Marshfield, WI (OnFocus) Cell phone and computer technology is part of many aspects of modern life – including crime – and local law enforcement agencies are pooling resources to keep up.
“There’s very few crimes that happen where there isn’t some element of a digital device being used, whether it’s communication across cell phones, computers, tablets among co-conspirators – or whatever it may be,” said Detective Jason Parks, Marshfield Police Department.
The department is one of the newest members of the River Valley Regional Forensic Lab based in the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office. As a member, it now has full access to Marathon’s resources.
Since multiple departments contribute financially to the regional lab, law enforcement is able to improve evidence turnaround time, keep up with the latest hardware and software updates, and afford additional tools that would otherwise be beyond their budgets.
“There’s a lot of hardware and software to be purchased to be able to conduct these types of investigations and it’s expensive and it’s changing rapidly, just because technology is changing so rapidly,” said Parks.
“Every month there’s hundreds of new phones that are hitting the market from all these different manufacturers,” he added. “It’s a very intense business to try keep up to par with, so it’s a very expensive venture for any single department to take on by themselves. There’s a lot of tools out there that you may only use a few times a year, but because of the pricing your agency just can’t afford it.”
The Marathon Sheriff’s Department and Wausau Police Department are primary partners with full-time employees in the regional lab. Associate members are the Everest Metro Police Department, Langlade County Sheriff’s Department, Antigo Police Department, Clark County Sheriff’s Department, and Marshfield Police Department.
More departments are expected to join this year and next once they have the chance to factor the membership into their budgets.
The Marathon Sheriff’s Department came up with the idea for a regional lab about a year ago. “We went and toured a couple different labs, including Chippewa Valley Regional Lab, just to get an idea how they operated,” said Captain Greg Bean, Marathon County Sheriff’s Department. “We modeled our policies and procedures after that.”
Each department’s trained forensic specialist can make use of the lab’s resources. “What it comes down to is our department’s ability to be able to not only review data that’s stored on digital devices, whether it be cell phones, computers or tablets, or anything of that nature, but being able to do it in a way that is forensically sound, meaning that we can replicate results,” said Parks.
The detective has already reached back into old cases to review info and consider whether any of the new tools can be used to pursue old leads, like extracting more data from a phone.
“One more piece of the puzzle can help build on a case,” he said.
Keeping up with changes in technology became especially important in the last decade.
“Technology creeped up in the law enforcement field about 10 years ago. About five years ago we had to get real serious with it,” said Bean. “It went from collecting hands-on type evidence to now having to download a device and analyze all the information on one of these devices, which can hold quite a bit.”
The Marathon County Sheriff’s Department added a new forensic detective five years ago to build a lab, which paid off. Previously, if the department wanted to download data, they needed to submit it to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
“At times before our forensic detective, we were waiting a month to three months to get a finished product back,” said Bean. “With our own person in our lab, we cut that back to sometimes having our finished project the very same day, and that’s something we’re offering to these departments.”
The lab will be open to agencies in Marathon and surrounding counties. The Wisconsin Department of Justice plans to join once expansion of the lab is completed sometime in mid-summer, but has already assisted with grants for the project. The expansion will create additional workstations to create enough room for members to operate.
“Before having partners, we simply could not afford a lot of these things,” said Bean. “But now partnering up in the regional lab, hopefully we’ll be able to stay ahead of the game and keep up with the latest software and hardware packages, and that’s huge.”
Author: News Desk
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