Vincent J. Gerace

Customizable program enables officers to file a report via a web enabled device (smart phone, tablet, laptop or PC) any operating system Apple, Microsoft, Android…   complete with a signature line for complainants to sign!  Officer report is emailed to supervisor or records.  Conformation email is sent to complainant with incident/crime number. Vitron.solutions

System to assist NYS judges/clerks to preform arraignments remotely ... single solution to complete multiple complex forms, reducing the need for redundant entries 

Unique evidence marker solution was the "brain child" of Vince to combat the problem of bulky markers used at crime scenes... compact as a deck of cards  they can be tossed in trash so there is no cross contamination of scenes!

Leveraging two Federal Burns grants 2015/2016, Vince purchased enough officer worn body cameras to outfit every officer in the Sheriff’s Office.   In concert with this purchase, other area police agencies were invited to join onto the program.  Vince and his team helped develop policy with the administration and worked diligently to train and deploy devices.   In the spirit of transparency, the District Attorney’s office was granted complete access for review and download for the purposes of criminal prosecutions.

Although the launch of the Trunked Radio System, March 2nd 2016 was uneventful and a bit anti-climactic, the challenges leading up to and after the event were abundant. The County was an early adopter of the Statewide Wireless Interoperable initiative.  NYS abandoned the HARRIS deployment and refocused on regional systems. Our team was forced to “retool” the plans for solutions as well as secure funding.  Once the County Radio committee awarded the contract, Vince & his team partnered with vendors as well as public safety to deploy equipment in towers as well as subscribers.   Frequency availability and conflicts plagued the project throughout.  Vince trained law enforcement on trunked radio systems as well as radio and repeater use.   

A challenging project facing Vince and his small but talented team was to “forklift” or replace the 30 year old E911 system that had fallen into the end of life (EOL) category.  The team researched numerous products and traveled to Ohio to perform a site visit of a 911 center.  Once Motorola was awarded the contract, a NG911 team was assembled comprising of: County Information Technology staff, Dispatch, Emergency Services, Motorola project manager (PM), 3 telephone companies (TELCO) vendors.  Regular weekly meetings, via Skype for business, helped keep the project on track, with Vince at the helm.  Vince also included a representative from the NYS Public Service Commission to ensure all proposals were in proper order.  Planning/engineering was performed by the NG team rather than a consultant. Many decisions were made making survivability, redundancy and disaster recovery a top priority.  Ultimately a system was selected having two redundant NG911 systems one located in a Co-location (co-lo) staging area in the phone company … the other in the dispatch center 30 miles away.   Each NG911 system had redundancy thus creating a double redundant/failover solution.   Part of this unique plan involved moving the 911 backup center to leased space adjacent to the co-lo room.  Included in the cut-over plan was training 911 staff and officers from three public-safety answering points (PSAP)

Due to patrol cruisers decreased size of passenger compartments, Vince was determined to deploy Microsoft’s SurfacePro products.  This was especially challenging due to the lack of vehicle solutions for mounting/ power & USB needs.  Vince and his team worked diligently to develop small footprint mounting equipment in the cruiser. 

The deployment of video kiosks, in 2015, throughout the jail facility was Vince’s goal to help the “health” of the jail as well as its population.  A considerable jail population consisted of federal prisoners from across the country.  Helping prisoners visit their family/friends help maintain order.  An additional benefit is reducing contraband carried into the facility from face-to-face visits.   This system enables attorneys and medical professionals to visit their clients from the comfort of their office.  Vince & his team worked with jail administration, officers as well as the vendor to completely computerize visitation.  This freed up staff from time consuming phone appointments permitting them to be even more diligent to protect from dangerous contraband infiltration.

The Jail commissary is a small virtual store that sells food and supplies via kiosks deployed throughout prisoner living space.  Currently inmates can order items from an electronic touch screen (Kiosk) & items are delivered to them.  Deployment of the devices included integration/segregation into a VLAN.  Vince and his team worked with electricians, jail staff as well as the commissary vendor/programmers to successfully launch in 2014. 

