068: SafeEncounter In Action: How The Program is Helping the Palatine, IL Police Department Reunite Families

Steve Dale:  

Hello. My name is Steve Dale. I’m a Senior Account Executive with ImageSoft and I’m gonna be hosting today’s podcast. I’m very excited to introduce Deputy Chief Bryce Baker and Officer Eddie Christudhas from the Palatine Police Department. They were one of our first SafeEncounter customers.  

So welcome guys. 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker: 

Thanks, Steve. Glad to be here. 

Officer Eddie Christudhas:  

Thanks Steve. Nice to meet you.  

Steve Dale: 

Awesome. Well, let’,s let’s jump right in, in, in talking about SafeEncounter. I’m curious how you would describe the SafeEncounter program to, to someone who’s unfamiliar with it? 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

I would describe the program as a, as a very intuitive solution for us to help keep track of people who will wander, whether that might be elderly, people who are suffering from schizophrenia or some sort of dementia who have been known to walk away. And then they, they usually won’t have ID with them so we can help identify them or could also be like children or kids who have autism. 

Or some other disabilities that might make it more difficult for the police in an encounter to be able to figure out who they are and where they came from and how we can get them back home or get them back to the people who are, who can safely take care of them. 

Steve Dale: 

Yeah, that’s great. I know in, in talking with you guys in the past, I know you’ve been doing quite a bit of community outreach to try and get more people signed up in, in your community. What makes somebody a, a good candidate for this program? 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

Yeah, it’d be great for anybody who, especially for family members or like schoolteachers or caregivers who are working with people who are suffering from these you know, problems in life where they’re not able to communicate well. And again, as, as they, as they go to wander. 

So, as we’re reaching out to other police departments to tell them about the SafeEncounter module, we’re going to the school districts, cuz each of our school districts here in town has a special ed program where they have kids who suffer from autism and other things like that. But also, we’re going to like to retirement homes to speak with them. So, cause we, sometimes we have, we have three or four of those in town and occasionally we’ll have someone wander off from there. And as long as usually don’t get too far, it’s easy for us to find or where they came from, but it’s not always that. And we border numerous other communities and people could come in from those communities and wander into our town.  

So, we wanna be able to them out, to help give these people back to where they belong. 

Steve Dale: 

Sure. Yeah, that’s great 

Officer Eddie Christudhas:  

For us. one of the great successes here has been really pushing the program to our officers. I have been on calls where, you know, you come across a resident, a certain situation, and we have officers now that say, “Hey, this would be a good person”. 

So, the family might not have heard about SafeEncounter, but now that our officers all know about it, they kind of pick the most tech savvy guy and say, “Hey, help this family get set up” and we’ll get that that citizen kind of put into the system right there, then on the spot. 

Steve Dale: 

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. So, I guess to, to backtrack just a little bit what made you guys interested in, in SafeEncounter at, at Palatine? I mean, I think you had maybe tried something in the past, but just curious. What, what made you interested in the program? 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

Yeah, so over 20 years ago, we started a thing called a Project Help, which stood for helping every lost person. So, this was a very, a very difficult paper process that we had. So much, like Eddie was saying, like, we encountered somebody on the street who would now qualify for SafeEncounter before we would have to write a report on that person. And then we had a separate paper form. We’d fill out the document. What we knew about this person, who their family members are, what their phone numbers were, addresses, all that information to help figure out where, to who, who do we call the next time we encounter this person. Then we’d file that away. And then we’d try to, then we had to go back to the family and say, “Hey, can we get a picture of ‘them” if we do that, we’d put’ them in there but like anything it’s paper. And so, we have a, we have a binder full of hundreds of these things, and each year we go, we’d have to go through that and sort through them we would we’d run checks on and say, is this person even still alive? Or is it time to take him out of the book? They still live in Palatine? And then sort through there. And so that doesn’t and very time-consuming process for our officers to be doing.  

Officer Eddie Christudhas:  

You know, in addition as a patrol officer on the street, I think one of the most difficult things about our old system was it was a PDF file on our computers. If we had, you know, a 12-year-old, we had to sift through You know, 20, 30, 40, depending on how many people were in, in this in this file and try to find that person. 

So, we couldn’t sort, we couldn’t search, we couldn’t filter out. One thing I love about SafeEncounter is if I’ve got an elderly female, I can put in female, it’s the search, you know, box. I can actually get a map of people in that area. So, I don’t have to look, you know, our it’s not a huge town, but it’s, it’s large enough. 

