When crime victims receive threatening text messages, many law enforcement departments say victims typically delete the data and eliminate the immediate possibility of pinpointing the criminal.
Now, with the help of new hardware and software, Athens Police Department officers will be able to acquire this data to arrest criminals that were previously unobtainable.
APD is acquiring a $15,600 hardware and software package from Cellebrite, a mobile forensics company, said Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle. The package would allow the department to acquire text-data evidence 40 times faster than their current rate.
Previously, phones acquired as evidence needed to be sent to Columbus Police Department for data acquisition, which took as long as six weeks to complete, