Smart Firefighting Podcast

Episode 188: Law Enforcement & Localization: Bridging the Technical Gaps with Officer John Newcomer

Published

Guests: John Newcomer

Topics: Health & Safety, TAK & Mapping

Episode notes

How should law enforcement integrate new technologies?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

Thanks for joining our 16 part FRST Challenge Mini Series recorded at the competition! Tracking and situational awareness has long been a problem for first responders. That's why the FRST Challenge competition is designed to pinpoint 3D tracking technologies that provide one-meter accuracy for first responders in indoor environments, crucial for enhancing their safety during rescue operations.

The 6 finalist teams competed in localization and ruggedization tests at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center from October 23-27, 2023. Winning teams gain access to funding, business support, and live field testing opportunities to evolve their solutions for real-world application.

In this episode:

How technology must further adapt to support law enforcement needs

The importance of including law enforcement in the conversation on indoor localization tech

Strategies for entrepreneurs to integrate new technology into public safety

So click play now to hear what Officer John Newcomer of the Ellettsville Police Department has to share, and stay tuned for the rest of our mini series!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

  1. 0:00 Intro
  2. 1:14 Meet Officer John Newcomer
  3. 1:22 Running law enforcement scenarios
  4. 2:48 What the teams missed about other responders
  5. 3:55 Why indoor tracking matters to police
  6. 4:24 Everyday use in small departments
  7. 5:17 Command at large incidents
  8. 6:08 Form factors for law enforcement
  9. 9:57 Law enforcement culture
  10. 12:37 Emerging tech that excites him
  11. 15:17 Avoiding data overload
  12. 16:18 Simple, clear and concise
  13. 17:44 Final thoughts
  14. 18:55 Wrap up
  15. 19:43 Outro

Questions answered in this episode

What is the FRST Challenge phase five testing?

Kevin Sofen explains it is testing indoor localization tracking of first responders within one meter accuracy without any pre-deployed infrastructure. Phase five increased the challenges from phase four by including multiple responders, longer durations, and longer distances.

Hear it at 0:00

How is phase five different from phase four for law enforcement scenarios?

John Newcomer says phase four was single person tracking, while phase five is multi-person tracking with four people. The scenario has officers clearing a building searching for an active shooter, then escorting two EMTs in a rescue task force to locate and extract victims, which is more realistic and more difficult.

Hear it at 1:29

What gap has John Newcomer seen in how teams developed their technology?

He says teams focused on structural firefighting and missed the needs of other first responders like law enforcement, EMS, and search and rescue. Some equipment does not work well for law enforcement environments, and some devices are less accurate outdoors than indoors, which matters for fugitive searches or missing person cases.

Hear it at 1:29

What design features does John Newcomer say first responders need in tracking devices?

Something small, rugged, that does not interfere with other equipment or movement. He says foot or ankle mounted devices can snag or slide during crawling. Battery life must last eight to sixteen hours, and helmet mounted options do not work for law enforcement because officers rarely wear helmets.

Hear it at 6:59

Why does John Newcomer think now is the right time for this technology in law enforcement?

The current generation of officers grew up with technology like smartphones, gaming consoles, and drones, unlike officers ten years ago who resisted it. Officers today are comfortable with mobile data terminals, body cameras, and simulated training, so they will adopt new technology more easily.

Hear it at 10:39

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 188 transcript

Law Enforcement & Localization: Bridging the Technical Gaps with Officer John Newcomer

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, John Newcomer

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new Smart Firefighting mini-series created during the phase five of the FRST Challenge, hosted at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. The FRST Challenge focus is to produce marketable prototypes that demonstrate indoor localization tracking of first responders within one meter accuracy without any pre-deployed infrastructure. Many of you heard stories from phase four, and here in phase five, the challenges were increased by including multiple responders, longer durations, and longer distances. In these conversations, you will hear from many of the entrepreneurs, first responders, and team members involved that address these challenges and opportunities of X, Y, and Z axis tracking from multiple perspectives around scalability, usability, affordability, and more. This challenge is administered by the Indiana University Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab and funded by the NIST Public Safety Communication Research PSCR Division. Also, consider putting the NIST 5x5 Conference on your calendar, located in Chicago, June 25th to 27th, 2024. Enjoy this deep dive into first responder tracking technology, and please reach out with your thoughts. We are sitting here outside of the hospital in Muscatatuck, Indiana, alongside Officer John Newcomer from Ellettsville Police Department. How are you doing, John?

[1:21] John Newcomer: I am fantastic.

