Word: prowled
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...house whose owner was away on vacation, he unknowingly tripped a trigger that set the diverter to silently dialing the police. When the cops answered the phone, the diverter sounded a coded buzz. By checking their key, the police could identify the source of the call, soon had a prowl...
...looked as if a trap had been set for one of the nation's ten most wanted criminals. Lurking beside a crowded New York City parkway one noon last week were four busloads of police brass, 125 newsmen and a dozen patrolmen, including six cops in two prowl cars casing every passing motorist...
Linked by radio to the computer, police in one prowl car simply call off a sampling of passing license numbers. As a teletypist feeds the numbers into the computer, it compares them with the stored list. When it "hits" a wanted number, a bell rings, the number is automatically typed out, and the teletypist radios ahead to a second prowl car parked some 900 ft. down the road. The whole thing takes about 7 sec.-ample time for the second car to swoop on the prey...
Swatting a Gnat. So far, the main drawback is the legal requirement of a judge-signed warrant for each scofflaw. In a big city, no prowl car can possibly lug enough warrants. But police need no warrant to arrest anyone whom they reasonably believe to have committed a felony...
...signs and traffic lights. As the 400 TV cameras monitor every passing license plate, the analyzers encode the digits and the computer compares them with the wanted list. The whole thing takes less than one second -time enough to trip an alarm back at the camera and send lurking prowl cars into action...