As an extension to the wired local area network, the Sheriff’s office expanded to a wireless system to accommodate emerging technologies.   Vince & his team researched designed and installed secured Aruba wireless throughout the campus.   This involved the expansion of LAN wiring and infrastructure.

After receiving grant funding in 2012, Vince and his team worked with County Information Services and vendors to deploy in-house Lync servers.  The system was integrated into a resource forest which housed the County and Sheriff’s domains.  Lync used daily by county staff and was extended to inmates to have private conferences with the Public Defender’s office.

The system provides, through this centralized querying, processing, analyzing and disseminating crime data among NYS & Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. The DIG server links with numerous databases including:  RMS, JMS, and plate reader systems.  Vince & his team, organized the county’s implementation of NYS DCJS’s federated search engine.  This involved the coordination of local law enforcement agencies leaders, DCJS and NYS’s vendor.

Vince assisted in researching technology utilized in the jail addition.  This included site visits to several jails and prisons to identify access control software that should be utilized.  Ultimately, he visited the company in Indiana and observed their assembly labs.  He identified a digital video system which combined all video over one interface.  He was heavily involved in value engineering for the project which slashed tens of thousands of dollars in costs. As a result, the addition project came in well under budget with a surplusWhat's this item about? What makes it interesting? Write a catchy description to grab your audience's attention...

In 2006, Vince was assigned to the challenging task of changing core LEO software from an AS400 operating system to a Microsoft Platform system (MSP).  LEO had utilized IBM based software for many years; this was commonly referred to as a “green screen”.  He was convinced newer officers would more likely use the system if a more user friendly system was adopted.  The Sheriff agreed to move to a SQL based system which has a Graphical User Interface (GUI).  As project manager, he assisted in the acquisition of approximately one million dollars in grant funding, negotiation of contracts with vendors, budgeting for the complete project, and the ordering of software to hardware.  Vince assembled a team of Sheriff’s staff and assigned certain targeted tasks.  Because tight deadlines had to be met, and, careful and meticulous handling of police and corrections data collected over 20 plus years was critical, weekly meetings were held for progress reports and critiques.  Alternate office locations for staff were set up so they could work undisturbed.  A temporary training center was deployed and a rigorous training schedule put in place for all police agencies as well as support staff. With a tremendous effort from the transition team, the October 22, 2007 “go Live” deadline was met. 

Vincent was designated by the Sheriff and the NYS Police to head a state-wide initiative for Chautauqua County. The application software that, when utilized with laptop computers, a central server, and data communications, provides officers with the capability to issue/deliver/retrieve traffic tickets and accident reports electronically. As a result, tickets and accident reports are delivered electronically to a server in the Sheriff’s network and then transmitted to NYS Police, DMV and the appropriate courts. This electronic system replaced paper tickets that necessitated hand delivery to the police station and the designated court, and a mailing to the state, thus saving taxpayer’s money and valuable time of police officers issuing tickets.  As the county’s coordinator, Vince was responsible for garnering the participation of all local police agencies in the county. He applied for two NYS Governor Traffic Safety Grants, complete with budgets and deployment strategies. These grants were responsible for the “lions share” of laptop computers placed in marked patrol vehicles throughout the county.  Installation of the laptops, scanners and printers was done by the Sheriff’s Technical Services unit. Vince coordinated the installation in concert with deployment of modems used for wireless transmissions at no cost to local agencies. With lead agency status, the Sheriff’s Office continues to support TRaCS and all of its users.    In June 2008, NYS Police awarded Vincent Gerace with a TRaCS outstanding service award for his dedication to the TRaCS initiative.

