LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 220 Ft. James Wolfinbarger

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

In this episode of the LPRC CrimeScience Podcast, Cory Lowe speaks with James Wolfinbarger of Motorola Solutions about his remarkable journey from leading the Colorado State Patrol to driving innovation in public safety technology. James shares lessons from pivotal moments like the Columbine tragedy and 9/11, and how those events shaped his focus on technology adoption. They dive into the evolution of situational awareness platforms like CommandCentral Aware, the growing role of AI in law enforcement and retail, and how these tools can transform both safety and business operations. James also reflects on leadership principles rooted in collaboration, ethics, and responsible innovation. Tune in for this riveting conversation!

Hi everyone and welcome to crime science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome to the crime science podcast. My name is Corey Lowe and the director of research here at the LPRC and I am joined today by Jim Wolfenbarger for Motorola Solutions. So, Jim, if you don't mind, can you just start by telling everyone a little bit about your background? And, you know, you spent many, many years in law enforcement. And now you're with Motorola. So can you tell us a little bit about your background? You bet, Corey. And first, thanks for having me today. I greatly honored to be a part

of your podcast and love the partnership we have with LPRC. So first of all, my name is Jim Wolfenbarger and I'm a Colorado native. I've been with Motorola for the past, oh, coming up on 12 years. This September will be 12 years. I can't even believe how fast that goes. Prior to coming to Motorola, I had a career in law enforcement. I worked an entire career with the Colorado State Patrol. I was a trooper. And, you know, I went into the academy and was promoted through every rank of the Colorado State Patrol and was honored to have been selected by the governor and appointed as the colonel to lead the Colorado State Patrol for the last four years of my career. Prior to the Colorado State Patrol, I had attended the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado,

and majored in communications disorders, actually with speech language pathology with a emphasis and audiology. And I really enjoyed my time up and grilly. Ed, I mentioned earlier. I was a native to Colorado. Grew up along the front range. Went to Green Mountain High School, just west of Denver next to Golden, where a lot of people probably have heard of Golden, the home of Coors. And really had a, just a great time growing up. I love Colorado. Still reside here today and live in Castle Rock, just south of Denver. Awesome. Well, it is definitely good talking to you. you know, you made that transition from law enforcement over the tech sector and you're doing quite a bit, you know, in that transition from law enforcement leadership to technology, and I find

it's fascinating that you started out in audiology and speech pathology, but, and maybe we can talk more about that in a little while, but, you know, the transition from law enforcement to tech, you know, what are some of the lessons that you took from law enforcement that you you've now brought over to the technology space. Yeah, you bet. I think just like any of us, right, we take from us experiences in previous roles, both in our personal lives and our professional lives, that really helped to lend this mosaic of experience around each of us.

And, you know, growing up on the front range of Colorado, I went to Jefferson County public schools. And Green Mountain High School was built in the same exact same floor plans as Columbine High School and Homona High School. And interestingly enough, in April of 1999, as a corporal in the Colorado State Patrol, was working in North Denver and had heard on mutual aid channels calls for assistance coming across early in the morning and ended up responding to Columbine High School on the day of the school horrific school shooting at Columbine. And I spent over 24 hours at the high school. And, you know, I think all of us, you know, where we're at, we have these significant emotional events that really color and influence our lives. And, you know, I was a parent at

the time of a young, well, April six-month-old boy. And the horrific images there, you know, from a law enforcement standpoint and spending the time really did influence me greatly along the lines of school safety and, you know, the entire area around response. And, you know, the technology in 1999 was significantly different than it was today. And I'll tell you that, you know, a relatively short period of time later, about two and a half years later, we had September 11th of 2001. I was, by that time, a captain in the Colorado State Patrol. And, you know, just like all of us, we had very distinct memories of 9-11.

And, you know, the fallout of 9-11 into the 9-11 Commission reports, there were some key findings that the commission found. And one of them was that a failure in the system in government, particularly had to do with government's inability to effectively connect disparate data elements together to fuse what are individually, you know, these case reports in different areas around the country, this activity like, you know, been learning how to fly planes with expressed intent of not caring about landing, not being connected to other events around Muhammad Atta on traffic stops and information collected, that information wasn't connected.

