Aug 4, 2026 · 46 min · 12 segments
What does it take to change policing technology forever? In this episode of Siren Investigates, host John Randles sits down with Bob Griffin—founder of Coplink, former CEO of IBM i2, former CEO of…
John RandlesHostWe were in the, of all things, the arts and entertainment section in New York on The New York Times, um-
Um, and I started getting calls from people like Boston PD and said, "Look, this is incredible stuff from what I've seen.
Can you come down and explain and see about whatever?" That led to building out the Boston PD node, right? I got calls in from the California, from, uh, LA County Sheriffs that said, "We're interested." And so, and so it just started to, um, just started this snowball.
And when you started building out CopLink and were looking at it from a sharing technology perspective, were you shocked at the impact it could have, uh, operationally then or, or did you expect to see that in time? Were you, were you that optimistic?
The, the, the, the thing that I so loved about the CopLink application is I knew it worked.
I knew that if you could take these disparate databases together, de-conflict the identities, so if I find a John Randalls in this database and a John Randalls in that database and a John Randalls in that database and a John Randalls in that database-
I can put them together because I know it's the same John Randalls, right? I can de-conflict your identity.
Once I do that, I'm looking at the ability to say, "Show me everything that John Randalls has ever been involved with."
We were in the, of all things, the arts and entertainment section in New York on The New York Times, um-
Um, and I started getting calls from people like Boston PD and said, "Look, this is incredible stuff from what I've seen.
Can you come down and explain and see about whatever?" That led to building out the Boston PD node, right? I got calls in from the California, from, uh, LA County Sheriffs that said, "We're interested." And so, and so it just started to, um, just started this snowball.
And when you started building out CopLink and were looking at it from a sharing technology perspective, were you shocked at the impact it could have, uh, operationally then or, or did you expect to see that in time? Were you, were you that optimistic?
The, the, the, the thing that I so loved about the CopLink application is I knew it worked.
I knew that if you could take these disparate databases together, de-conflict the identities, so if I find a John Randalls in this database and a John Randalls in that database and a John Randalls in that database and a John Randalls in that database-
I can put them together because I know it's the same John Randalls, right? I can de-conflict your identity.
Once I do that, I'm looking at the ability to say, "Show me everything that John Randalls has ever been involved with."
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