Police to give out bottles of crime-fighting ‘SmartWater’
WEST PALM BEACH — Amid the stark white walls, hard benches and unidentified, unsettling aromas that define the holding cells at the West Palm Beach Police headquarters, a wall lamp seems out of place. It looks more like one of those bluish outdoor lights that zap mosquitoes into oblivion.
Every person who comes in for the usual pat-down also will come under the glare of that light. And maybe a dot, or many dots, magically will light up on the arrestee’s clothes. Or maybe on the laptop or bicycle or handgun the person had when police nabbed him or her.
That will be the SmartWater CSI.
West Palm Beach is about to become the next city in Palm Beach County to start deploying the substance, which can be either painted or sprayed onto items, leaving a telltale mark as identifiable as a fingerprint.
“It puts an extra serial number on your property,” Police Chief Sara Mooney said Monday. “A criminal might think twice before breaking into a house that has this material inside.”
In the next month, West Palm Beach police will distribute several bottles of SmartWater in selected neighborhoods. Giveaways are set for Tuesday, Sept. 29 and Oct. 27.
Police used $20,000 from a federal grant to buy 500 bottles, along with a few dozen identification kits and warning signs for residents to post, Buxton said.
People also can buy the
substance themselves. A bottle costs about $40 and can mark up to 90 items. The material can stay on something for up to five years, Mooney said.
SmartWater, created two decades ago in the U.K., already is in use in about 1 million homes in the United States, its maker says.
The substance is invisible until a special light is shined on it. Traces of it can be sent to a lab at Florida International University outside Miami, where its embedded code can be identified, crime prevention Officer Seth Buxton said Monday.
He said banks could use it to mark money during a bank robbery, and police or businesses could squirt it on a fleeing robber. Buxton said it could take weeks for the substance to get out of skin.
Riviera Beach started using SmartWater in July 2013, and Boynton Beach later that year. The Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office gave away SmartWater in suburban Palm Beach Gardens in 2014. Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale police have been using it for years.
Within a month of introducing it, Riviera Beach police said they had arrested a 39-year old man who broke into a car that had been baited with items and was sprayed with SmartWater as he stepped out. Under the ultraviolet light, the stuff lit up all over his neck, arms and clothes, an arrest report said.
The SmartWater is the latest in a string of technological advances that are helping crime fighting. In about 2010, Riviera Beach introduced a $300,000 ShotSpotter sound detection system. Paid for with federal grant money, it zeroes in on the location of gunfire and notifies police immediately after a gun goes off. West Palm Beach is putting a similar system in place.
“It’s awesome,” Mayor Jeri Muoio said. “Our department is using high-tech methods to address crime.”
She said if the program does well, the city might consider putting money in its budget for more of the product.