Situation
Mansfield, Texas, is a suburban community within the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Today, the city has grown to over 73,000 protected by 100+ sworn police officers. Chief Tracy Aaron is based in Mansfield and assumed the role of Mansfield Chief of Police in 2014 after serving as Chief Marshal for nearly six years. Chief Aaron was an instrumental player in the development and beta testing for the Genasys Evertel system.
Problem
Like other law enforcement agencies across the country, Mansfield Police Department (MPD) eagerly sought to increase their response time and deployment speed responding to events. Traditional communications systems were no longer viable.
To comply with state and federal information guidelines, the MPD relied on email as their primary method to disseminate information. Unfortunately, constantly mobile law enforcement professionals couldn’t check their email accounts around the clock, making it unrealistic for personnel to stay informed or send/receive immediate responses, even in critical situations. Alternatively, supervisors were managing multiple phone calls trying to ensure everyone received the same information at the same time.
In 2018, Chief Aaron and the MPD joined the original beta testing for the Genasys Evertel messaging solution, designed specifically to address these issues for law enforcement and first responders.
Solution
Evertel provides a way for police personnel to communicate through a familiar messaging platform similar to public apps, like WhatsApp or X, formerly Twitter, but within a secure, encrypted format that complies with all state and federal guidelines, including CJIS, FOIA, and HIPAA. With Evertel, team members receive the same information at the same time — a quick look at a smartphone gets personnel up-to-speed about what’s happening on scene and identifies the point person.
Discussing Evertel’s ease of use and trainability, Chief Aaron stated, “When you have new officers, they don’t have the information for all that’s happened, even when investigations started just two days ago, but with Evertel, every employee can get brought up to speed in real time.” Additionally, officers are now able to take crime scene photos and then route the photo to the case file on the Evertel app giving participants up-to-the-minute details that improve suspect apprehension.
To help facilitate connections with sister agencies, MPD set up a Evertel chatroom for the entire North Texas police organization. This helps reduce crime in their region even faster. On Evertel, agencies can quickly sync up their intelligence for any type of situation, whether that’s responding to a natural disaster, a missing person report, or even a live shooter event.
Evertel provides real-time information which has proven to be especially effective when fielding calls from the media. MPD set up a PIO room that lets media representatives join to talk about live incidents and to ensure the latest information is disseminated. Chief Aaron is also able to run monthly and weekly reports to review activity within the app. This helps confirm that employees are using Evertel as their primary means of communication.
Results
As one of the beta testers for the software, MPD provided feedback to ensure Evertel met and exceeded the needs of law enforcement and first responders. Not surprisingly, MPD has continued to utilize the Evertel platform and even shared it with some of its neighboring cities’ police departments.
“Literally any type of issue that we brought to their attention was addressed,” said Chief Aaron. He continued, “Having a dedicated customer service team with a good response time was yet another great reason to move forward with Evertel permanently. Plus, the onboarding process has also proven to be seamless for our team.”
Every police department understands the importance of protecting intelligence and maintaining organization, since it is discoverable in trials. Working within Evertel keeps conversations simple and effective within different chat rooms set up by topic or team. This level of organization in Evertel makes workflow streamlined, secure, and more efficient.