As has been stated by a local high school art teacher, “Art is everywhere, in every line of work”. Vincent not only designed the award winning paint scheme for Sheriff’s patrol vehicles, he also created the design for two of Starflight helicopters.  MD (http://www.mdhelicopters.com), the manufacturer of the helicopter was so impressed with the design, they requested a photograph which was featured in their 2010 Calendar

In 2002, Vince created a Police Information Network Group (PING) which is a tech group committed to advance technology and to unify LEO efforts. Every police agency in the County is represented in PING. The group met on a regular basis to discuss computer and technology related issues, recommend future technologies, and work to meet the needs of LEO.  The County’s LEO utilizes software for Records Management. Nearly every agency has joined our technology “wave”. They also use the Sheriff’s Exchange, SharePoint Server and a Unified Communications server.  Pooling the efforts of all police agencies makes LEO more, secure, efficient and “on the same page”. 

• Livescan Fingerprinting - technology is used to capture fingerprints and palm prints electronically & submit to NYS & the FBI. 

• SAFIS - compares unknown fingerprints images (latents) taken from crime scene against the criminal history record database and licensing or law enforcement applicants.

From its inception in 2001, Vince was involved with the project and personally researched systems needed to implement the program. He assisted the Sheriff’s Office grant writer with budgetary quotes and plans for both Livescan & SAFIS systems that resulted in securing COPs funding. This grant was combined with funding received by the City of Jamestown Police Department, thereby providing funds for the purchase of seven “Live-Scan” systems. The collective funding allowed the Sheriff's Office to deploy fingerprint stations to the Sheriff, Pistol Permit Division, and police departments in Dunkirk, Jamestown, Fredonia, Ellicott, and Lakewood-Busti.   In 2007, the Sheriff’s Office applied for and received a grant from Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) that allowed the upgrading of all computer equipment including the main server.  Previously many local police agencies were sending their arrestees to the Sheriff’s Office for processing. The “Live-Scan” system implementation allowed processing locally at each police department and greatly reduced the work load of jail staff.

Within the funding request for fingerprint technology, a SAFIS site was included. Vince was responsible for the selection, acquisition, and set-up of the equipment. This also involved working with DCJS to authorize this satellite site. The deployment of SAFIS to Chautauqua County was the first independently funded system in the state!  The system is set-up in the Crime Scene Division Offices and has been responsible for the solution of numerous crimes that would have gone unsolved without SAFIS. In the past, it was necessary for local crime scene technicians to travel to Buffalo to enter fingerprint information and then make a return trip to analyze the search results. Because the 120 mile round trip was costly, time consuming and very inconvenient, the situation resulted in fewer searches being conducted. The local SAFIS system eliminated the waste of time and resources and is available to all police agencies within the County.

The connectivity for Livescan & SAFIS also presented special challenges involving a link to Albany utilizing double encryption in that three NYS agencies were in the middle of a power struggle for control of the connections. After working for nearly a year to cut through the red tape, Vince & his team was able to complete the link. This connectivity permitted the use of a powerful LEO communications/ investigations tool called NYeNET.

Through the years Vince has worked diligently to accomplish connectivity with every police agency throughout the county. This has been achieved through several means; primarily fiber supplemented by microwave and VPN technologies. His goal: to improve connectivity to and redundancy (survivability) within the public safety networks.

When the Sheriff and Vincent Gerace worked together in the Crime Scene Division, they dreamed that someday a County-wide forensic investigation team of experienced law enforcement officers would be organized.  Long before the début of the popular CSI TV show, they envisioned a team made up of representatives of each police agency and the Sheriff’s Office. They began “paving the way” by teaching the NYS Crime Scene Tech classes to local police officers.

The Forensic Investigation Team became an official reality in January 1st, 2000. As a certified Crime Scene Analyst, Vince is highly educated and trained in crime scene investigation techniques. He was tapped as the manager of the team by the Sheriff, the police chief’s association and the district attorney. As the manager of the team, he was responsible for management of the most important, most serious crime scenes in the county.  The team originally consisted of 14 skilled officers and grew to 33 members. The team is called to sites where serious crimes have been committed in the county and where physical evidence collection and analysis is needed. The team developed strict deployment protocols with the input, cooperation and approval of the Sheriff and Police Chiefs in the county. The team has been an overwhelming success and has been credited with the solution of several high profile cases. As manager, Vince was charged with organizing training, bi-monthly meetings, budgeting and overall crime scene supervision.