[1:22] Kevin Sofen: What has the past couple days been like? And, you know, from your perspective, from a law enforcement perspective, you know, what has been going on here?

[1:29] John Newcomer: So, the last two days, we have been running scenarios in the hospital. Phase four was all single person tracking. Phase five, they decided to up the game a little bit, and it's been multi-person tracking so we've our scenario here at the hospital with myself and another officer have been going through clearing the building as if we're you know searching for an active shooter trying to trying to locate the shooter and then we come back out the building and unify with two EMTs that were here yesterday then we escort them in as if we're in a rescue task force and go in and locate the victims and extricate them from the building so it's more realistic than what we did last time in phase four, really it makes the scenario much more difficult. Also makes the tracking much more difficult because now the teams have to track four people instead of just one. And it's been interesting to see the progression in the team since the last phase because now we're down to six from what we were before. So the equipment has, some of it's gotten smaller on some of the teams have gone a different route with their equipment, but I think everybody's having so far good success. It's one of the things we've noted and I was fortunate enough to be on the technical review committee for all the teams prior to the phase five challenge. They've all really focused on the firefighting aspect, the structural firefighting, which is great, but they've missed that piece of the other first responders, search and rescue, law enforcement, EMS, And the teams have learned a lot with this phase because they have found out some of their equipment isn't gonna work for our environment. We have different needs than the fire department does. The fire department's worried about how the heat resistance of the devices, things of that nature, we're more interested in how accurate the equipment is using it outdoors as well as indoors, because there may be situations where we're searching for a missing person or looking for a fugitive, and we're gonna be outdoors. So some of the teams have found out that their devices are less accurate out in the open air than they are inside the building. So that's been kind of a unique twist on things.

[3:55] Kevin Sofen: And from a police and law enforcement perspective, I mean, all this tech is relevant to public safety, but to go deep into all things, police and law enforcement, indoor tracking, Why is it something that is important to you as a police officer and as a commander? And from where you see this tech now, what kind of capability will this allow police officers and the commanders on the scene to be able to do that they didn't have before?

[4:24] John Newcomer: Yeah, I think this challenge is obviously focused on large incidents, but we can use this technology on a daily basis. There's a lot of situations, small departments like mine, where there is one or two officers on duty, we may have to search a building and I may be the first one there, my partner shows up, it would be fantastic if he could pull it up on our mobile data terminal and see where I am in the building and know where to meet with me or maybe start searching from a different location. So on a daily use, it's great. Or if we're looking for somebody flees from us and I'm out in the middle of the woods somewhere by myself, other officers arriving on the scene know exactly where I am, if they can pull this technology up on their terminal. So the daily use, I can see us really taking it in and working with it. Obviously from an instant command perspective, if we get into a large incident, structural collapse or active shooter situation, where we have multiple officers, firefighters, EMS coming in, instant command has, they have to make sense of all that chaos and if they can pull it up on their command screens and see where fire trucks are coming in and police cars and units that are already in the building. It's just, it's gonna expedite the rescue process, the saving of the lives. It's going to minimize injury to the first responders because we're not gonna have any force on force injuries or if somebody does get injured and they're out of radio communication, if instant command can see that on their board, know exactly where to send in a team to remove that injured firefighter or police officer or EMT.

[6:08] Kevin Sofen: All really helpful context and I enjoyed just watching throughout the day the different competitors all have sort of, there's six of them, all kind of six different design philosophies and there's a lot to go into not only the software and kind of how it all kind of works from a data perspective, but probably one of the biggest things is the sort of user interface and the hardware integration to the first responder. And something that we talk a lot about is how to actually develop technology that will actually be used by public safety. And I don't know if we talk enough about working with law enforcement, but kind of from your experience here and just sort of in general to message to entrepreneurs developing, what did you like and dislike about some of the form factors yesterday? And what should entrepreneurs and people be thinking about when it comes to designing technology for law enforcement?

