August 2014   

In This Issue
Welcome New Users
AOPC e-Filing
Police Expos
New VA2.18.0 Update

Visit our website

MetroAlert wants
your patch!
MetroAlert would be
proud to display your department's patch
at our office. If you would like to put your patch on display, please send it to:

MetroAlert
435 Devon Park Drive
Bldg 500, Suite 510
Wayne, PA 19087


Welcome new users!
Among departments that have recently installed Visual Alert:    

Gaines Township PD

 

Bentleyville
Borough PD

 

Jessup PD

 

Avoca Borough PD

 

Duryea Borough PD

 

Springdale Borough PD

 

Pittston Township PD

 

North Franklin  

Township PD

 
 

Contact Us
metalert@metroalert.com

Toll free: 
800-658-5716
Local:
610-296-7450

435 Devon Park Drive, Bldg 500, Suite 510,
Wayne PA 19087 

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Free to MetroAlert customers: 2014 Written Allegation for Juveniles form

The Visual ALERT 2 software has been updated with the current Written Allegation form for Juveniles developed by the Administration of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC). This new state-mandated form is to be filled out and filed with the state any time a juvenile is arrested. Police departments in each county have been receiving training on the new form. Police in all counties are required to begin using the form no later than November 30, 2014. MetroAlert customers will receive this form as part of a software update at no additional cost under their annual maintenance agreement.

AOPC e-Filing Traffic Citation currently
in the Subscriber Unit Testing phase 

 

Local police departments in Pennsylvania save time and money when they can file traffic citations electronically. MetroAlert is currently involved in Subscriber Unit Testing with the Springfield Township Police Department in Montgomery County. The testing phase allows MetroAlert to address any issues reported in test submissions to the Administration of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC). When the testing phase is successfully completed, all MetroAlert customers will be able to enjoy the convenience of e-filing traffic citations.

Thanks to all of you who visited the MetroAlert booth at recent police expos

 

MetroAlert exhibited this summer at three expos catering to the law enforcement community: the Police and Security Expo in Atlantic City, the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association's Annual Conference in King of Prussia and the FBI National Academy Associates Annual Training Conference in Philadelphia. "It was great to have so many customers stop by our booth to say hi," said MetroAlert Founder and President Anthony J. Iannacone. 

Visual ALERT Version 2
Update 2.18.0 available nowVersion1

Version 2.18.0 is available for download. To download
the update and the instructions for performing the update,

click here. Below are highlights of the modifications made in this release. For a complete list of modifications in this release, please visit the HELP Menu in your Visual ALERT 2® software. 

 

New Features:

  

2014 Written Allegation form for Juveniles

Visual ALERT 2 now includes the new Written Allegation form for Juveniles.

 

Visual ALERT 2 Help Menu

The Help menu in Visual ALERT 2 now accesses an online Visual ALERT 2 Users' Guide.

Police Hero Pick
Those who go above and beyond ... 


In every department, street officers want to know that the top brass has their back. In Baltimore this spring, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts let his actions do the talking when he used some "in your face" policing to help disarm a man who had pulled a gun. Batts and his three-member security detail were on the street May 16 when their attention was drawn to a group of six men standing around a van with its door open outside a deli. A detective in the detail approached the group to investigate, identified himself as a police officer and patted down 20-year-old Alante Moultrie to determine if the bulge in his waistband was a weapon. It was - a loaded .32 caliber handgun as it turned out - but when the detective tried to remove it, Moultrie pushed him and attempted to flee. The other two detectives in the security detail moved to assist but they were not able to subdue Moultrie. Then Moultrie got control of the gun, and Batts stepped off the sidelines. The commissioner drew his service weapon, put it to Moultrie's head, and then punched him in the face when the suspect refused to give up his weapon. That did the trick, and Moultrie was taken into custody. Moultrie was charged with gun and drug violations, after police recovered one round in the chamber and six in the magazine of Moultrie's gun, plus four plastic bags of suspected cocaine. As for the commissioner, he was "leading from the front," said Baltimore Police spokesman Lt. Eric Kowalczyk. "At the end of the day he's a police officer as well as the commissioner. He is as focused on getting guns off the street as the officers that he leads."