In 2000, Vincent was assigned to assist in the sensitive consolidation of Jamestown Police Department (JPD) E911 dispatch with the county dispatch service.  There were two main challenges; one involved personnel and the other was technology.  Interestingly the technology became a major roadblock in the effort. To address the challenge, he assembled talent from the radio shop, records and the technical services divisions.  They worked tirelessly to identify and resolve issues such as connectivity for JPD assets including box alarms. Data consolidation and code computations of both entities presented one of the greatest challenges.  The LEO software vendor was deployed to assist on data consolidation with the help of our database specialists.  The different code types used by the JPD and Sheriff's Office became the elusive issue that created a stalemate on whether to use the county or city codes or a combination of both. To break the stalemate, Vincent convinced the Sheriff’s transition team that the codes used by Jamestown be adopted, rather than dealing with the minutia of sorting thousands of codes. This solution freed the ice jam and permitted the consolidation to move ahead in an expedient fashion.

In 1995, the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office secured $500,000 in funding for a mobile data system through a COPS More Grant.  The Sheriff’s Office was under sharp deadlines to produce “wireless” network utilizing with the COPs grant funding. The grant was intended to cover the purchase of laptop computers for all of the Sheriff’s Office marked car fleet and for the marked patrol vehicles for eight municipal police agencies within the county. Unfortunately, the grant amount did not provide enough funds to purchase a radio system for data transmissions as others, originally planned.

After researching options, Vincent was convinced Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) was the proper route to pursue but that the system was not available within the county. Resisting opposition from techs who wanted the county to "own" a system, Vincent contacted the CEO of Dobson Wireless, based out of Oklahoma and brokered an agreement to implement CDPD in Chautauqua County. CDPD proved to be a progressive rock solid solution for LEO at a baud rate of 9,600. 

In addition to the CDPD system, Vince researched modem options and located a company that provided a modem that not only transmitted data, but also GPS information. Working directly with the modem manufacturer, he was able to implement a successful system for mobile computing and AVL. This low cost solution delivered a state of the art system to law enforcement. The New York State Police are included in the network which allows for implementation of a consistent and effective "closest car" agreement.

In 2003, the Sheriff's Office negotiated with a cell phone company to upgrade all marked patrol vehicles to General Packet Radio Service (GSM). This upgrade provided a faster wireless solution at a baud rate of approx. 19.2.  In the year 2009, the Sheriff's Office undertook a large upgrade to 3g after negotiating with a Dobson Cell company to provide modems at no cost as part of a 5 year contract.   Now all patrol vehicles in Chautauqua County have broadband technology in each marked unit, paid by Homeland Security grant dollars.  2015 the system was upgraded to 4g/LTE.

In 1995, jail security was a priority. A new addition to the jail had been completed but was unoccupied. The old jail had a total of four cameras. In response to a directive from the Sheriff to improve security of the facility and assure greater protection of employees/inmates, Vince researched the most economical solution. Utilizing prisoner labor to reduce costs, he also arranged for the purchase and installation of additional cameras in strategic areas of the jail and courts. Today, the County Campus, which includes the jail and the four courts located in 6 separate buildings, have over 450 cameras installed with “state of the art” digital video system.  The master control room, jail staff, court security, and the communications center monitor the cameras. Administers and SWAT have access via smartphone application.

Deployment of a "Gateway NT server" started a new era for the Sheriff's office.   Vince specified, purchased and installed the first Windows server.  This original  server "wore many hats" providing Exchange, AD, file server and DHCP services.   Eventually services were migrated and distributed to multiple servers. 