And there were failures of intelligence at a state, federal, and local level. And out of that formation came the Department of Homeland Security. And from that came this system to be able to begin to build a national network of fusion centers, of which today I believe there are 78 that sit, you know, in the country. And I contributed to the formation of the Colorado Information and Analysis Center, the kayak in Colorado. It worked with some incredible men and women at a state, local, and federal level to really help build out this capability in Colorado. and really became to deeply appreciate the value of communication, of information collection,

the analysis of information, and the translation of that intelligence from that raw data to be able to work to create this capability at a regional level, at a state level, to collect information, to disseminate, to share the value of partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland of Homeland. Homeland Security, our partners in Colorado from the Denver Police Department to the Colorado Springs Police Department or sheriffs and really working with the Bureau of Investigation, both at a state level and a federal level, really getting an appreciation for the value of that intelligence. Later in my career, I had an opportunity to travel with the ADF to Israel

and was a guest of the Israeli defense forces and the Israeli National Police and really became deeply engaged with how in Israel the information sharing and critical infrastructure protection worked hand and glove between the commercial and government, between enterprise and government, the importance of rapid information dissemination, and came back and from that, continued to invest myself, even to being the chief of the Colorado State Patrol, understanding and appreciating the importance of technology to protect the men and women on the front lines of our agency

and the men and women behind the radios, you know, to get them the best technology to be able to go out, do their jobs, and do so in a way that allowed them to go safely home at the end of the day. And I think that's kind of some of my experiences coming from government into Motorola that have really helped influence my perspective around technology.

today. That's pretty incredible. Yeah, I think Columbine and Nine and Live on both, you know, hugely influential on my life, but much more so on yours. I was much younger than you, so I had a different impact on my life in my trajectory, but it definitely makes sense, you know, why you do what you do at Motorola today, which you're over the real-time intelligence solutions, right? So can you tell us a little bit more about what some of those are like command central aware and things like that sure you bet i think what i'll probably talk about just briefly if you don't mind i'll think a step back and really talk about technology's journey from that point i retired in 2013 and when i came into motorola it was

you know primarily an on-premise company right largely dealing with communications it's cad and records largely on premise and we've taken this journey all of us over this past 10 years particularly. Go ahead. If you don't mind, I just want to, you said CAD. For those out there who are on the retail side, they may not know what you're talking about. So what are CAD systems? I appreciate that. You're 100% right. And I'll watch out for these acronyms because we get into government and I find they're even worse in in private enterprise. CAD computerated dispatch and records management systems, CAD and RMS. 9-1-1, you know, was really formed in the 60s on copper lines into centers. And we've seen this significant transformation of technology in recent

years where we've moved from on-premise to cloud and where today we sit at this precipice of the next era of the industrial revolution is this technology revolution around AI. And so seeing this incredible acceleration and kind of watching how even things, Corey, like the pandemic, how that accelerated all of our comfort with cloud-based technologies, and it's certainly something that I saw where there was significant reticence in government to enter into cloud compute and cloud capability for security purposes, for cyber security purposes,

a lot of concern about going into that that I think for all the terrible things that the pandemic brought to us, the tragedies, the loss of life, you know, lost everything that I think from that an area that really did bring benefit to us is this acceleration and embracing of the cloud that I think has really accelerated capabilities that both on the private enterprise and in government, I think there's so much more possibility today because of that. So that makes a lot of things more possible today. So I think back to Columbine, you use both Columbine and 9-11 as examples.

And we want to talk about the progress of technology over time. Thinking back to Columbine, you know, one of the things that they did not have going into that situation was a whole lot of situational awareness, right? the technologies that we had today did not exist back then, cloud video enables some of that. It makes it easier to see what's happening within a space like a school. The same thing is true with technologies in terms of communicating. I mean, I think there's still a lot of challenges in both law enforcement and retail with communication between organizations, but that was a key challenge back then.

How do you think some of the solutions that exist today have addressed some of those issues And what do you think still has to, is left to be addressed? I think, I think those are great examples. So when you think about changes as a result of Columbine, you know, obviously one of the most significant changes from a law enforcement standpoint, our tactical team changes about active shooter addressing the threat immediately. You don't wait for SWAT. You enter a building small, rapid response teams.

