New Gadget Puts Arrest, Warrant Info at Miami-Dade Police's Fingertips

Identifying criminals in Miami-Dade just got faster.

A new mobile gadget called Rapid Identification puts information such as outstanding warrants and arrest records at the fingertips of police officers in just 60 seconds. The device allows officers to get prints from a suspect's two fingers.

"With this unit, this particular unit or similar unit, they can in one minute ID the person," said Miami-Dade Police senior systems analyst Michael Rodriguez-Delray.

After prints are captured, Bluetooth technology is used to match prints taken at the crime scene with the FBI's database.

If there is a hit, officers will see the criminal history of a suspect on their laptops inside the patrol car.

Read about a ballistics breakthrough at Florida International University here.

The old-fashioned process of fingerprinting and rap sheets can take up to three hours for one arrest.

"The old way was – and this is kind of hard, you have to understand our officers, you need a patrol guy out there on the street, he has to bring him over to the headquarters for the fingerprints section," Rodriguez-Delray said.

He says 80 Miami-Dade officers now use the gadgets on patrol. Each costs $2,000. In the last seven months, the department has saved close to $80,000 in terms of time and efficiency, it says.

Rodriguez-Delray plans to add 20 more fingerprint readers to other departments in the county by the end of the year.

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