Peoria (AZ) Police get LiveScan equipment
The Peoria (Arizona) Police Department has paid $285,000 for crime-fighting technology, including digital mug shot and LiveScan automated fingerprinting equipment connected to the Arizona Department of Public Safety . It now takes only minutes to get reports on fingerprint searches that used to take weeks. Peoria Police have already solved several crimes using their new equipment.
Source: “Bad Guys Nailed in Minutes; High-Tech Fingerprint Gear Helps Peoria Solve Crimes Fast” by Brent Whiting; The Arizona Republic, April 14, 2001]
Denver (CO) Police's DNA cold hit solves murders
Denver (Colorado) Police recently received a cold hit match from the state’s DNA database that solved two 1999 murders. The man now charged with the crimes is a suspect in other unsolved murders and sexual assaults. He was granted probation upon a 1996 conviction for molesting a child, but was ordered to provide a blood sample for the state’s DNA database. When his DNA was finally entered in the database after a backlog of samples was reduced, the cold hit was made.
Source: “DNA Links Sex Offender to 1999 Slayings” by Hector Gutierrez; Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO) April 19, 2001, Pg. A11
Dayton (OH) Police use of palm print database
Police in Dayton, Ohio used the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory’s palm print database to solve a home invasion, the 96th suspect identified by the system in its 10 months of operation. The 60,000 sets of palm prints in the department’s fingerprint identification system database were collected by Dayton police and Montgomery County sheriff's deputies over the past 25 years, composing the nation's largest collection of palm prints. Special software is used to identify palm prints in the system, because while fingerprints have about 125 minutiae, palms have from 800 to 1,500.
Source: “Lab Database Pilots Palm Prints; With 60,000 prints, local collection nation's largest” by Lou Grieco; Dayton (OH) Daily News, April 16, 2001, Pg. 1A
Walker County (GA) Sheriff gets grant for LiveScan
The Walker County (Georgia) Sheriff's Department recently received a $70,000 grant from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for a LiveScan fingerprint identification system. Fingerprints from bookings and crime scenes can be sent to the GBI and FBI for identification. Reports on prints that used to take up to six weeks now take from 15 minutes to two hours. LiveScan fingerprints are also much more accurate than ink prints.
Source: “Criminals beware in Walker County; Fingerprint machine provided by grant gives police a hand in fighting crime” by Stump Martin; Chattanooga (TN) Times / Free Press, April 3, 2001, Pg. B2
S.D. Attorney General sets up school violence Web site
The South Dakota Attorney General's office has created a Safe Schools Web site with different sections devoted to students, parents, teachers, law enforcement and communities on school violence. The site currently offers 32 topics--ranging from gangs, prevention, warning signs and intervention--that are targeted at these different audiences.
Source: “Web site focuses on school violence;” The Associated Press State & Local Wire, April 6, 2001
Cold hits from Oregon's DNA database
As Oregon’s DNA database continues to grow, the Oregon State Police Crime Lab has recorded more and more cold hits. It recently solved a 1991 murder of a paraplegic man that had no suspects and no leads. The lab made 17 DNA matches in 2000 and six hits in the first quarter of 2001, including a 1980 rape and murder case. The state database currently includes 17,000 samples, after samples from first-degree burglary and first-degree assault offenders were added in 1999.
Source: “DNA Crime Lab Scores Cold Hits” by Maxine Bernstein; The Oregonian, April 17, 2001, Pg. A1
