The good folks at NCIC made a minor change in the format of one of their response messages that is causing confusion in multiple police agencies in our area.
This new message is sent in response to any inquiry to see if a person is wanted. It now includes a short paragraph explaining exactly what the system checked. Unfortunately, the wording of this reply includes some key words that many systems use to determine if there is a "hit" indicating a wanted person. So, the result is some systems (including the one used by VSP in their mobiles here) set a flag and shows there is a possible hit for everyone that is run thru NCIC.
Many officers in the field don't understand how the software functions so they are thinking the person they just ran is actually wanted but then they don't see any info indicating what they are wanted for... in reality, they aren't wanted just the software is seeing a key word it looks for so it sets a flag to tell you read the response carefully...
Anyway, it has caused confusion in at least 3 departments in our area and probably others nationwide. Hopefully NCIC will change the wording of their administrative comment since that will be easier than reprogramming all these computer systems. But it is a hoilday weekend..............................
John
This new message is sent in response to any inquiry to see if a person is wanted. It now includes a short paragraph explaining exactly what the system checked. Unfortunately, the wording of this reply includes some key words that many systems use to determine if there is a "hit" indicating a wanted person. So, the result is some systems (including the one used by VSP in their mobiles here) set a flag and shows there is a possible hit for everyone that is run thru NCIC.
Many officers in the field don't understand how the software functions so they are thinking the person they just ran is actually wanted but then they don't see any info indicating what they are wanted for... in reality, they aren't wanted just the software is seeing a key word it looks for so it sets a flag to tell you read the response carefully...
Anyway, it has caused confusion in at least 3 departments in our area and probably others nationwide. Hopefully NCIC will change the wording of their administrative comment since that will be easier than reprogramming all these computer systems. But it is a hoilday weekend..............................
John
