Front: Officer Joe Capporali of the Vandergrift Police Department Back: Chris Myers of Highvision Internet

Due to cost constraints in Westmoreland County, authorities have eliminated night court staff. However, night court is not completely done away with as some have thought. It is simply decentralized. Local municipalities are now required to have high-speed Internet connections to participate in the new, upgraded night court process.

All night court procedures are being handled locally. The Vandergrift Police Department recently upgraded their technology to participate in this program.

The old familiar process has been eliminated in favor of a new and expedited one. Using the high-speed Internet connections, Night Court now takes place at the local law enforcement offices rather than at the county prison near Greensburg.

For example, if someone was arrested or required an emergency PFA, then the police had to write up the report and a county constable be notified to take them to the magistrate’s office at the prison in Greensburg. Now night court is available from 5:30 pm to 12:30 am via video conferencing with an individual magistrate and secretary at the local municipalities.

The new night court system requires facilities to be equipped with an Internet connection that is at least 300K in speed. The Vandergrift Police Department met that requirement with a wireless connection from HighVision Internet Access boasting a speed of 384K.

This translates into an estimated 8 times faster than the regular Internet user on a telephone line. This speed is necessary for the video process that is used. The video on a regular phone line does not have the proper quality or speed to be functional for night court. The camera used is on a rotational stand and can span the room following a subject around the room. On the other end, the magistrate watches in a monitor. The subject also has a monitor in order to see the magistrate.

Not all municipalities have access to the night court system yet – often because of lack of funds. If a municipality does not have the night court system set up in their station, they are required to go to a municipality that does to complete their night court processing.

We had the opportunity to speak with Joe Caporali, Vandergrift Police Chief. He told us that so far, they have not had to use the system for an arraignment or to issue a PFA, but all tests have run successfully.

The future of this technology could involve the use of video conferencing from police cars with laptops to obtain instant search or arrest warrants

Be sure to tune in for our special one-on-one interview with Joe.

Joe has been with the Vandergrift Police Department for 24 years now and has been the chief for the last four. He was born and raised in the area and graduated from Kiski Area High School. He went on to Penn State for three years. After, he worked for a while at Apollo Fabricators. He had always, since a child, had an interest in police work. He was encouraged by two friends already in police work to pursue this career. Before arriving in Vandergrift in 1980, he worked part time for Apollo, North Apollo, and Saltsburg departments.

The Vandergrift Police Department contacted HighVision Internet Access regarding high-speed options and it was determined that wireless service would be the best option to get them the 300K minimum speed they needed. One reason was the low price that was available. The high speed gives better video quality that is very important for night court. High speed provides a subscriber more options besides faster video; it makes everything faster and the connection is always active. There are benefits for gaming and online banking as well.

The Vandergrift Police Department required special equipment to be installed in order to reach (via line-of-site) the connecting radio tower from their office. A CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) was installed on the roof. The CPE contains an antenna, radio, and a poe converter (power over ethernet) and it all fits together in one little box.

An ethernet card was installed in their computer. The ethernet card allows connection to a network cable that goes to the antenna.

HighVision is currently testing a concentrated area and offering this new technology. Wireless has been around several years - mainly used in office buildings for internal wireless connections. Wireless is not a shared connection like cable. Cable will slow as more people get on the service but wireless will not. Cable has low security because you are actually connected to other people’s computers on their network. Cable will also turn off your connection if you are using too much bandwidth.

Tune in for a one-on-one video where Amy Myers speaks to Chief, Joseph Caporali about wireless night court and also included is an interview where Jeff Garrett speaks to Chris Myers of HighVision Internet Access regarding the new wireless service.