page_title: Nassau County Police Department
section_title: Technology
hierarchical_section_title: Nassau County Police Department / Technology
caption_attribution_description: en:Nassau County Police Department marked patrol vehicle at the intersection of Hempstead Turnpike and Merrick Ave.
context_page_description: The Nassau County Police Department is the law enforcement agency of Nassau County, New York.
context_section_description: The department has historically been known to quickly embrace new technologies. The Marine Bureau began in 1933 with the gift of an 18-foot Chris Craft mahogany speedboat from the residents of Manhasset Bay. The Aviation Bureau followed a year later with the gift of a Stinson airplane from wealthy county residents. The aircraft was grounded by World War II, but the air unit was revived in 1968 with the purchase of four helicopters to assist in pursuits and medical evacuations. The Highway Patrol unit, which covers the Long Island Expressway and the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway and includes motorcycle officers, was founded in 1935. All police vehicles are now equipped with computer keyboards, and, since 1973, air conditioning.
  In addition to these units, the department also maintains many features, such as a Detective Bureau, a police academy, a mounted unit, an arson/bomb squad, a hostage negotiation team, a citizen-based auxiliary police program, and an Emergency Services Unit (ESU), that are usually found only in the police departments of large cities. The department has also adopted its own system for computerized tracking of crime information known as NASSTAT, now called Strat-Com.
  Traffic safety is a major department priority, given Nassau's relative lack of public transportation and its perpetually clogged roads and highways. A unique feature of the department is its Children's Safety Town, an actual village built to 1/3 scale that includes paved streets, two intersections equipped with traffic signals, an overpass, two tunnels, a simulated railroad crossing and 21 buildings. Managed by the department's Traffic Safety Unit, it allows the NCPD to teach traffic and bicycle safety to grade schoolers under controlled conditions.
  In 1989, concerned about the increasingly heavy weaponry being carried by criminals, the NCPD was among the first police departments in the country to trade their venerable 6 shot .38 Smith & Wesson revolvers for the 15-round, nine-millimeter SIG P226 semi-automatic pistol. More recently, the department announced it is switching over to the SIG P229 and SIG P226, chambered for .40 S&W with the Double Action Kellerman (DAK) trigger and integral accessory rail as the new standard firearm. Also, officers are re-equipping with expandable batons to replace the straight wooden nightstick.
  In 1995, the NCPD became the largest police department in the country to that time, and the first in New York State, to allow its officers to work a steady 10- or 12-hour shift, rather than a rotating 8-hour shift commencing at a different time each week. In early 2007, the NCPD announced that 207 marked patrol vehicles would be equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, allowing "live" views of the location of all active units.
  In late 2006, the department undertook "Operation Gotcha," deploying a new technology that scans the license plate numbers of passing vehicles directly into a mobile crime computer, allowing the immediate apprehension of drivers operating vehicles with expired licenses, suspended registrations or with outstanding arrest warrants. The technology allows the scanning of literally thousands of plates in a single shift.
caption: Chevy Impala patrol vehicle at Hempstead Turnpike and Merrick Avenue.
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