenses because he was already busy writing someone else a ticket for the same violation.

In one recent 48-hour period, Aurora's two scanner-equipped cruisers produced seven warrant arrests and 25 tickets for driving with revoked or canceled licenses, and spotted someone driving a stolen car.

Officers upload the most current information on traffic offenders to their laptops from the Colorado Crime Information Center.

Officials hope to incorporate the National Crime Information Center database, so that the scanners will be able to search for warrants from across the country.

They also want to include information in the database about which drivers are registered sex offenders and which ones are on parole.

"This thing's fun," Edwards said as he pulled into an Aurora Kmart parking lot this week.

As he drove down aisles of cars, the laptop flashed pictures of license plates on both sides of him. In three minutes, he had checked 100 cars. Three had owners whose licenses had been canceled or suspended.

"I always get a hit when I go to Kmart," he said.

If his KITT could talk, it might tell him he's a regular blue light special.

How it works

• Officers upload the most current information on traffic offenders to their laptops from the Colorado Crime Information Center.

• Two cameras magnet-mounted to the roof scan license plates in the lanes on either side of the police cars.

• The laptop screen flashes a picture of every license plate it reads, as it reads it. The software instantly indicates whether the plate is cleared or tagged.

• If the plate clears, a green bar lights up next to the picture. If the plate is connected to someone with a warrant or a canceled or revoked license or a stolen vehicle or plate, a red bar flashes next to the picture and the laptop emits a siren noise.

• The officer then pulls the driver over, gets their license and registration and calls the information into a communications center, where it is double-checked. The officer then writes a ticket or makes an arrest as necessary.

Knight Rider 101

David Hasselhoff was the Knight Rider in the hit NBC show, which aired from 1982 to 1986. But the real star was his modified Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. KITT, short for "Knight Industries Two Thousand," could talk, reason and even deliver sarcastic one-liners to Hasselhoff's character, Michael Knight, who drove around the country fighting crime.

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059

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