ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith insisted crime has decreased significantly since he took over in 2022, and lately his new app has continued to drive down the numbers.
“Homicides are down 40%, shootings are down across the city on average, about 30%, burglaries are down 27%, so we’re seeing some great results from the hard work of our officers and the great work of our community coming together to let us know what’s going on,” Smith said. “I think a good portion of the app can be attributed to that because people see what’s going on. They’re like, oh, these officers aren’t where they should be, let me call it in to help them to be where they should be.”
Smith said the new app, launched in November, has already been downloaded more than 2,000 times and opened more than 18,000 times.
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“It’s something when I became chief I really wanted to do because I heard people talk about when I was the deputy chief how hard it is to go to a website and then figure out where you need to go and navigate it,” Smith said. “And the current trend is apps. You look at an app, you can easily see where everything is. You can see in-progress calls. You can see our calendar, what’s going on, what community events are going on. You can see, oh, I want to find out about robberies or burglaries in my neighborhood. You can go right to the Open Data Initiative. Pull that up and see what crime is like.”
Smith and his officers regularly attend community meetings across Orlando and teach attendees how to download and use the app.
“The biggest part of it for me is the In-Progress Calls, because every one of my meetings I go to I hand out my business card, my number, and people call me and a lot of times they’re like, hey, chief, there’s six police cars on my street, they’ve been there for about an hour,” Smith said. “Why are they there? Now I can just go to the app and see in-progress calls.”
Karon Cannon, a senior who founded her own community association at her assisted living facility after several car burglaries in the parking lot, said her favorite app feature is the in-progress calls.
“We were excited because right on the app we can see the calls because we’re on a corner so we can hear police sirens and so forth and you can see the helicopters going over but we didn’t have any idea what was going on,” Cannon said. “Now we can just go on the app and like, oh wow, okay, well, it’s not in our neighborhood, so we can calm down.”
Chief Smith said the In-Progress Calls page brings an unexpected benefit for responding officers.
“That’s a big help to us there because they’ll [citizens] call in, hey, we had shots fired over here, you guys are 10 houses over when it came from over here,” Smith said. “They’re not in the right place. And it helps us out.”
Karon Cannon said she and her neighbors use the Crime Reporting page to notify the police department of non-violent crimes.
“So if somebody’s, like, breaking into our cars, we could have reported that right here on the app,” Cannon said. “It’s all in one place and it’s easy. Accessible. We need it with seniors.”
And they appreciate the Events Calendar page inside the app so they know where and when the Chief will be attending meetings.
“Every quarter, I do community meetings for all six of our districts and we really push the app out,” Smith said. “We show people how to download the app and they actually do a great job with it. And we’re seeing it just steadily rise after each of our meetings.”
You can download the OPD app here:
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