(Sources: The Baltimore Sun and the Associated Press.)  
Police Movie Picksmovie
Ride Along  
Starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube
        
From 48 HRS to Bad Boys to Rush Hour, the best police buddy movies have always had a healthy dose of humor to go with the action. And often that humor has been generated by throwing a Funny Guy and a Serious Guy into a case or patrol car. The new Ride Along fits the formula well, with motor-mouthed Kevin Hart providing the laughs and Ice Cube doing a likeable turn as his foil. But with Hart's high-pitched, manic talents, Ride Along takes the buddy genre to places unexplored by Eddie Murphy, Will Smith or Chris Tucker. Here Hart plays Ben Barber, a video game junkie who works as a security guard and has just been accepted into the Atlanta police academy. He hopes to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend (the lovely Tika Sumpter), but first he wants to get the blessing of her brother, James Payton, a gruff detective played by Ice Cube. James decides to let him try to earn his props by taking him on a "ride along" at work. Not surprisingly, James sets Ben up for all sorts of nuisance calls and situations, eliciting the kind of high-pitched physical reactions for which Hart is known. But somewhere along the line - after Ben hilariously confronts a biker dude and a naked guy covered with honey - his gaming skills actually prove useful, and he starts gathering evidence that helps crack a gun-running scheme. In the end, Ben wins James over, breaks the case and gets the girl - not a bad shift's work. It's all predictable, of course, but Kevin Hart is not, and that makes Ride Along a movie well worth a couple of hours some evening when you're looking for laughs.

Police Book Pickbook
Unlucky 13 
By James Patterson  
& Maxine Paetro 
        
In the world of crime fiction, James Patterson is as close to a sure thing as you can find. His books have sold more than 300 million copies around the world, and he holds the Guinness World Record for most Number Ones on the New York Times bestseller list. His latest, Unlucky 13, begins with a traffic accident in which the action, quite literally, explodes. Two young Americans - or what's left of them - are found in the front seat of a devastated car on the Golden Gate Bridge, blown to smithereens by bombs somehow implanted in their bodies. The case falls to Detective Lindsay Boxer, a rude awakening to a new mother who is loving her job, friends and San Francisco life. And then things get even darker. The FBI muscles in on the case and sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past - the female psychopath Mackie Morales, the "one who got away." Unlucky 13 is the 13th book in Patterson's Women's Murder Club series (hence the title), and it's a wild and compelling yarn. The Murder Club, featuring Boxer, crime reporter Cindy Thomas, medical examiner Claire Washburn and district attorney Yuki Castellano, has a lot on its plate here. They need to sort through three plot lines, the turf war between local police and the FBI and some contradictory clues to help Boxer nail the suspect - before she nails one of them. It's a lot to absorb, but the pace is fast, the settings true and the suspense, as always, unsettling. In short, it's another great James Patterson read. Unlucky 13 is only unlucky for those who end up dead.
Police Perp Pick perp

When they make our job easy ...    

 

Let's face it, smoking marijuana can make people do some pretty dumb things. So dumb, in fact, that we couldn't just pick one Perp of the Month and instead are offering a team of Stoner All-Stars. First up is a 37-year-old woman in Lufkin, TX, who didn't like the quality of pot she had purchased from a local dealer - and called the police to complain. When an officer responded, Evelyn Hamilton told him she had spent $40 on "seeds and residue" and called for police help when the dealer refused to give her money back. Asked if she still had the pot, she pulled it out of her bra - and was promptly arrested for possession. In La Pine, OR, meanwhile, 32-year-old Ali Reza Tabibnejad liked marijuana so much he took to wearing a beanie emblazoned with the word "WEED." Unfortunately, he was wearing it when he was pulled over for a lane-change violation, and when a state trooper explored further, he found six pounds of marijuana worth $15,000 in the car. So instead of a routine traffic citation, Tabibnejad now faces charges of unlawful possession and delivery of a controlled substance. Finally, for sheer weed wiftiness, it's hard to top the case of the 30-year-old Ricky Allende of Springfield, MA. Allende was pulled over for running a stop sign, but that turned out to be the least of his worries. When a local officer directed him roll down his window, the officer was engulfed in a "plume of smoke," according to the police report. When the officer asked "Are you smoking marijuana while operating this motor vehicle?" Allende gave a fuzzy stare and allegedly answered "Why, yes, I am, officer." In short order, "yes, I am" turned into "yes you are charged with operating under the influence, failure to obey a stop sign and failure to wear a seat belt." Have a nice day. 

  

(Source: www.clumsycrooks.com)
Police Photo Pick perp

When it is worth 1,000 words ...
Is this the "Star Wars" bar?

(Source: www.funny-people-world.blogspot.com) 
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