The Salina Police Department has a new high tech tool.

In January, the town council approved spending $4,500 plus $125 for software for two mobile computers to be used in police cars. The computers, installed about two months ago, help officers run information on car tags, identification of people and mapping. The mobile cop computer shares information with other police cruisers in the area for backup, such as in a chase. According to Officer Dale Tillotson, a mobile cop unit cuts down on the dispatcher’s duties at the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office from Salina by 60 percent. One reason is because the mobile cop computer goes through the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, which is the nerve center for this system in Oklahoma.

Recently, the Salina Police were able to locate a two-year-old drowning victim through the mapping system in the mobile computer. The child was drowning on the west side of Pryor. The Salina Police were not involved in the actual rescue, but they were able to locate the child.

Salina Police were able to determine a car pulled over for a routine traffic stop had been stolen. Police Chief Vince Stoyanowski said the motorist was unaware the car was stolen. The motorist had legally purchased the vehicle in Arkansas, but it had been stolen in Dallas.

The reason Salina police were able to locate the pedigree of the vehicle was due to the mobile computer that has access not only to license tags but also the vehicle information number, using data from all 50 states.

The motorists was able to square things away with the Dallas Police department. When asked about Canadian licenses, Stoyanowski said the mobile computer cannot pull up that information; officers would need to go through InterPol (international police) for that information.

Recently, Doyle said he picked up a man along the road who told him he had just had an argument with his girlfriend. Doyle ran the man’s information on the computer and found he was, in fact, a runaway.

Missing Children alerts known as “Amber Alerts” still go though Mayes County Sheriff’s dispatchers.

“It gives us a lot of information we wouldn’t get being a small department,”  Doyle said.