N.C. Police Use Military Software Program to Track Gang Activity
12/08/2004

The Associated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - A software program that military special forces used to capture Saddam Hussein is now being used by Greensboro police to track gang activity.

Police and prosecutors use Analyst's Notebook, designed by Virginia-based i2, which the CIA also employs in its hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Greensboro officials purchased the program in August using $5,000 in federal grant money. They have one copy, although more might be ordered if the program proves to be useful.

Its visual spreadsheet offers detectives an uncluttered picture of what was once a jumble of loose relationships. And Guilford County prosecutors hope to use the software in January to illustrate for juries how gangs operate.

Police can scan photos or download documents into the spreadsheet. Next, they "draw" lines between various elements before typing descriptions under each line.

They can include audiotapes and actual videos. They click on the links and footage or sound springs to life.

"If you ask the average Joe on the street, they don't believe we have gangs," said Chris Parrish, the county's assistant district attorney who handles gang prosecutions. "People have this ... mentality that it's the Bloods and the Crips, and nothing else. People are still looking for the red flag in the pockets, and it's not like that anymore."

Parrish may get his first opportunity to use the software in early 2005 when he tries three men arrested for a December 2003 drive-by shooting of a house in northeast Greensboro, among other crimes.

Bobby Edwards, a Greensboro police detective who oversees the Analyst's Notebook software for city police, said the software, while helpful, is not a cure-all for gangs in Greensboro.

Technology is only as good as the information that's entered.

"It's not a miracle worker," Edwards warned. "You don't just put the stuff in and it tells you who did the crime. "It's just going to give us the ability to track some things better."

i2's client list includes the FBI, the DEA and "basically every three-letter intelligence agency," according to company spokesman Brian Lustig. More than 2,000 customers worldwide use the program.

"This product ... allows the user to see all the connections, whether it's financial transactions or a name that has three aliases attached to it, and those three names were being used in different gang activities," he said. "It was used in a pretty significant number of criminal investigations in the U.S., including the D.C. sniper case and the Louisiana serial rapist case."