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With all of the federal, state, and city funding that was diverted to security in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 2001, New York’s guys and gals in blue should have the most up-to-date technology and be the best equipped in the nation. However, we learn that in some police precincts, like the 104th Precinct in Ridgewood, technological progress seems to have ground to halt and is permanently suck in 1986.
At the 104th, e-mail service is spotty at best and goes down for months or even a year at a time. Like many other precincts, the 104th is still waiting to be rewired to support modern e-mail systems. They’re also waiting for the city to splurge on some new computers.
Currently, roll calls are still logged on a computer from the early 1980s that uses a 5-inch floppy disk drive.
Since the e-mail is out of service most of the time, you might try calling the precinct directly. Unfortunately, the precinct offices also lack voice mail, call forwarding, and call waiting (apparently this situation remained the same after a $100,000 communications “upgrade” only three years ago).
Officers and staff attempt to make due with personal laptops, mobile phones, and answering machines brought in from home, but most of the offices in the precinct remain without any kind of telephone answering service and with outdated computers.