So, I can kinda zoom into a certain area and see all the people that have been entered in SafeEncounter. So, it’s a huge time saver compared to how we were using it before. 

Steve Dale:  

Yeah, really amazing that you guys have been, you know, had a program that had been going on for so long, and this is the next iteration of it. 

So, it’s great to hear. 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

So yeah, and like the go on Eddie said too, he’s had a PDF file and that’s something newer that we’ve done the last couple years that we were able to, you know, convert those we’d scan in all these paper files, convert them PDFs, upload them into the hard drive that’s accessible in our squad card computers. But before that, the officers had to come into the station. So, you have one guy standing out there on the street with the person, the other guy would come in here and go sifting through a binder one by one, try to find the right people. This, this kind of looks like that, that kid or that this elderly man.  

So that’s to then go back out there. So, it, it took a lot of time. It took multiple people off the street. Whereas you have a safe encounter. Now we can just get it all done right there on our terminals, within internet connection. Do all that searching, filtering. 

Steve Dale: 

Yeah. Perfect. So, so Officer Eddie, this, this question is, is more for you. But it wasn’t that long after you went live with SafeEncounter that you guys had, what you were calling a save. Can you sort of describe what that situation looked and felt like for you? 

Officer Eddie Christudhas: 

I can, you know, I’m, I’m kind of the resident tech guy here on patrol. So, I was the guy that I was referring to in the other question. And you know, I just was very curious about how this was gonna work out, you know, was it really gonna be something beneficial for us?  

So, we had an elderly female, I believe she was in her seventies. This was in May of 2022. Her husband was all a few years older than her. She actually had left her residence somewhere around 8:30 PM the previous night. He didn’t know she left we kind of pieced that all together. And then at 6:00 AM he figures out that she’s not in the apartment? He then waits a couple of hours to. So, we finally track her down. She didn’t, she hadn’t gone too far. But she suffered from dementia. And so, she had no idea where she was, we were able to track her down and this was a textbook case for somebody that needed to be entered into, into SafeEncounter. 

So, I helped them, you know, and that’s the beauty of it, right? Like whatever device they have, if they’ve got a mobile phone, if they’ve got a desktop, we can help them on their devices. And I’ve had cases where I’ll actually input the information on mine, and they just have to confirm an email. So, it’s very easy to use. 

So, we put her in the system and that was that. And I wanna say it was maybe 10 or 12 days later. We get a 9 1 1 call. And it was interesting because they described her as an elderly female that was inside someone else’s apartment. And I thought, oh man, like this kind of was the same area of the previous call, the person I put into SafeEncounterand again, with the old system, I would’ve 

to call back to the radio desk. They would’ve to look through, you know, maybe a paper file or a PDF. But here I was able to get on my smartphone open up SafeEncounter and I had the, the husband’s phone number right there. Ready to go. I didn’t have to look through our record management system or anything like that. 

While I was driving to the call Bluetooth of course. I called the, the husband. I said, “Hey, is your wife around?” He again, hadn’t realized she had left. And I said, well, here’s exactly where she is. Meet me over there. And by the time the police arrived, the husband was already there. And, and we reunited them. 

So, I became a believer after that call.  

Steve Dale: 

Yeah, that’s, that’s fantastic. And you know, our vision for a solution like this it, it feels so good for that vision to actually come to fruition and, you know, constituents at the end of the day are the ones who are, you know, getting the most help out of this. So that that’s great. 

Appreciate, you know, kind of hearing about that. 

Officer Eddie Christudhas:  

And I’ll tell you, Steve, like the, the normal protocol for us is if we didn’t have that husband’s contact information. And she wasn’t able to really tell us who she was or where she lived is we’d call the fire department; we’d have her transported into the hospital.  

And then it’s kind of just a waiting game and a lot of, you know, kind of detective work. It has to happen for us, us to make these the reunifications so a huge, huge, yeah. 

Steve Dale:  

So, you know, this was 10 minutes of time, you know, versus however many hours it takes and a lot more folks involved. So, you know, it, that sounds like it, it worked really well in this situation, and it seems, it seems pretty self-explanatory why SafeEncounter is beneficial for the community. And you guys have alluded to this a little bit in some of the answers to questions before, but is there anything else that you’ve discovered on the, the sort of the police side of things that, that makes this a, a valuable tool, and a valuable program?  

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker: 

Yeah, so. In the modern age of policing, we’re always looking for any vehicle that we can to get into public relations and get into our communities to talk to them about something and provide a new service to them.  

