The much-ballyhooed $11 million Real Time Crime Center, the NYPD's hub that has computers and the latest technology tracking and processing criminals, went down went down yesterday, because of a software upgrade problem! Guess the $11 million didn't buy a better backup system for such cases. Newsday reports that while 911 wasn't compromised, the downtime "delay the inputting of arrest and crime reports for several hours." As in, criminals couldn't be processed at the precincts (they had to go to central booking) and background checks couldn't be conducted at the usual computers (police had to go to central booking or 1 Police Plaza). The NYPD says that the problem was caused by Verizon's SONET ring architecture, which sounds about right given our experience with shoddy Verizon high-speed Internet access at work.
And in what might be worse news for the NYPD, prosecutors divulged more details about the two cops charged with sexually attacking a Brooklyn woman; but a police source lets the Daily News know that the woman may have known one of the officers previously.
