When law enforcement responds to a scene, they face a large number of unknowns. A scene that initially seems calm, can quickly escalate to one of extreme violence. Those seconds where escalation begins can be of extreme importance to other responding units. What has been missing, until now, is a connected solution that leverages telemetry data from firearms, combined with tactical edge information sharing, to respond to incidents quickly and ensure safety at the scene.
Situations where a police officer draws their weapon are likely to be tense, anxious, and confusing where life and death decisions are made in an instant. The Connected Firearm Solution is a hardware and software based technology that takes advantage of best-in-class holster and firearm sensors from Yardarm Technologies, and Blueforce mobile command and control software. The combined solution enables three basic tasks: knowing when the gun is removed from its holster, detecting when the gun has been fired, and moving that information in real-time amongst responders at the scene and also with commanders. This powerful solution can shorten emergency reaction time, defuse deadly situations, create historical perspective for crime and evidence analysis, and allow commanders and dispatchers to more carefully monitor officers’ safety in the field.
The solution is comprised of several technology components:
1. The Yardarm Holster Aware™ Sensor detects whether a handgun has been removed from or inserted into a holster. The sensor continuously analyzes the presence of the firearm within the holster to create removal and insertion events. As events are detected, this information is transmitted via fully secured, AES encrypted Bluetooth Smart® wireless technology to BlueforceTACTICAL for real-time sharing with other on-scene responders, dispatch, and commanders.
2. The Yardarm Gun Aware™ Sensor enables realtime detection of firearm discharge. The sensor continuously analyzes the full 3-axis telemetry of a firearm to understand the status of that weapon at all times. As events such as gunfire are registered, this critical information is captured, analyzed, and transmitted via fully secured, AES encrypted Bluetooth Smart® wireless technology to BlueforceTACTICAL for real-time sharing with other on-scene responders, dispatch, and commanders.
3. BlueforceTACTICAL YardarmAWARE Plugin: This software plugin maintains continuous communications with the firearm and the holster and detects holster, unholster, and discharge/fire events, and makes these events sharable with those on the ground at the incident site, but also dispatchers and commanders. Other responders with BlueforceTACTICAL receive alerts, and/or vibrates (as selected by the user) when a firearm has been unholstered or fired.
4. BlueforceCOMMAND Center software: Whether running at the scene in a connected patrol car, or running at a dispatch center, commanders have real-time visual and audible notifications when firearm events occur.
When used with body worn cameras, the sensors can be queued to auto-activate these cameras.  When used with BlueforceEDGE, specialized software plugins can autonomously monitor for firearm events and notify commanders using SMS and email notifications. When used with the BlueforceEDGE Azure IoT software plugin, BlueforceEDGE pushes unholster and weapon fire events to your Azure IoT hub where these events can be leveraged for analysis, after action investigation, and smart policing activities.
The Connected Firearm Solution is available now. For a live demonstration or for more information, contact us at +1 866-960-0204 x1, or send an email to info@blueforcedev.com. To view a short, two-minute demo of BlueforceCOMMAND with Connected Firearm, please click below.
