By Susan Redden

sredden@joplinglobe.com

CARTHAGE, Mo. — A federal grant of nearly $850,000 will help launch a wireless, information-sharing system to serve law-enforcement agencies in three counties.

Police and sheriff department officials from throughout the region met Thursday at the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department offices near Carthage to discuss the system and to thank U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt for funding that is making the project possible.

After the session, Blunt sat inside a snow-covered sheriff’s car to get a demonstration of some of the technology that will be used in the system, called the Cornerstone Regional Justice Information System.

Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn noted that the grant is in addition to funding of nearly $700,000 for technology the Sheriff’s Department has received since 2001.

“That helped us get started, but this grant enables us to launch the Cornerstone project that’s been in the making for three or four years,” he said. “This will give us a decisive edge in fighting crime.”

Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said the grant will help add mobile data terminals to cars used by his department and will allow information-sharing among departments.

“It will give us what we need to work together to fight the crooks,” he said.

Blunt told the room filled with law-enforcement officers that he believes the federal government should support “projects like this, that are regional projects matched with local money.”

“You’re developing your own system rather than looking for a federal solution,” he said. “It puts you all, literally, on the same wavelength.”

Jasper County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Merriman, who helped develop the system, said it will allow local law-enforcement agencies to contribute and share information, and will link with a state system that is being developed.

He said the computer software that will be used will allow agencies to contribute and use data, but maintain control of their own information.

Lane Roberts, Joplin police chief, said a similar system was in use in the Pacific Northwest, where he worked before moving to Joplin.

“It was very beneficial because it made so much more information available to law enforcement,” he said.