Background / The Problem
The Englewood Police Department operates in a modern policing environment characterized by high call volumes, fragmented data systems, and increasing expectations for transparency and proactive policing. Like many U.S. agencies, they faced a core structural issue:
- Data fragmentation across CAD, RMS and other systems
- Time-consuming manual searches across multiple systems for officer or case-related context
- Limited ability to connect incidents, people, and locations quickly
This challenge reflects a broader industry issue: law enforcement agencies are “inundated with data” but struggle to extract actionable insights due to silos and outdated workflows.
Key Pain Points
- Officers and desk personnel spent hours searching through multiple systems
- Critical context was often missed or delayed before arriving on-scene
- Investigative work required manual pattern recognition
- Limited access to full data tools for non-sworn roles (dispatch, analysts, PDOs, etc)
These inefficiencies were directly impacting officer safety, the speed of investigations and finding suspects, and the overall quality of decision-making in the field among officers.
Strategy: Why Adopt ForceMetrics Velocity
At the end of 2024, Englewood PD adopted ForceMetrics Velocity™, a centralized, intuitive platform for real-time search, pattern recognition, and case context. In doing so, they addressed their department’s central, strategic goal of creating a single, unified layer of insights across all existing systems. Their adoption strategy focused on the following areas:
- Operational Efficiency: Reduce time spent searching for information
- Improved Situational Awareness: Ensure officers arrive on the scene with full context
- Cross-Role Accessibility: Extend usage beyond analysts to patrol, dispatch, records, and command staff
- Proactive Policing: Identify patterns and connections sooner
"Before ForceMetrics, it was harder to identify people. We had to sue fingerprint scanners and wait for CBI to come through...with ForceMetrics, the results are super quick." - Officer Heidi Bradley
Impact
- Patrol Response: Officers use Velocity immediately after dispatch to understand who and what they’re walking into, or have context to locate the appropriate people to help handle a situation, or find a suspect. In one instance, an officer, within the first 15 minutes of using Velocity, was able to locate the POA of a man who was in the hospital and incapable of making decisions for himself.
- Alone, Englewood PD has access to approximately 1 million records, but with data sharing in the ForceMetrics Velocity platform, they have easy access to over 29 million records across their county and neighboring cities in Colorado.
- 40% medium-to-high usage across Englewood PD patrol, command staff, dispatch, investigations, and records.
This case study is based on live interviews with Officer Heidi Bradley, Jenna Clancy (Dispatch), and Christina Kolk (PDO). Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.
