The Eastern Regional Information Center, or E.R.I.C., is basically a tip line with a shared database for law enforcement in different counties.

E.R.I.C. started in April and focuses on homeland security, gang activity, and drug trafficking.

New Hanover County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Larry Hines says criminals frequently cross county lines, making a centralized database necessary.

"We may have a group of people that we know are doing a certain amount of crime or a certain type of crime and the neighboring county, or even all the way up to Onslow, or even up to Craven or Carteret county, may have the same group doing the same thing and they may some information that we don't have."

Plans for E.R.I.C. include increasing membership to more than 30 counties and earning enough grant money for an office building.

Do you have insight or expertise on this topic? Please e-mail us, we'd like to hear from you. news@whqr.org.

© Copyright 2009, whqr