NYPD partners with a high-tech detective: Algorithm helps spot crime patterns

When a syringe-wielding drill thief tried sticking up a Home Depot near Yankee Stadium, police figured out quickly that it wasn't a one-off. A man had also used a syringe a few weeks earlier while stealing a drill at another Home Depot 7 miles (11 kilometers) south in Manhattan. The match, though, wasn't made by an officer looking through files. It was done by pattern-recognition computer software developed by the New York Police Department. The software, dubbed Patternizr, allows crime analysts stationed in each of the department's 77 precincts to compare robberies, larcenies and thefts to hundreds of thousands of crimes logged in the NYPD's database, transforming their hunt for crime patterns with the click of a button.