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Mesa Police to replace online reporting with AI‑guided web system; no voice component
Summary
Deputy Police Director Pat Phelps told the council the Police Department will replace its decade‑old online reporting tool with a vendor-aligned, AI-driven online system that guides users through incident reports and accepts attachments; the system has no voice interface.
Deputy Police Director Pat Phelps briefed the City Council on an upgrade to Mesa Police Department’s online reporting system, describing it as a replacement of an existing capability that the department has offered to the public for more than a decade.
“The police department has had online reporting for probably more than a decade now,” Phelps said. He said the city is replacing the current vendor with a new vendor that aligns with the city’s records management system and that the product uses conversational AI to guide citizens: “It’s sort of an AI driven product that'll ask questions to a citizen to help better collect the information we need to file the report.”
Councilmember Adams asked whether the tool has a voice component; Phelps replied, “It is an online thing. There is no voice component to this. You can do it either on a PC or on your phone.” Staff also said the platform can accept file attachments and that the exact attachment types will be determined during the configuration process once a contract is executed.
Staff said the upgrade will improve frontline categorization of reports, reduce review time for staff, and produce data that is better organized for FBI reporting. No formal action or vote occurred during the briefing. Council members asked staff to provide follow-up reporting on contract renewal terms and earlier renewal cadence for the online reporting service.
Why it matters: better front-end data collection can speed response workflows and improve the quality of statute-level reporting to state and federal systems. The system’s lack of a voice interface was explicitly clarified at the council’s request.