And from that also came a program that was form. in Colorado by somebody named Susan Payne. She's a remarkable woman that helped to put together a program called Safe to Tell. And Safe to Tell was a program that emphasized the reporting of school bullying and other information about the potential of kids bringing weapons to school and being able to report that. And, you know, back then we didn't have advanced technologies to be able to do that. And in fact, at some point, Safe to Tell as it grew, came into the Colorado Department of public safety, and really the repository of that was at our communication center. And we received these tips and leads on a fax machine. And I mean, so you think back about that and the importance

of criticality of getting that information, validating it, and making notifications to local authorities so that they could, you know, prepare for those threats that were coming in potentially. And this was something that wasn't done a whole lot of. In the 70s, you started a bit with, you know, McGruff the crime dog and crime stoppers, but this notion around school bullying, reporting, and confidentially reporting, you know, concerning behaviors about people making threats to the school or bringing weapons to the school. And born from that today has really emerged into this capability around suspicious activity reporting. And that certainly came to fruition as well after 9-11. And where, you know, and spawned from that became programs like

see something, say something. And these reporting, suspicious reporting activities or SARS that were these reports that came into the FBI and came into fusion centers like the kayak in Colorado. And from that, really is that work of the active fusing of that intelligence and information to be able to respond to it. And through the course of these decades, what we've seen is an automation of that in ways that provide for early warning that allow people in a, myriad of different technology formats to report suspicious activity, to be able to report

concerning behavior around school bullying or even suicide prevention capability, the ability for people to reach out multimodal, whether it's on computer, if it's on a phone, just many different ways that I think are excellent to be able to really help spread that out and ensure that people have access to those tools where they need them. I think that we sit at this precipice as I talked about earlier with AI, where now AI and some of these large language models can work in the background to help be able to connect some of the dots and provide some of that early insight and to be able to either, whether it's helping people get the help they need, to be able to help provide those tips and leads necessary for local law enforcement to

effectively interdict, or if it's something, maybe it's social services that needs to do that interdiction. I think there's also this growing understanding that public safety, you know, to borrow a line from Sir Robert Peel as the founding father of modern day law enforcement, is the only difference between the public and the police or that the, you know, public safety is something that is all of our responsibilities, just that the police are paid full time to give their attention to something that is all of our responsibility. So I think technology today does provide more capability to connect us and to provide better means by which to be able to convey concerning behavior, to be able to report suspicious activity, to hopefully allow us

to interdict some of these events before they occur. I think it also allows us to be much more strategic and a lot less reactive. I think that's something else that it has enabled. Would you agree with that? Do you think it's allowed both law enforcement and retail and any other industry to be more proactive, the technology? I think 100%. And in fact, what I would say is that one of the things they said where when I talked about the 9-11 commission report, talking about government's inability to connect the disparate dots of data together. And what I would say is, And I believe that commission report came out a couple of years later, say 2003 in that range. But that I would say 20 years later, 22 years, 23 years later, we are in significantly more volumes of data when you compare it to what was existing 23 years ago.

And it does compel technology to help sort through the data. And this is the power of AI, again, is the ability to present actionable information. to humans to make informed decisions where today because of the multitude of video injects audio sensor connected devices across the internet you need tools to sort through the chaos to provide actionable information of relevant activity and I think to your point it does allow us to be more focused and more strategic and more focused in the areas of to focus our attention in directions that are more likely to yield positive results and create better outcomes. Yes, I'm right there with you on that.

There's a great scholar out there named Jerry Rackleff, who has this intelligence-led policing concept. I'm a huge fan, and I've been trying to bring more of that thought leadership into laws prevention, because ultimately what you're talking about is business intelligence, but for crime. So it's criminal intelligence, right? on the LP side, it's all business intelligence. And so it does allow retailers to be much more proactive. And it also allows retailers to, as they collect more of this intelligence and build this intelligence, I hate saying collect, because it's much more active and not so passive.

