Fishers Police Captain Ed Gebhart noticed something when addressing a group of his patrol officers…they were all on their cell phones just before the meeting started.  He wondered whether he could harness that cell phone technology in a way to help his officers and the public.  He reached out to John Wechsler, founder of Launch Fishers, who hooked him up with a weekly meeting of app code geeks, which led him to Auri Rahimzadeh.

Their collaboration over a year and a half led to the FishersCrimeWatch App.  It works like this….you see something that is not an immediate emergency, but looks suspicious.  You can send a picture and a short text message to police immediately through this app.  That allows a police officer to read your message and look at your picture.  That is immediate, invaluable information to an officer in deciding how to follow up on a lead like that.

“Thirty of our police officers have been trained and will begin using the tool on patrol today. So much time and effort has gone into it and I’m thankful of Auri’s partnership and commitment to serve the community,” said Captain Gebhart.

“We must be vigilant in constantly evolving and always seeking ways to be better for our community. This app is a smart solution that will lead to improved community for our residents, and I could not be more proud of FPD for this achievement,” said Fishes Mayor Scott Fadness.

Rahimzadeh donated his time to write the code for this app.

Here’s a video of the news conference (sorry about the wind interference on the sound