Pinellas County: Catching a hit-and-run suspect with real-time data sharing

• A consortium of public safety agencies in Pinellas County, Florida, uses Peregrine to share data across jurisdictions.

• Following a collaborative investigation in May 2025, real-time data sharing in Peregrine led to the arrest of a dangerous hit-and-run suspect in Pinellas County.

• First responders said the investigation took only a few hours thanks to Peregrine, whereas it may have otherwise taken days.

On May 8, 2025, a mother and her 6-year-old child were hit by a car in a retail store parking lot in Pinellas County, Florida. The driver immediately fled the scene, leaving behind the two severely injured pedestrians and multiple damaged vehicles.

Both hit-and-run victims were admitted to the hospital. The mother had sustained serious injuries, and the child had suffered critical, life-threatening injuries. Though police quickly identified the hit-and-run suspect and located her vehicle abandoned at a nearby motel, its driver, Lauren Howells, was nowhere to be found. So the search began: Law enforcement needed to locate and apprehend Howells before she left the area or caused additional damage.

By the end of that day, Howells was caught — but it wasn’t easy. The operation required airtight communication and lockstep collaboration across multiple agencies and information systems. Because Pinellas County’s public safety agencies share data in Peregrine, officers were able to instantly exchange the time-sensitive information that ultimately led to Howells’ arrest.

Keep reading to learn how seamless, real-time interagency data sharing helped law enforcement find and arrest Howells in just a few hours — an operation that could have otherwise taken days, according to a responding officer.

A countywide public safety consortium

Collaboration is integral to public safety in Pinellas County, Florida. The Pinellas Regional Information Management Enterprise (PRIME) unites local law enforcement, 911, fire-rescue, and emergency medical services through shared information systems, technology platforms, and reporting methods.

PRIME comprises agencies from Clearwater, Largo, Pinellas Park, St. Petersburg, and Tarpon Springs, plus the Pinellas Safety Emergency Services Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO). All member agencies share a computer-aided dispatch system, a records management system, and Peregrine, an advanced data integration and analytics system.

Peregrine provides users with a comprehensive, up-to-date view of their data and any data shared by participating partner organizations. This gives PRIME agencies a real-time understanding of law enforcement activity countywide, including 911 calls and traffic stops. Peregrine also applies Match, its proprietary entity resolution algorithm, across all PRIME agencies to deduplicate person records and build a clean, comprehensive profile of each individual who enters the system in Pinellas County.

The search for a suspect

Largo Police Department (LPD) officers, including Officer Ryan Manning, responded to the scene of the pedestrian collision shortly after Howell fled. Once Manning learned that Howell’s vehicle had been found without her in it, he said he shifted his full focus to determining where she might have gone.

Hitting an investigative ‘dead-end’

Howell did not have a permanent address, which gave Manning limited information to work with in his investigation.

“I scoured every database we have,” he told Peregrine. “I was looking for connections, people she may have known, other reports that may have given me an address that she could have gone to.”

However, the lack of relevant information about Howell slowed the investigation to a near-standstill. LPD even sent officers “all over the county” to residences that were potentially associated with Howell, but they found no leads.

“Those were all dead ends,” Manning said. “We were running on fumes.”

A data-driven breakthrough

“In Peregrine, I was able to see every action being taken on that traffic stop. I was able to see the intersection where the traffic stop was, who was doing the traffic stop, and everything that was being done.” —Officer Ryan Manning, Largo Police Department

Because data in Peregrine is always updating, Manning kept searching Howell’s details in the platform. After around two hours of attempts, Manny punched in Howell’s driver’s license number and spotted a brand-new search result: a traffic stop from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, which shares data with LPD in Peregrine.

A PCSO deputy had pulled over a vehicle registered to Howell — different from the vehicle involved in the hit-and-run — just minutes ago, and the traffic stop was still ongoing at the time of Manning’s search.

“It’s funny how the stars aligned for this,” Manning said. “In Peregrine, I was able to see every action being taken on that traffic stop. I was able to see the intersection where the traffic stop was, who was doing the traffic stop, and everything that was being done.”

Manning notified his sergeant, who jumped on PCSO’s radio channel to ask that the deputy hold the vehicle. As it turned out, Howell was not in the car, and the man operating it had been pulled over for reasons unrelated to the hit-and-run — driving with the headlights off. However, the man driving Howell’s vehicle was connected to her and knew where she was hiding out.

“It’s really incredible that I happened to specifically run her driver’s license through Peregrine at the moment that a secondary vehicle of hers — not one involved in the crash, but another vehicle she owns — was being stopped by the sheriff’s office,” Manning said. “It’s just crazy timing, and that’s how we ended up locating her.”

Saving days with real-time data sharing

Data in Peregrine is updated in near real time, including data shared between partner agencies in the platform. Because LPD and PCSO share data in Peregrine, Manning was notified of the traffic stop as it was happening.

“It was real time,” Manning said. “It was a crazy coincidence, too. Had we not known that they were on a traffic stop, the sheriff’s deputy would have just let that guy go.”

The man driving Howell’s vehicle shared information about Howell that enabled LPD officers to locate and arrest her at a motel later that night. Without that information, the search may have gone on for several more days, Manning said.

“Our investigation was losing steam until we got hit with that traffic stop,” he said. “It probably would have been at least another day, or several days, looking for her, because she didn’t have a permanent address, and she was only at that particular motel because she was hiding out.”

Streamlined interagency collaboration

Crime doesn’t care about jurisdictional boundaries. When offenders cross city and county lines, as they often do, responding agencies must work from a common operating picture so they can coordinate efficient investigations. They can’t afford fragmented communications or redundant efforts — especially in time-sensitive situations, such as this Pinellas County hit-and-run case.

Still, technical challenges and other obstacles often keep public safety agencies from sharing information and collaborating across jurisdictional lines. Peregrine breaks down those jurisdictional silos by enabling seamless, real-time data sharing among participating partner agencies. The platform’s universal search function returns up-to-date results sourced from all integrated information systems, including partnering agencies’ systems.

“We never had a multi-agency database for all of our information, and I’ve always been amazed by the fact that within the same county, I don’t have access to all the traffic stops that Pinellas Park or Clearwater or the sheriff’s office does,” Manning said. “The fact that we have something like that now is pretty incredible.”

Peregrine also builds in powerful, granular access controls that let agency administrators choose when, how, and with whom they share agency data. The platform is CJIS-compliant, uses modern encryption standards, and ensures only users with the appropriate permissions can access, action, and share agency data.

Empower your agency with a full operational picture

Context is key for law enforcement data, and shared data from partner agencies can provide critical context. Peregrine makes cross-jurisdictional data sharing simple by allowing users to search against internal systems and partner agencies’ shared systems simultaneously and providing clean, organized, comprehensive results that update in real time.

With the means to easily exchange information, agencies can collaborate more effectively, conduct more efficient investigations, and gain better situational awareness. Contact our team to learn how Peregrine can improve interagency collaboration in your region.