But it allows them to intervene in cyclical problems, where you have repeat offenders, you know, individuals and places that are recurrently problematic. So a lot of huge opportunities there. How do you think some of these technologies apply to the private sector? So you've been talking about a lot of different technologies. How do you think those apply to retail? Well, getting back to Sir Robert Peel and this notion around public safety is everybody's responsibility. I think today technology serves in the

the 21st century, when we look at Reckcliffe's early assertions around the value of community-oriented policing practices, this idea of creating cooperative problem identification statements and resolving public safety issues together collaboratively that are data-based and evidence-based practices. today, I think the 21st century version of that community-oriented policing practices, I think enable community engagement and public and private data sharing in a way today that transforms response and transforms the way in which, from a retail standpoint, for instance, you're able to provide evidence-based practices the way LPRC does today around the efficacy of technology, but it's generally not a singular technology that provides significant value. It's

the totality of the technology. And I think notably, it's not, it's not technology for technology sake, but using technology as a force multiplier to be able to protect customers, to protect communities, to protect employees, and to protect first responders. And again, my original point kind of circling back to the beginning is that if technology serves no purpose, it should serve the purpose of ensuring for safer outcomes, that when people go to a store, they should and ought to have an expectation that they're safe and secure in their person and in their place and that there are mechanisms around them that are doing work to help keep them safe, and that there are this technical foundation that enable private entities to more effectively and

efficiently share data and intelligence with law enforcement in the event that, and regrettably it does, you know, events do occur, whether it's an active shooter, or if it's an assault that takes place, or it could be a medical emergency that occurs, that the response can be accelerated in a way that today is unprecedented in decades past. You know, one of the things, Corey, you've probably heard in 2021, the FCC created a study that surmised that in the United States alone, that up to 10,000 lives could be saved annually with the shaving of one minute off the time from a 911 call till the first boots on the ground were there to be able to yield that aid. And I look at that today as a metric by which when we look at the successes that

we bring to market, whether it's in 911 through Vesta or if it's connected to our radio infrastructure, but having the ability to provide early and rapid identification of location, having access to floor plans, access to video, to be able to inform the response in such a way that not only accelerates it, but creates a more informed and appropriate selection of first responders to get there. I would say that today we are significantly further along. in spite of the complexity of the environment as a result of some of the great technologies and partnerships that are out there today. Thank you for that. I want to go back to the response and accelerating response. And you went into some of this, but in terms of the amount of time

it takes to get from point A to point B, a lot of these technologies aren't going to affect the physics of travel, right? But it is going to change decision making. So let's go into that response piece? You know, what are those factors that drive law enforcement response prioritization and all of that? And how do some of these technologies enable one to prioritize differently or, you know, once they're on the scene to navigate that situation more effectively to get to that potential victim quicker? I think it's a great question. And I think a good example of it would be when we, from a risk management standpoint in law enforcement or public safety period, whether it's EMS or fire, one of the highest risk activities that there is

is running code to an event, right? Code 3, light sirens, you know, moving through intersections against light safely, but getting there in an expeditious manner. Today, I think that technology enables more visibility on what's occurring at the scene that can inform better, more appropriate response prioritization. So an example would be this, that there is a call. of a fight between customers in a retail establishment out in front that spilled out into the front of this retailer and some the this fight is active unknown about weapons but that there are other people becoming involved and you know I'll pay in years past that would be a code three run from local law enforcement all the way through to the end now

today what they're able to do with the sharing of video is inside of that piece app or public safety answering point, you 911 center, that 911 calls that are coming in, we're able now with camera sharing to be able to put eyes on that scene and the real-time centers, whether it's a real-time intelligence center or real-time information center, that work as a supplement to a 911 center, they can be looking at this and helping to attenuate or accelerate the nature of the urgency of the response. For instance, let's say that the subjects have been separated and everything is looks like it's it's code for right it's everything looks like it's okay you probably don't need to continue that code run and that's great information

to be able to communicate to responding officers to be able to create a safer environment for them and for maybe pedestrians or people in that parking lot if on the other hand somebody pulls out a gun or pulls out a knife all right that's even more urgent and so being able to see that really helps to attenuate or accelerate the nature of that response. And I think at taking advantage of information like that, another good example might be an individual that call that comes in from a school cafeteria of a student choking during lunch and that their airway is obstructed and that they've lost consciousness, well, that camera accessed by law enforcement during that 911 event might show someone did a

heimlich and was able to clear the airway and that person was conscious. standing up and that they were talking to them. Now, again, that's important information to be able to give to responders. They're still going to get there in a hurry, but maybe they don't need to be running full code three because that liability is so high and the risk to not only those EMS agents that are in that paramedic ban, but to everybody in intersections and there. So there's some examples about how leveraging multimedia and streaming media really provide benefit to both public safety and to the community.

