POWAY - Local sheriff's deputies traded their work-related cell phones for small, handheld computers last week, making this city the first in the county to outfit all its field law enforcement officers with the devices.

All 40 deputies assigned to traffic and patrol duties in Poway received one of the handheld computers, often called pocket PCs. Slightly bigger than the average cell phone, the new devices contain phones plus digital cameras and digital voice recorders.

They also, for the first time ever, give the deputies virtually instant access to law enforcement databases, the Internet and other resources while in the field.

Poway sheriff's Lt. Dave Corn said Thursday that means deputies can now pull up people's driver's license photos, check suspects' criminal histories, look at satellite photos of a home on their way to serve a warrant there, and tap into a wealth of other critical information as they go about their jobs.

Local patrol cars were already equipped with laptop computers whose wireless Internet access offers some of the same capabilities. Using the laptops during a stop, though, required deputies to take their eyes off potential suspects, Corn said.

Law enforcement databases also are accessed via a special, secure server. Until now, the lieutenant said, deputies had to return to the Poway Sheriff's Station to check those databases, or ask dispatchers to do it.

By the time the results came back, suspects were often gone, Corn said.

The new devices use specialized encryption software to bypass the Internet and tap directly into the server. That means deputies can pull up whatever information they want in seconds while standing outside a driver's window, on a roadside curb or virtually anywhere else, without worrying about the information being intercepted.

"They're able to get more information in their hand and be able to sit there and watch the person they stopped for safety reasons," said Mark Sanchez, director of safety services in Poway. "And they can select the safest location, since (the new devices are) handheld, while they're in the field running this check. They're not committed to their cars."

Made possible by grant

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement services in Poway and staffs a city-built station at 13100 Bowron Road, under a contract between the two. Slightly bigger than the average cell phone, the handheld computers have a retail price of about $600.

The Poway Sheriff's Station acquired the devices at no charge from the Automated Regional Justice Information System, a regional law enforcement agency funded by the county.

The agency's technical manager, Joseph Vaughn, said the agency has been using a federal Homeland Security grant to buy large numbers of the pocket PCs at discounted prices, ranging from $169 to about $300 each, over the past couple of years. The Automated Regional Justice Information System makes the devices available to any agency in the county that is willing to foot the bill for monthly charges associated with the miniature computers, he said.

Verizon, Nextel and Sprint offer service for the handheld computers. Associated service fees average $25 to $40 a month, depending on the type of plan a user has and how much air time is used.

Poway's willingness to pay the fees got the city on a list of agencies that participated in a two-year-old pilot program that tested the handheld PCs' value in this area.

Sanchez said the city signed on as an ongoing participant after he and other officials did the math and determined the upgrade would cost the city no more than it was already paying for cell phone service Verizon was providing for the deputies' cell phones. Poway was able to transfer those service accounts to the pocket PCs, he said.

The service runs about $25 a month per device, or $12,000 a year, he said.

Already popular

The extra capabilities the pocket PCs give deputies make the devices invaluable, said Sanchez. Besides the ability to access photos and records, examples he and Corn cited included using the mini-computers to take photos of a suspect's car and transmit them to another deputy who can show them to witnesses, receive copies of photos of missing people, and record suspected drunken drivers' behavior and comments.

The handheld computers' complexity means deputies needed some training in using the devices. Corn said most of his men and women adapted to the pocket PCs fairly quickly, with using a stylus to tap various things into the mini-computers being one of the hardest things to learn.

The handheld devices come with small, slide-out keyboards, though, offering an alternative to the stylus. And Corn said his deputies are reporting successes with the new gadgets.

"The feedback we've gotten so far is excellent," he said. "You'll hear someone saying, 'I was on a stop and the guy gave me a phony name, but it took me two seconds to figure out who he really was.' "

Poway sheriff's Sgt. Chuck Battle had good things to say about his pocket computer - and the new abilities it gives him - as well.

"I wish I had it 30 years ago," he said. "The biggest shortcoming in doing law enforcement on the street is not knowing who you're talking to. The ability to be able to pull up a driver's license photo or a booking photo to verify who a person is couldn't be more important."

- Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.