[6:59] John Newcomer: I think this applies to law enforcement, fire, EMS. We need something that's small, very rugged, and something that's not going to get in the way of our other equipment or movement. Some of the designs we've looked at are foot-mounted or ankle-mounted. They provide great tracking, but it makes it difficult if we're having to struggle. Something keeps sliding up and down my leg and I have to be readjusting that all the time, or if I have something strapped on my foot and it's gonna get caught if I'm crawling through the weeds or the bushes or a firefighter is crawling through an open window, they don't want anything that's gonna snag. Some of the devices have very short battery life, four to six hours. If we're working, if I'm on shift and I'm expected to have this device on me the entire time, well, that's an eight and a half hour shift, the battery's not gonna make it through the shift. If we're on a large scale incident, 12, 14, 16 hours, we need a battery that's going to have that longevity. So these are the things that they need to keep in mind when they're developing this tech is we are using it, if it's gonna be employed to where we're comfortable using it, we're gonna have to use it every day. It can't be one of those things we use once a year on a major incident. We have to use it on a regular basis, whether you're in fire or law enforcement or search and rescue or whatever. So it has to be something that we are comfortable with and is comfortable to use. Some of the designs were helmet mounted. Well, a lot of times we're not wearing helmets in law enforcement. There's very few situations where we're going to do that. So a helmet mounted device is not the answer for us. And for the firefighters, they don't need the extra weight on their helmet. The helmets we were wearing yesterday were super heavy and very uncomfortable. If you're working a structure fire, you can't, your mind has to focus on your task, not the pain you're in from the device, so. But the teams have been very receptive when we give them the feedback that, you know, this is just not the answer. You know, their technology, you know, the tracking part is excellent, but the device they're using may not be the best. So, but like I said, we've had a chance to talk with all of them and they've all admitted, you know, we've not really worked a lot with law enforcement, it's been focused on the firefighting aspect of it. So I think they're taking in our information. We had one of the teams over at Partner's Card this morning kind of looking at our mobile data terminal and how possibly they could integrate their software into what we already use. They've never seen it before. So it's great. A lot of them are getting exposure to some of our equipment and technology that we use on a regular basis. So it's been very helpful. I think that's gonna help them move forward and start asking those questions when they get back to the redesign or moving forward.

[9:57] Kevin Sofen: What else from a kind of a... We talk a lot about fire service culture. I don't necessarily, and I always kind of would continue to be a forever learner and want to support all public safety, but the law enforcement culture. I mean, some nuances or some generalities or some stuff. I'd love to kind of hear your perspective on, as we want to encourage more entrepreneurs to be designing and thinking about law enforcement, what are some cultural nuances or some just dynamics that they should keep in mind? Of course, you mentioned kind of the foreign factor of stuff and small and I think there are some commonalities with the fire service there, but what are some stuff unique to law enforcement in life as a police officer that you could share with us?

[10:39] John Newcomer: Yeah, I think that's a good question. I was a former firefighter and I understand that culture. I think this technology is coming out at the right time for the law enforcement sector because 10 years ago, I don't think you would have a very successful chance that's selling this type of technology because you had an older generation, kind of my age, not used to using technology, not used to working with smartphones and computers and things of that nature, but the officers today, they're young, they've grown up with technology, Xboxes and PlayStations, they understand all that. They're drone pilots, they understand using the remote. So I think now is the perfect time to introduce this technology because the culture we have and the generation we have in law enforcement right now, they are technology people. So I think this is perfect timing. Like I said, 10 years ago, this wouldn't fly because you have a bunch of old crusty police officers that like, yeah, we've done it this way for 20 years and we don't need technology to help us do our job. It's changing now. We use so much technology in our job now with our mobile data terminals and our body cameras and our taser devices. And a lot of our training is simulated. So it's much easier for officers today to kind of take that in and use it. And I think if they can get this dialed in to the right size device, something that's affordable because departments just don't have the money that they used to and the grants aren't there. So it's gonna have to be something that the small or large department can adopt quickly and easily in a low cost fashion. I think if they can get it, get this all dialed in, it's gonna be something that you'll see on a regular basis.

[12:37] Kevin Sofen: Definitely have hope and belief that it will continue to go in that direction. And just kind of continue to go into the police dynamic and just your thoughts of like certain, like not even indoor localization track, we've talked about that, but are there any other sort of emerging technology or trends that you see and how they could be applied to your work within law enforcement that excites you, or do you see there's some sort of tech that could be further leveraged within law enforcement that isn't being used now that you think about in any capacity?