Yeah, I have to be honest. I feel like a dummy after answering my question because you immediately started talking about traveling. And, of course, if you have greater visibility into the area surrounding all these places, you can see what paths of travel might be easier to make, to respond to. So very, very good examples there. In addition to everything you talk about at the place. and having greater intelligence about what's happening on the ground.

With that said, retailers are currently looking into a lot of these different technologies. And I think some of them have the ability or the possibility to transform the way that retailers do things. And not just on the safety side, right? Yes, being able to fuse all of these sensors together and then also being able to share intelligence, with other organizations is pretty incredible, but there's also probably business opportunities in terms of the way that businesses operate and bringing together business intelligence. So do you see any of those applications with some of the, taking some of these technologies that really developed in law enforcement and bringing them into the business, how they might

transform the business beyond safety? 100%. In fact, Motorola is very active. A lot of people, even people listening to this, may think Motorola, you know, cell phones and, you know, that a lot of people may be the Star Tech and it's Motorola, just by way of background, if you give me a second, in 2011, Motorola sold off all of its cell phone business to Google. And since 2011, really beginning significantly in 2015, Motorola solutions have used the proceeds of that sale to really focus on what makes Motorola great. And really, the ethos of our company is around two-way radio communication. So it's the apex radios, turbo radios in the commercial sector. And Motorola have

spent and continued to build this ecosystem platform to include fix video security and access control, critical communications, both in the commercial enterprise space, as well as government, and command center software. So it's software that is able to do incident management, a number of things. So to your question, Corey, when Motorola thinks about not just the life safety aspect of the retail space, for instance, you know, our emphasis is around communications, whether it's LTE or Wi-Fi-enabled communications or its communications using our turbo infrastructure and radios, critical in terms of voice communication is so essential when it comes to both productivity and efficiency, but also

emergency response. Motorola's acquired companies like Pelco and a vigilon, Ava, Envision, envision that really powers video infrastructure at Chipotle's, for instance, and Taco Bells. So video infrastructure combined with voice, combined with access control, being very important, Whether it's ID tabs for near field communication, we brought in a company called OpenPath that uses a cellular telephone as the access device paired with a face to be able to get in. So having proper access control really protects back rooms and ensures not only security for the employees that are there, but also accountability with regard to who was in the space if there are. discontinuities with inventory, for instance. We've also made significant investments in incident management capabilities, like a company called Noggin that we've brought into the Motorola ecosystem

that does incident management that allows companies to be able to build incident management plans for a variety of different operational considerations, whether it's a fight in the store, if it's a fire, if it's a mass break-in, that there are incidents to be able to follow. Other technologies like Theatro is another brand that we brought into the Motorola family that really deals a lot around both communications, but also AI-enabled workflows connected to sensors, for instance, that might prompt an employee to go check a freezer if the freezer temperature has dropped, or if that, for instance, they say a freezer or a cooler, chiller has

some sort of an alert that it can automate some of those response and ensure that this is that from a business continuity and protection of inventory and protecting customers, right, to make sure that food maintains that certain level. So there's so much great technology today that really can be brought to bear to protect not only the bottom line for companies, but most essentially to protect the top line, which is that of life and human safety. Yeah. And of course, as you mentioned, life, human safety, and then also, you know, everything that applies,

an asset protection. Recently, we did this a blitz operation in Gainesville, Florida, and Elatchel County Sheriff's Office in Gainesville PD both use a mobile law solution. It's a command central aware. And so it really clicked for me how that could make a difference in something like a blitz operation, where you now have visibility into a lot of sensors that you otherwise would be switching between tabs. So, well, for those that don't know, can you explain what model law command central aware is. You bet. So Command Central Aware is a situational awareness platform that combines all aspects of operations through a single pane of glass. Number one. So it's the consolidation of key aspects of business operations, whether it's in government or an industry.

