Old Westbury police using GPS darts to track down speeding cars

Old Westbury’s hidden driveways and narrow, winding, tree-lined roads make it dangerous for its police officers to chase unwelcome guests like burglars or car thieves who target the village and other Long Island communities.

Police Chief Stuart Cameron, who took over the 25-officer department in January, says he is constantly reminding cops not to engage in high-speed chases because they endanger the lives of officers and the public.

Enter the StarChase GPS launcher, a police tool right out of a James Bond movie.

The device, mounted on the front of a police car, uses a high-powered air compressor to fire a GPS tracker, or “dart,” at fleeing vehicles. The cylinder-shaped dart, coated on top with a powerful adhesive, sticks to a fleeing vehicle, allowing police to track it without the need for a high-speed chase.

Chases are infrequent in Old Westbury, but an officer was injured in January after a suspect in an allegedly stolen vehicle rammed his patrol car, officials said.

Cameron says Old Westbury, one of the safest communities in the nation, has become the first on Long Island to equip its police cars with the technology.

“I can’t deter someone from a life of crime,” said Cameron, the former Suffolk police acting commissioner. “But I can deter them from a life of crime in Old Westbury Village.”

There were seven violent crimes committed in Old Westbury between 2017 and 2021, according to New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services statistics. Five of those — a robbery and four aggravated assaults — occurred in 2018. Property crimes spiked in 2019, with 47 burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts reported. Property crimes dropped to 20 in 2020, and to 17 in 2021.

Old Westbury’s GPS launcher is the latest example of how Long Island’s smaller police departments use technology, mostly ShotSpotters and license plate readers, to complement their officer ranks. 

Cameron said police pursuit policies have changed dramatically since he became a police officer in 1985. In those days, he said, cops would chase anybody for virtually any reason. But the rules have come much more restrictive due to concerns about injuries and fatalities, he said. 

“In many cases, the suspects are young adults who are just afraid of getting caught,” Cameron said. “As law enforcement, we don’t want to hurt anybody, certainly not the police officers or the public, and even the suspect. We want to bring people to justice without injury.”

Old Westbury officers will use StarChase with tire deflation devices that can be placed along the village’s roads. The deflation devices have hollow spikes that allow air to escape slowly, avoiding blowouts that might cause a fleeing driver to lose control of the vehicle. 

“Very often they are tree-lined,” Cameron said of Old Westbury’s roads, “so if you deploy a tire deflation device across the roadway at an appropriate location, there is really no way to get around it.” 

Old Westbury officers began using the GPS launchers in February, following a training session by a StarChase representative.

The darts fired by the devices, which have been mounted on all six of Old Westbury's patrol cars, contain GPS trackers that send data about the vehicle's location to a web-based portal.

The department's dispatchers are always logged in to the portal and can track a tagged vehicle as it drives through the village and beyond. The portal also can be accessed by patrol cops via cellphones and in-car computers. Officers can use GPS layers to access traffic conditions or identify landmarks along a fleeing vehicle's route.

Trevor Fischbach, president of Virginia Beach-based StarChase, said police in more than 30 states are using the devices. The company also has clients in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Israel and Canada. Nassau police declined to comment when asked about the feasibility of using StarChase in their jurisdictions. Suffolk said the department is always evaluating new technology.

The StarChase GPS devices travel through the air too slowly to hurt bystanders, and Cameron said a company representative caught a dart in his bare hand during a recent training. 

“This tool gives the good guys more time and better control for a safer outcome,” Fishbach said. “There is no loss of life and no significant property damage.”

The cost to equip Old Westbury’s six patrol cars with the StarChase GPS device was $36,000, according to the chief, who said the funds to pay for the program comes from the village's $7 million budget.

"We have to have some means, if they are here to commit a crime, to stop them," Cameron said of the out-of-towners who commit most of the village's burglaries and auto thefts. "If they are going to just drive away and we can't chase them and they get away … We have to hold these people accountable."