That is, you. Pretty, you know, an easy lift, but it can, can show a lot of value. So, this is a, a SafeEncounter has provided us a conversation to have with different groups, civic groups, schools, retirement homes, to show 

that we’re out there being part of our community and say, here’s something that benefits you.” It doesn’t cost you anything to do it, but it’s gonna be very helpful for you and those situations when things don’t go right. And that that’s a huge PR win for us as a police department in today’s age of policing to have that kind of solution to it for us to show to our public, to show to our, our village council, to show, to, you know, just residents and business owners. 

Like, “Hey, we’re out here working for them”. It’s not just always about enforcement, the police being the police, but we’re not here. We wanna help, you know, get people to where they need to be. And SafeEncounter is a perfect example of that. 

Steve Dale:  

Yeah. And I think you, you, you sort of addressed some of the, the last question that I had for you guys, but I’ll ask it anyway. And that’s, you know, why, why should other districts, why should other agencies other villages, other cities consider this for their, for themselves? 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

Yeah. So, like we said, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve talked to some other law enforcement executives who I know. And like, they, they all have somewhat of a similar version of this at some, at some level. And they may not as robust as we had it as far as the paper process goes, but we we’re all struggling with this thing. 

And I mean, there’s so much mental illness on the rise now we’ve seen that through legislation that’s been passing Illinois. Obviously mental health is a very important topic now, not just for the health of police officers, but the health of our community and how are police interacting with people with mental health issues. 

So, this is a great solution to try to bridge that gap. Like I say, in the, in the first week that we turned this on, we already, we had four calls that week. Where we went there, like even as the administration, we have our radios on our offices. We heard the calls come. That sounds like an Encounter thing. So, we’re, we’re contacting the watch commander. Like, hey, make sure the patrolman knew about, know about this and the patrolman embraced it. Like, well, this is great, cuz they didn’t have to fill out a piece of paper. Now, all they had to do was provide a website and just do a little bit of follow up with that resident to say, “Hey, let’s get your child in here”,”let’s get your father into this program”. And, you know, it’s a win for everybody. I think actually the first person we put in there was one of our officers’ lives in town and his parents live in town and his, his father has some issues, and he was actually the first person that we put in there just in case he went missing. 

Officer Eddie Christudhas: 

I just think, you know, most of us got into this job because we wanted to help people. Right. And we wanted to serve the community and I’ve witnessed it firsthand. Just the anxiety and you know, the, the chaos that exists in a family when you have a person that wanders off. And where did they go? Where could they be? 

And they’re trying to, in that moment, give us a, you know, a picture of them or any kind of information. And I remember one, one of the first calls that I went to, not the one I described earlier, but a different one where I was able to just kind of present the program and say, “Hey, this is all you have to do.” And just seeing that anxiety just roll off of this daughter’s face, just say, “oh my gosh. So next time this happens, it doesn’t have to be this chaotic”. The police are already gonna have all the information and them being able to update it as well is a huge thing. I think is very helpful. 

Steve Dale: 

Yeah. 

Chief Deputy Bryce Baker:  

When I first promoted a Sergeant, I was on midnights and we had a gentleman that went, we found on the street, and we could all get his first name out of him. And we probably tied up four or five officers were searching through every database, trying to track down this guy’s name, approximate age of, of, you know, date of birth, you know, we’re knocking on people’s door at three o’clock in the morning, trying to find out like, “Hey, is this John Smith belonging to you?” 

And no, we actually were waking up. We’re calling police departments, other places they were walking, they were waking up their residence, trying to find out, turn out this person of like three doors down from where we were. But if we had had this solution and we had gotten that into the hands of the family members, before that we would’ve had this thing solved in a matter of moments and saved ourselves a lot of time and manpower issues and waking up residents and making people angry at us. 

But cuz like Eddie said, we’re just trying to help somebody. But your resources are limited when you can’t communicate well with somebody who doesn’t have the ability to communicate with us. 

Steve Dale: 

Sure. Yeah, no, I appreciate those stories. It, it, it’s fun to hear you know, Officer Eddie just mentioned this, you know, the, the lighting up of a daughter’s face realizing the situation for her parents may not feel as bad, the, if it happens again, so that those are, those are awesome things to hear. 

Guys, I really appreciate you, you being with us today. taking time out, appreciate your service. It, it’s awesome to see how SafeEncounter has been used in Palatine. Hopefully others around you will recognize the benefit as well. And if anyone does wanna learn anything more about SafeEncounter, you can head over to safe encounter.org. 

And then, you know, for anyone listening. Stay tuned. There’s gonna be a lot more information about Palatine, the successes they’ve had. So, we appreciate your time.