So think a synthesis of fixed video security and access control, bringing in fixed, video, bringing in mobile video. So today we are seeing, and you've seen it in the commercial space as well, body cameras beginning to come into commercial enterprises. Motorola is bringing the V-200 into the market. There's a lot of competition out there, and we welcome that. We think that that's good. Bringing in, again, body camera video, fixed video security, bringing in access control, bringing in things like alerts from license plate recognition or LPR that are are proven to be very effective around the area of managing ingress and egress for known vehicles, say, for habitual offenders around shoplifting, or maybe it's somebody that is known to have a

restraining order against an employee, to have that early warning. When we think about critical infrastructure, we think about these concentric rings of security and being able to trip wire alerts as far away from the most essential aspect, which is that business and those people inside of that business. So bringing together video, software, and communications into a common framework through a single pane of glass. Now, while the consolidation of all that's important, I think it's very important to note that, you know, having the ability to have workflow prescribed within that, it's not just about dumping all of this data into something, but leveraging AI and very informed workflows to be able to help direct human attention towards areas

that may require some, whether it's, it could be something, again, I talked about a cooler before. It might be a double entrance behind a single card scan through a door. It might be entrance into a restricted area through a video analytic around a camera of a sensitive area that people shouldn't be at, maybe it's a particular time of the day, but it's taking that data and then building it into a workflow that makes those notifications. Now, another asset we've brought into the Motorola family is Rave. So Rave does mass notification as well as panic button. And so having that all be an instrumental aspect of building workflows in a unified situational awareness platform like aware. That's where we think there's such great value, both in the government side and in

the industry side. Yes, I got to see some of that in action during the Blitz. And it really made me realize it's not just having the situational awareness from, you know, how do I respond, but having a situational awareness from where my different assets are. So where are the people on the ground? So if I wanted to know where someone with a specific radio was, I can, could see where all the law enforcement officers were in relation to where there might be a takedown about to happen, for example. So that was a pretty interesting thing in addition to everything else that it brings greater awareness to. So pretty tremendous opportunities there, in addition to having greater visibility going into an act of assailant situation or any other

crime that law enforcement might be responding to. With all of that said, you know, we've talked about a lot of these technologies and technological developments. What do you think is the next step? Where do you think technology is going from here? If I had to give you the crystal ball and ask you that question. Well, I think that most people would agree that artificial intelligence and AI generally is likely to be the most significant factor in the directionality and the capability of technology into the next year to five years. You know, I would suggest, though, Corey, in your PhD and you'll, you probably were

talking about chat GPT and generative AI two or three years ago. What I would tell you is that if you asked me two or three years ago about chat GPT or generative AI, I'm probably more like most people where they didn't know about it. I had no idea. In fact, when I first heard it and people say, oh man, you got to use this chat GPT or you got to use grok or open AI is great. Gemini. I mean, there's so many of them that are out there. And I was very reticent. And I dismissed it a bit, honestly. And here I'm a 55-year-old man. I'm of that generation where it was a little slower to take it. But I got to tell you, I am so amazed at the capability of AI and what it can offer. I think it also requires a very sober approach to data rights, data privacy, ensuring objective and bias-free data.

datasets. And, you know, that I think so with great opportunity comes great responsibility. But I do see the future of technology evolution very much being girded by and accelerated by artificial intelligence. I could not agree more with that assessment. I also believe that it's going to play a very important part of the future across the board. When people talk about generative AI, oftentimes they're thinking about that text-based, you know, experience that you might have with a chat GPT or a grok or something like that. The same thing is true with all other forms of media, video, everything else. And anything that you can do from, you know, generative perspective, you can also do,

you can use those same technologies in a reverse manner to begin to describe what's happening on camera in a way that humans can actually use in a much quicker manner, right? I talk to a lot of leaders, a lot of the leaders of ORC teams with retailers across the country, and one of the biggest challenges, you know, hands down, is video review. It's such a great inefficiency. Now we can have those descriptions happening that will clue the investigators in to focus on one specific piece of video instead of having to do the entire review. So it's that idea of video to text and being able to have some of those indicators in there

to bring your attention. You know, how do you think that's going to play into the use, the more efficient use of video? So I think it's one of the most consequential aspects. And I'll tell you that when people say, what are some of the most significant changes of how AI have affected today's operation? A lot of people will throw out AI, it makes good marketing, it's AI enabled this and that. The point is doing exactly what you talked about. It is taking nonlinear data, particularly video, voice, and sensor data.

