A software system that was blamed for helping a California dad evade prosecution on child sex abuse allegations has also failed to perform basic functions for law enforcement in at least three different states, according to officials and court documents reviewed by NBC News.
Officials who have used Spillman Technologies’ software in California, Colorado and Texas allege it has crashed in the midst of 911 calls, forcing dispatchers to frantically take notes by hand while emergencies were unfolding. They say it has failed to provide the fastest routes for traveling to the scenes of emergencies, costing precious time for first responders and those they’re trying to help. And they say it has lost police reports about alleged crimes, sometimes as officers were in the midst of writing them.
Spillman Technologies, which was acquired by Motorola Solutions in 2016, provides dispatch and records management software systems to more than 1,000 agencies nationwide, according to a 2016 press release from Motorola. Officials say that while those services are crucial for law enforcement agencies, the software has failed to deliver them as promised.
Eleven spokespeople for Motorola Solutions did not respond to phone calls and emails from NBC News containing a dozen detailed questions summarizing the allegations in this story.
A lost allegation of child sex abuse
Sgt. Rob Garnero, a spokesperson for the Redding, California police department, last month blamed Spillman for losing a 2018 allegation that Ryan Rovito, 34, had “several hundred” child sex abuse images on his computer, which authorities discovered after his ex-wife reported finding “some photos of prepubescent juveniles on his computer,” Garnero said. How exactly the case got lost within the software, though, remains unclear.
But Redding Police Chief Bill Schueller said that it was unclear whether Rovito’s initial case was lost due to a problem with Spillman — which he said the department had just…
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