Significant grant award will enable LPD to better police roads, investigate accidents

Lewiston Police Department to utilize new equipment to advance public safety initiatives

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

The Lewiston Police Department is upgrading its in-car and in-office equipment, and will debut a sizable addition to its festival crowd-control plans, thanks to a $495,000 Division of Criminal Justice Services’ law enforcement technology grant.

Chief Frank Previte said the LPD is installing license-plate readers and cameras into patrol cars; adding new message boards, a drone and a surveillance tower to enhance safety measures at community events; enhancing lighting and recording devices used at crime and major accident scenes; and streamlining the interviewing process with new technology.

“All of it is going to help us public safety wise,” Previte said Tuesday.

LPD oftentimes borrows an observation tower “for festivals and different sorts of things and events that we have,” and “for the number that we have, that has been hugely helpful – especially just when we use it at the Peach Festival to see things before they happen. We’ve broken up fights when groups are gathering, because we had that kind of view.”

The LPD model, “It extends like a scissor lift. … It'll give us 30 feet up in the air, and it's got all the windows around it, too.”

At $200,000, the observation tower will claim about 40% of the total grant money.

However, “The reason that I initiated this grant was because of the license plate readers, because I wanted to get license plate readers in the cars,” Previte said.

He explained, “Those generate a lot of traffic stops, because they tell us anytime that a vehicle is suspended. When you pass it, it runs the plate automatically and then pops up. It'll tell you, so, obviously, you don't have to run it, type stuff in or call it in. It just automatically detects it off the database. Plus, for the in-car camera, we just had two chases in the last two days.”

Previte said, “It generates a lot more traffic stops, because it alerts. So, who knows how many times you were driving by something, either the driver’s suspended or the license plate’s suspended, and you wouldn't know it – unless you actually, physically ran the plates. This just pops it up automatically.”

Moreover, “The license plate readers, they can also capture things – so, if we had something stolen – your house gets broken into – we can go back and see what license plates were in the neighborhood. What was captured; what was around. It helps us not only to investigate, but also on a preventative basis, as well, especially with the new technologies that are in some of this equipment.”

New cameras in the backseat of the patrol cars, meanwhile, will provide an extra layer of safety and accountability, both for officers and for those in custody.

“Right now, we don't have a rear-facing camera for anybody that we have in the backseat. That's going to be a big addition,” Previte said.

“We have a prisoner in the back seat. Up until this point, they can say, ‘It's my word against yours.’ What happens when you're back there; there's no video of you back there. There's no video that we have. But now, that's going to be something that we have.”

Lewiston Police Department Chief Frank Previte is shown with a new message board, which, on this day, was placed on Center Street. A grant enabled the LPD to acquire sign boards that both display and collect data. “The biggest impact, some of it will be the traffic: The traffic patterns and what we get off of the information off of the signs, as well as the signs being used just for information,” Previte said. “The good thing about those signs, as well, is the new technology. Those actually have modems in them, so we can control them from our phone. I can change the message from here. So, if something's going on, on Center Street, and we have an emergency or something, we can get an emergency message out right away. The good part of those, and the impact for us, is going to be the traffic data. We can see where our problems are. It can help us manage. The biggest thing that we get right now still, especially after COVID, is traffic complaints. People speeding.”

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In addition, the grant provided for “software applications and deployment,” Previte said. “I got two brand-new trailers. There's one operational up on Center Street right now. And there's one in our garage. We just got those yesterday. We just unloaded those off the truck.

“It's a message sign, as well as a radar sign, but those actually have data in there where it'll capture traffic patterns, traffic speeds. So, now, not only when I plug it in on Center Street, I can do messages, or the radar, or speeds, but go plug a USB in and it'll give me a download of traffic activity – all traffic data.”

The LPD was able to purchase a FARO 3-D laser scanner, which Previte said will improve efficiency and investigative capabilities at crime scenes and major accidents.

“Instead of measuring distances, we can put it up in here and it will laser scan the whole room,” he said. “We do crime scenes. We can do it inside, outside for accidents, traffic accidents, to recreate accidents. It'll generate like a whole scenario. It'll generate the crash where it almost turns into like an animation where you can watch it.”

LPD Capt. Mike Salada is shown with the department’s new FARO 3-D scanner.

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Capt. Mike Salada explained, “Accident scenes, crime scenes, back in the day with action scenes, we’d stretch one of those – actually, about 10 of those (tape measures). And about eight hours to do a full scene, at least. With this, it does everything the tape measure would do and more. So, we set this up. Take a scan. It takes about three minutes to do a full 3-D scan. It’s taken about 13 feet out. And then we would move it – the 13 feet – do another scan, and just keep doing it. It takes about three minutes per scan.

“Once we feel that we've collected all the scans that we need to – and we have a little tablet that we can follow along to make sure that it's scanning everything – we can take all that data back, load it into the computer, and it will do all our measurements. And then, ultimately, we'll be able to recreate that scene. So, we can do actual visual animations based on the car. We know the endpoint of the car. Now this takes all that calculation data, and we can start and show how the vehicles collided, basically.

“So, we were taking an eight-hour on-scene process and then back to probably another three-day process of sketching the scene with real measurements, and turning it into probably just a one-day project. We scan the scene. It takes an hour. And then come back. We can load all that data and analyze it all within the same day.”

“You can imagine how much overtime that saves us. And calling people in. It’s huge,” Previte said.

Pictured is a rendering of what the new LPD observation tower will look like when in use at community events. (Courtesy of the Lewiston Police Department)

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On May 13, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $127 million to police departments and sheriffs’ offices outside of New York City for new technology and equipment to prevent and solve crimes and improve public safety. The governor secured additional funding in the fiscal year 2025 enacted budget to fund applications made by 378 law enforcement agencies that responded to the state’s application for funding last fall.

Hochul said, “Public safety is my top priority, and we are continuing to make record investments in law enforcement so they have the resources they need to protect our communities. By investing in the latest technology and equipment, we’re responding to the requests of law enforcement agencies as they look to safeguard the future of our state.”

While most of the new equipment has arrived at the LPD office and garage, the observation tower will likely debut in 2025.

Previte has more safety upgrades in mind. In particular, he wants to have another fixed camera installed on Center Street: “We now have two. I want to make that three.”

He added, “That, obviously, helps us with anything that happens on Center Street. It’s our busiest street, with all the businesses and everything. We’ve had break-ins and things that have happened before, where they've been instrumental, just a number of different times that we've used them already.”

Patrol cars are being equipped with both license plate readers and rear-seat cameras.