And today we're able to characterize that nonlinear data, organize it, correlate it, and search against it in near real time. And I'll tell you, in years past, It was not that long ago. This is two years ago, three years ago. You'd be like, hey, I've got a criminal event that occurred, or I had a shoplifting that it occurred. Go get me the tapes. Let's review the tapes.

And in police parlance, it would be also not only go pull the tapes, they'd run down to the area where it occurred, they would download or maybe take a VHS or CD in the old days, and today maybe a thumb drive, and they'd go get it and we'd watch it. And or the old days in dispatch, it was this idea of you'd go pull and listen to the tape back, one for one. Well, today, voice a good example where you talked before about video, we can characterize a person from a car, a car from a van, a van from a semi, a white semi versus a red sports car. We can index them and characterize and describe them and search for them in near real time. That's huge. Things like 911 voice.

Think about this now, where speech is coming in to a 911 center. Today, we're on this precipice of this change from a copper line to IP. We call that next generation core service transformation. But on top of that, that ability to transcribe and change voice to text and then index it and search it and then do incredible things like translate speech in real time from foreign language translation, keyword identification. gun, shooter, death, fire, bomb. These are things that can now be acted on in real time and make notifications concurrently and develop workflows. You know, same thing like say a highway camera that's trained on the northbound lanes of an interstate that is watching vehicles travel northbound 99.9% of the time. But 0.1% of the time,

typically between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., some knucklehead is driving southbound. in the northbound lanes. And I'll tell you, I've experienced it sadly where I was called to those and that you get your call by someone who drove up on it. And oh my gosh, I drove up on a horrific crash. Now we can use video analytics that can detect anomalous activity and make notifications to do things like change highway variable message boards to say oncoming traffic use extreme caution, vehicle approaching wrong direction, pull off to, you know, do these things to be

able to save lives using AI that is able to index and to be able to act upon anomalies or things that we previously weren't able to use and do so in a way that brings great value. And I think it's some of the most exciting changes in technology. Those are tremendously exciting opportunities. We've talked tech for a while, but you didn't get to your position in law enforcement by just knowing technology, I'm sure you also have been a tremendous leader of people, right? I just want to bring this interview to a close and just ask you, when leading people, what are some of the key principles that have, that you've carried and that you've found success with

through your time and law enforcement, and now also have found success with and leading people on the tech side? Great question. I like that a lot. Two key examples that I would say in terms of principles that I think translate exceptionally well. Number one, being the importance of a collaborative network and understanding the importance of working with diverse teams and external stakeholders, right, to be able to gather information, collect requirements, communicate expectations, and work together, whether it's in law enforcement or if it's in technology-based company like Motorola solutions working with LPRC and organized retail crime groups to be able to help understand effectively what problems we're

facing, what challenges exist and how technology could be able to solve them. So I think maintaining diligence around ensuring that you've established the proper stakeholders and that you maintain diverse teams of individuals to ensure that you understand wholly what you're working to achieve. Number one. Number two, I think this idea about ethical considerations and responsibility, certainly from a law enforcement standpoint, it involves complex ethical and legal considerations, now, which I think is very relevant today's technology discussions, especially when we talk about privacy

and ensuring bias-free data sets and protecting data. that I think there is this obvious correlation that exists there that I think we need to continue to double down on. And from Motorola solution standpoint, you know, we have a, you know, an internal working committee that looks to ensure that we're developing responsibly and that we are doing so in a way that comports with our ethical foundations of technology adoption and development. And that, you know, we spend time thinking about that, communicating with our customers. and ensuring this 360 degree evaluation around just because you can doesn't always mean you should in terms of technology evolution. And I think that that partnership and this grounding to ethical, foundational components become very responsible and important. I think those are both very, very wise principles that everyone should carry with them. Well, Jim, thank you very much for taking some time to speak with us today

and for joining the crime science podcast. And thank you to everyone listening today. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast, presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lprosearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast, is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice.

Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.