Digital forensics – techniques often used in your favorite television shows, like CSI Las Vegas and NCIS – are becoming much more popular, and they are changing the way we solve crimes here in Minnesota.
Drew Evans, assistant superintendent for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said digital forensics used to be reserved for certain crimes, but now the techniques are helping investigators solve all sorts of crime.
“It’s definitely changing how we do our jobs,” said Evans. “Every case we work now has this digital component. And our agents are working major complex cases throughout the state.”
The increase in digital forensic demand didn’t go unnoticed by Minnesota legislators. State officials recently approved a $1.6 million budget fund that will go towards improving digital evidence collection and analysis, and it will help hire more staff. The BCA currently has two full time digital examiners, but the money will go towards hiring six more examiners and a full-time cyber-crime investigator.
Shift In Forensic Analysis
According to data collected by KARE 11, internet crimes against children, or at least those investigated by the BCA, have increased more than 400 percent over the last five years. In fact, the BCA said that if digital evidence analyzed last year were transferred to paper, that stack would reach to the moon and back 13 times. But the BCA investigates much more than just internet crimes.
“It used to be child pornography cases when we examined digital evidence for, that’s now in homicide cases, in narcotics cases and financial crime cases,” Evans said.
In fact, the BCA can go mobile if need be. That’s because the bureau recently received a mobile forensics van oufitted with all the latest forensic analysis technologies.
“There is as much technology here as we have in any location in our building here,” Evans said of the van. “This is really the wave of the future.”
It took eight months and $120,000 to build to mobile forensics unit, and it’s goal is to reduce valuable investigation time. Evans noted that the impetus behind the mobile unit was the murder of Tom Decker, the officer who was shot and killed back in 2012. A team of investigators seized cell phones during a search, but they had to drive about 90 miles from Cold Spring to St. Paul to have them analyzed, which cost them valuable time investigating the scene.
When it comes to mobile forensic units, law enforcement agencies across the area are following suit. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Officer already has a mobile forensics van, and Dakota County is in the early stages of purchasing a van.
Related source: Valley News Live, KARE 11
