Baltimore police officials are combing through the cell phone GPS data of an officer accused of sexually assaulting a woman while on duty, sources said, the first major test of a new technology introduced last year.
The officer, a three-year veteran of the Northeast District, was suspended with pay after a woman told police that she was picked up by the officer Friday night and was asked to perform a sex act to avoid being arrested.
A crucial piece of evidence is the officer's cell phone. Last year, the department spent $3.5 million in federal stimulus money to purchase BlackBerry smart phones equipped with a program called PocketCop. The phones allow police to access critical information while outside their squad cars, but the built-in GPS function also lets police track the officers' whereabouts.
Police had to buy longer-lasting batteries for the phones because they were set to refresh the officers' locations so frequently that they drained power.
"Officers who aren't where they're supposed to be — that is, on their post doing their job — they ought to be worried about it, because we'll hold them accountable," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said in September when the grant was announced. "But I think 99.9 percent of the good men and women in this Police Department have no trepidation whatsoever about GPS and think it's a very good tool."
According to police, the woman said she was approached by the on-duty officer during a traffic stop. She was unable to pick the officer out of a photo lineup, sources said, but she explained that the officer had driven her to various places.
Investigators then decided to pull the GPS data and footage from area surveillance cameras in order to verify the account, according to sources. Forensic evidence was also being sought.
Sex offense detectives are handling the investigation with oversight from chief of detectives Dean Palmere and in consultation with prosecutors. Once the investigation is complete, police will confer with the state's attorney's office to determine whether to bring criminal charges.
"These allegations are egregious and extremely serious," said Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman.
Baltimore police did not name the officer. The Sun learned his identity but is not publishing it because he has not been charged with a crime. Records show he received a Bronze Star in 2009 stemming from an incident the previous year.
Smart-phone technology tailored for police has been gaining in popularity among law enforcement agencies both large and small. But city officials believe the Baltimore initiative to be the most far-reaching.
As more officers are equipped with the phones, commanders are able to pull up maps of the city and view where the officers are. The information can include how long they have lingered and even how fast they are moving. The technology traditionally has been used by businesses to track trucks or manage a fleet.
During a test run last year, commanders were able to pull up the locations of Western District officers at the time of a shooting and determined that officers hadn't been in the area. Union officials expressed skepticism that the devices would deliver the intended benefits.
"How far do we go to maintain the safety of our officers without infringing upon their freedom to move and to have discretion to make decisions on the street?" said Robert F. Cherry, the city police union president. "If it's going to be used more often than not to track the whereabouts of an officer, I think we've moved away from touting it as a crime-fighting tool and more as an accountability tool."
Like surveillance camera technology, the GPS can help police investigate misconduct but can also clear them of wrongdoing.
In Cleveland, two officers were each suspended for six months after GPS data showed their squad car drove past a dead body on the side of a highway and was parked for hours at a cemetery. But two Minneapolis police officers were cleared by a jury last summer of raping a woman in an alley, in part because GPS data from their squad car showed they were conducting traffic stops in other areas, according to news reports.
Officers "think there's all this Big Brother stuff, that I'm going to be sitting here watching everyone all night," Bealefeld said last fall, motioning toward two large flat-screen TVs on the wall of a conference room. "They should be more concerned with whether they're walking and talking to the people they serve."
Cherry said the union would withhold comment on the allegations involving the Northeast District officer until the investigation was completed.
The allegation recalls a case in Anne Arundel County where a police officer fondled an 18-year-old's breasts and took cell phone camera pictures. The rookie officer, Joseph Francis Mosmiller, was stripped of his badge and convicted of misconduct in office, serving six days in jail.
That woman and another who said Mosmiller also groped her sued the officer in federal court; records show that case was settled for an undisclosed sum in March 2009.
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