The Lee County Sheriff’s Office, in a joint effort with Lee County Court Administration, has received a distinguished Honorable Mention Award at the 22nd Annual Government Computer News Awards. The awards were given for “outstanding information technology achievement in government.”

The Sheriff’s Office and Lee County Court Administration are being honored for their integration of the Metatomix Active Warrant Alert Calendar System, implemented less than five months after the murder of Fort Myers police Officer Andrew Widman at the hands of fugitive Abel Arango. Arango was able to “slip through the cracks” and bond out of jail just one month prior to the murder, because the judge was unaware Arango had an outstanding warrant in the National Crime Information Center, a federal database.

Now with the AWAC System, all defendants appearing for court events such as arraignment, pretrial, bond, motion, case management or traffic hearings are flagged for warrants. Lee County is the first county in Florida to integrate the Metatomix Active Warrant Alert System.