The use of the BOLO,
Be-On-the-LookOut or
APB, all points bulletin, have been used to alert units of important and
mission critical messages from escapees to major disasters. It has been
generally a voice announcement on an agencies local voice dispatch channel and
may be sent to an officer’s mobile data terminal. The issue is it
stays
local. What about your neighboring agencies and state agencies that may
be on disparate radio systems? How do I make sure that these other LEO’s
know of a threat without the dispatcher having to call the other agency
on the landline or teletype?
BOLO-NET resolves this issue by providing the
agency a way to push a notification and message to all agencies and
officers within the footprint of the event. BOLO-NET resides on an
officer’s phone such as the Ulefone Armor X2 or like device, so when the
dispatcher sends the BOLO or APB all users get the alert along with a
map GPS
location of the event. Those outside the area of concern as defined by
agency will not be disturbed by the alert unless they move into that
area while the BOLO or APB is still active.
What sparked the idea for BOLO-NET was an
actual event where local officers were alerted, but the state natural
resources officer was not. Both agencies were on different radio systems
and although the gunman was very near to the resources officer in the same
county and was looking to shoot anyone in uniform. Fortunately, the
resources officer ascertained the threat in time. If he had had
notification earlier then he would have been better prepared for the
threat.