[13:11] John Newcomer: This competition has done a lot to open my eyes to the technology. So like I said, I'm an older guy. I didn't grow up with an Xbox. You know, the technology sometimes scares me, but I'll try it because I want to learn. And I've learned a lot the past six months being involved in this challenge. I know today there are two or three companies out here with the augmented reality with, you know, the headsets. And I got to demo one of those a little bit earlier this morning. That was really cool because they, you know, I'm walking through the building with a phone and they can see exactly where I'm going outside. They get the exact picture of what I'm seeing. I think that, you know, the augmented reality tied to the tracking with, and then tie in the drones, you know, just, I think there's so much that can be used by all emergency services with what's being developed, you know, out here and tested out here. I'm really excited about it. you know, the strapping on the big headset with the big goggles, you know, that's kind of what I thought about with the virtual reality or the augmented reality. And I mean, they're getting it down to basically sunglass size lenses that you can put on. That has huge, I mean, one of the vendors was showing me that, you know, they can go through and if I'm walking through the building and I see a suspicious package, I can hit a button, it marks it, shows it outside. And so they know there's a possible IED in that location. we're going through and I'm seeing you know victims as I'm moving through a building they see and see those outside know exactly where they are I mean that's that's that's huge we can't replace that because I can I can be clearing the rest of the building and they can start planning on how they're going to remove those victims or what they need to do about that IED or whatever the situation is so I'm excited about it I think there's there's just so much that's starting to emerge and proud and to be a part of this whole challenge because it's just it's it's really been a great experience and an eye-opener for me on what's out there and what's what's coming for us to use.

[15:17] Kevin Sofen: Kudos and well said John I mean I think it's this is a very much it takes a village and maybe some of the work that we're developing and efforts we're working on right now might not be benefited in the next we might not see the fruits of labor in one year five years but you know hopefully we will but it's all part of the large picture so thank you for that and I one other kind of question before we wrap up is, you were just talking about being able to go through the scene and be able to mark and then this information coming back. But one thing that we're always just kind of concerned about is data overload and like, you know, our brains are only so big and this kind of this is, this are, you know, cognitive overload is a real concern. What are your thoughts and what would you say to, you know, entrepreneurs trying to develop technologies in terms of like getting the right data at the right time and sort of from your perspective of like, you know, when you're in a scene like, you know, you're focusing on the task at hand, you can't, like you said, be grabbing at your leg to, you know, fix the node or especially like the data, you know, it needs to be simple, clear, concise. What are your thoughts around that?

[16:18] John Newcomer: No, I think that's, I mean, you just said it needs to be simple, clear, and concise, whether I'm the one taking it in as I move through the building or whether it's being displayed outside to the incident commander. You know, as the incident grows and more people move into the incident command post, we can start dividing up those tasks and have different people monitoring different things. But at the beginning, you've got one or two people that are gonna be quickly overloaded by all the information that's coming to them on the radio, phone, any tech that's being sent out from inside the scene. I think the key is people are just gonna have to train with it. They're gonna have to get comfortable with it. They're gonna have to run scenarios, complex scenarios, so they get used to dealing with all that stimulus. We do full-scale exercise on a regular basis where we throw victims and bombs and hurricanes and all that into the mix. And we have to do the same thing with the technology. We're going to have to train and exercise with it so we can get used to processing that information, get used to using all the different technology and incorporating it all into one final destination, whether the command post or if I'm the user inside. the more I use it, the more comfortable I'll become with it and the easier it will be for me to understand, you know, that's great information, but not anything I need to worry about right now. I can keep moving on to the next task, so.

[17:44] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, full sec, John. Well, if I could give you a final mic drop opportunity to give any sort of quote, question, insight, you know, anything to kind of leave us with here, you know, if everyone listening here today.

[17:57] John Newcomer: Oh boy, that's a tough question or tough challenge. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just, and I think we talked about this the last time, don't be afraid of the technology, embrace it. If you're not the guy on the department that is comfortable with it, there is somebody on your department that is. So let them run with it, let them try it, let them demo some of the equipment. I think, I'm amazed that we're fielding all this in the middle of Indiana. And for those of you who don't know where we are, we're in the middle of nowhere, literally. in the middle of nowhere. And we have teams from all over the world, and it just amazes me that we have this facility, Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, in our state and available to use, and IU and NIST have brought it here, and I think it's the perfect place for this, and I'm just happy to be a part of it.

[18:55] Kevin Sofen: Me too, man. Well, it's good to be a piece of the puzzle, and it really is awesome to have your perspective law enforcement and just want to thank oh you gotta be on you there you go as we're closing out we are standing in the back of a police car right now and standing in front of the st francis center hospital in muscatatuck and next to a decrepit ambulance that looks like it's seen better days and behind that looks like a i don't know a some sort of shanty apartment building and i'm sure there's a you know falling down exploded trains and there's i saw a subway station today and every corner you turn it's like wait that's wait what is that they have our own embassy yeah there's an embassy there's an embassy it's remarkable well John it was a pleasure and honor and thanks again for everything you're doing

[19:42] John Newcomer: yeah absolutely

[19:43] Kevin Sofen: thanks for listening to today's episode what did you think what'd you learn hopefully something right please reach out on social media with your thoughts in this episode and any other suggestions for future content we look forward to capturing more important stories across public safety and are here at your service.