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Columbia police demonstrate Blue Team software used to record force, complaints and attachments
Summary
At a Citizens Police Review Board meeting, CPD staff demonstrated Blue Team, the department’s administrative software for logging uses of force, complaints, body-worn camera links and attachments, and explained how entries generate case numbers and are discoverable.
Clint Sinclair of the Columbia Police Department demonstrated Blue Team software to the Citizens Police Review Board and explained how the department uses the system to open administrative files for uses of force, complaints, misconduct reports and other policy-required events.
Sinclair said officers create a Blue Team incident that generates a case number; when there is a corresponding criminal report, the criminal case number or CAD dispatch number can be linked. He showed the board the entry fields for incident date and time, location, type of incident (for example, "use of force," "complaint," "background" and others) and specific data such as lighting, weather, citizen injuries, and details about force used.
Board members asked about confidentiality and discoverability. Sinclair said Blue Team entries can include attachments such as body-worn camera footage, internal forms and the complaint itself, and Becky Thompson confirmed during the session that Blue Team records are discoverable in criminal proceedings.
Sinclair described operational practices the board asked about: when more than one officer uses force in a single incident, the department creates one Blue Team record for the incident and lists all involved officers rather than generating multiple separate incident numbers. He noted the system also stores a department-maintained record of citizens who have previously been the subject of use-of-force entries; those individuals are created in Blue Team only if they have been subject to such an entry previously.
During the demonstration, Sinclair showed that Blue Team requires specific administrative data (for example, taser serial numbers and probe counts when a taser is used) and has fields to record witness information, injuries, officer roles and supervisor review assignments. He said entries start the internal review process and then route to supervisors for follow-up.
Board members said seeing the system was helpful and reassured them that detailed information, including body-worn camera attachments, is captured. The board asked staff to make the training site or a demonstration available again if members wanted further orientation.
No board action was taken; the demonstration was informational.