In 1994 Vince created and launched the Chautauqua County Wanted Program which has proven to be a huge success. Originally, each week a packet of biographical information and photographs of 10 people wanted by police agencies in the county is sent to local media and featured in news articles. The program features individuals wanted for major crimes as well as persons wanted for lesser crimes. Police agencies have experienced a 90+ % location rate. The "Wanted" program is very popular with the public, especially business owners. It has dramatically increased police effectiveness in located wanted persons and saved considerable time and money that would otherwise be required to track down individuals with outstanding warrants. All police agencies in the County have been encouraged to supply wanted individuals for the program. Vincent personally upgraded the program & integrated the LEO Records Management System (RMS) to automatically update the Sheriff.us website.  The warrant officer simply flagged a suspect within the RMS and it would appear on the Web. This freed the warrant officer from sending out packets to news media.  Entering the 23rd year of existence, it continues to be both successful and popular.

Even before Ethernet was a popular choice for companies & government, Vince wired the entire jail complex with category five (5) wiring & once again he used prisoner labor complete the work. In return, the prisoners received a certificate of training from BOCES. This upgraded the Sheriff's operations from a clunky twinax cabling feeding "green screen" terminals.   The Ethernet network provided the opportunity to  deploy IBM 5250 emulation cards and utilize much more affordable personal computers.  This permitted more staff access to LEO data

In 1994 the Sheriff assigned Vince to locate a system to check on the elderly population in the county. Provided with a budget, he implemented the RUOK (Are You OK?) program. The system has been in use and responsible for several “saves” as well as peace of mind for relatives of the County’s aging community.  Through the years, the system has gone through a few upgrades and provider changes, but is still in operation today.

For years, deputies and correction officers needed a huge ring of keys to move through different sections of the Sheriff’s Office complex. Asked to explore solutions to the problem, Vince located and implemented a new system through “Best Locks” that provided for keys to be assigned to employees based on their authorized security levels rather than keys to the entire complex. Each employee is issued a single key that will open only areas based on his/her area of responsibility and authority. The process has allowed for a more efficient and reliable method of allowing only authorized access to the building.

Movement through the Sheriff’s Office complex and jail historically required deputies and correction officers to carry a large ring of keys. Moreover, there was no way to monitor the comings and goings of individuals through the maximum security setting. Assigned to develop a low cost solution to this problem, Vince developed & installed a keyless entry system with keypads located throughout the facility. All outside doors and all entry doors to the secure portions of the jail complex have been wired and keypads installed. The control system is located in the master control room of the jail. A computer system monitors the ingress and egress of people entering or leaving any area equipped with the keypads. This system has been extremely valuable for both security and accountability.

In the early 90’s the Sheriff’s Office converted to a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. It became necessary to modify the radio consoles in the dispatch center to accommodate installation of computer monitors for the dispatchers. Vince re-designed the consoles and worked directly with a local fabricator to build the units. The finished products were both visually impressive and extremely efficient for the dispatchers.

While assigned to DWI patrol (1986), Vince discovered inefficiencies involving paperwork required in arrests whereby over seven forms had to be completed and filed for a typical arrest. Officers were required to enter redundant data at least 11 times. With the approval of the administration and in conjunction with the District Attorney’s Office, he designed a custom form that combined the seven forms into one. The form was approved by former County Court Judge Hon. Lee Town Adams and was adopted by all police agencies in the county. The form has been modified throughout the years to address changes in laws, but, after 30 years it is still in use by law enforcement officers today.

Vince designed, constructed, and installed overhead consoles for the marked patrol cars that contain switches for emergency lights, scanner, siren control head, speakers and cabin lights (red & white) that have been incorporated in the sheriff’s fleet.  With the Sheriff John Bentley’s approval, prisoners were enlisted to assist in construction of the devices.

Vincent designed and manufactured center console units for patrol vehicles.  Because many components were spread throughout a patrol vehicle, he created a mount to centralize all of the equipment to keep equipment in easy reach of the operator or his/her partner. 

In the summer of 1982, as a young Sergeant in the Chautauqua Institution Police Department, Vince established innovative bike patrols to address the need for faster response by officers walking the beat and solving the challenge of attempting to maneuver a full sized patrol vehicle through the narrow streets crowded with pedestrians during the summer season. This proved particularly important when the patrol car was on another call or on traffic details. Bike patrols provided speedy response and maneuverability without compromising public interaction.