Background: The Challenge of Fragmented Information

Castle Rock PD was operating in an environment where critical information existed across numerous systems,  jurisdictions, and databases. Officers, dispatchers, investigators, and specialized units often needed to piece together context from multiple sources before making decisions. 

For a growing agency committed to proactive policing and strong community relationships, leadership recognized that responders needed a faster way to understand the people, locations, vehicles, and histories associated with calls for service. They were also looking for a solution that could extend beyond investigative units or analysts, providing value to every role across the department.

Key Pain Points

• Officers and desk personnel spent hours searching through multiple systems
• Critical context was often missed or delayed before arriving on-scene
• Investigative work required manual pattern recognition
• Limited access to full data tools for non-sworn roles (dispatch, analysts, PDOs, etc)

Strategy: Building a Department-Wide Information Layer

Castle Rock became one of the early adopters of ForceMetrics Velocity and approached implementation with a simple objective: make critical data easily accessible to everyone who needs it. The department embraced Velocity as a shared operational platform across all roles:

• Patrol & community policing units
• Dispatch
• Investigations
• Command Staff
• School Resource Officers (SROs)
• Records & support services

This broad deployment allowed information to move more freely throughout the organization and helped create a common operating picture regardless of assignment or rank. Commander Todd Brown describes Castle Rock’s approach as integrating Velocity across departments to bring “better context, clarity and confidence to every call.”

Goals in Implementing ForceMetrics Velocity

1. Operational Efficiency: Reduce time spent searching for information
2. Improved Situational Awareness: Ensure officers arrive on the scene with full context
3. Cross-Role Accessibility: Extend usage beyond analysts to patrol, dispatch, records, and command staff
4. Proactive Policing: Identify patterns and connections sooner

A powerful Tool for School Resource Officers (SROs)

One of the most compelling examples of Velocity’s impact comes from Castle Rock’s School Resource Officers. Officer Scott Gillespie and Sergeant Paul Longuevan explained how Velocity has become a surprisingly helpful tool in supporting the Safe2Tell program, an anonymous reporting system for students at school, across Douglas County Public Schools. School-based policing presents unique challenges as warning signs, behavioral concerns, family issues, prior contacts, and community information often exist across multiple systems and agencies. Velocity helps surface those connections quicker.

Instead of conducting multiple searches across disconnected databases, SROs can rapidly develop a fuller picture of individuals, incidents, locations, and associated contacts. This allows officers to better assess threats, identify patterns, coordinate resources, and intervene earlier when concerns arise. The Velocity platform provides valuable context that supports not only law enforcement decisions, but also student support, welfare checks, and collaborative problem-solving with schools and families.

Adoption Across the Department

A recurring theme throughout the interview series is that Velocity is not viewed as a specialty platform reserved for a few power users. Castle Rock PD leadership emphasized the importance of making data useful for everyone. Whether an employee is responding to calls, supporting investigations, managing records, engaging with the community, or overseeing operations, Velocity provides a common source of information and insight. Instead of requiring highly technical expertise or specialized training, it delivers relevant information in a way that aligns with day-to-day workflows.

Expanding Visibility Through Regional Data Sharing

ForceMetrics Velocity gives Castle Rock PD visibility far beyond its own jurisdiction. Through ForceMetrics' regional data-sharing network, officers have access to millions of additional records from neighboring cities and counties, helping them uncover critical context that may not exist within Castle Rock's local systems.

Impact

• Better Situational Awareness: Personnel across the agency can quickly gather context about people, locations, vehicles, and prior incidents before taking action. This allows officers to approach situations with greater confidence and understanding.
• Faster Decision-Making: By reducing the need to search multiple systems manually, Velocity helps personnel spend less time looking for information and more time acting on it. The platform surfaces relevant connections that might otherwise remain hidden.
• Enhanced School Safety Efforts: SROs can more effectively support threat assessments, student welfare concerns, and Safe2Tell investigations by quickly accessing broader context and identifying connections that might otherwise remain hidden.
• Strong Cross-Department Collaboration: Because employees across divisions are working from the same information platform, collaboration becomes easier and more consistent. Personnel are able to share context and coordinate responses with greater efficiency.
• Regional Awareness Through Data Sharing: As part of Colorado’s growing network of participating agencies, Castle Rock officers benefit from information that extends beyond jurisdictional boundaries, helping them identify connections that might otherwise be missed.

• The Power of Numbers:
• • ~45% of the department uses the ForceMetrics Velocity Platform per week, and over 65% per month
  • • Of the users, 45-50% are medium-to-high users across CRPD patrol, command staff, SROs, dispatch, investigations, and records.
  • Alone, Castle Rock PD has access to approximately 3.2 million records, but with data sharing in the ForceMetrics Velocity platform, they have easy access to over 29.5 million records across their county and neighboring cities in Colorado.

Voices from Castle Rock PD

“From patrol, to records, to command staff, this is what it looks like when data works for the whole agency and beyond.” — Commander Todd Brown

“Tools that surface public safety data are critical to my success in maintaining community safety and providing safety and support to students in Castle Rock’s schools.” — Sergeant Paul Longuevan

This case study is based on live interviews with Commander Todd Brown, Officer Scott Gillespie, Detective Darsell Polite, Sergeant Paul Longuevan, and Kelly Fiordalis (Dispatch). Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.