The Brookfield Police Department is rolling out a new way to report non-emergency complaints online both as a convenience for residents and as a way to free up officers to perform other duties.
Residents can access the reporting module by visiting the Brookfield village website at brookfieldil.gov, clicking “Departments,” selecting “Police Department” and clicking the “online reporting page” link on that webpage. The page can be directly accessed at frontlinepss.com/brookfieldil.
The reporting system is the latest module the police department is making available to residents through its partnership with Frontline Public Safety Solutions, the company that also administers the department’s overnight parking, vacation watch and pet registry modules.
“What we’ve learned through COVID is that everyone had to adapt and adjust,” said Deputy Police Chief Michael Kuruvilla, referencing the department’s policy changes a year ago, which limited face-to-face contact between officers and residents to incidents of a more serious or emergency nature.
While taking citizen complaints in person is valuable in determining how to proceed with an investigation, there are plenty of non-emergency incidents that don’t require an in-person police response – things like non-criminal damage to property, identity theft and the continuing wave of fraudulent unemployment claim letters.
Those are the kinds of incidents Kuruvilla hopes residents will turn to the new reporting module to make their initial complaints.
“I’d emphasize this is for lower level, non-criminal reports,” Kuruvilla said. “We hope it’ll be a convenience to the community and free up police officers for other concerns.”
Other examples of incidents appropriate for reporting online through the module, according to Kuruvilla, include lost property, graffiti/vandalism and delayed reporting of suspicious incidents.
Kuruvilla emphasized that police do not monitor the module 24 hours a day and that if it’s an emergency, you should call 911. There will be one supervising officer whose job will include checking the module for incident reports on a daily basis.
Residents should allow up to five days for police to process the incidents in the department’s records management system. If police determine more information is needed, an officer will follow up.
The module isn’t meant to be a crime tip line, said Kuruvilla. If you do have information regarding a new or pending criminal matter, Kuruvilla said you should call the Brookfield Police Department at 708-485-8131.
The police department lobby is open 24/7, and a red phone in the lobby can put you directly in touch with the central dispatch center, which can have an officer respond to talk to you.
“If it has to do with investigations, we prefer using patrol to filter that. We can still take reports face to face or over the phone. Our intention is to make residents comfortable,” Kuruvilla said.
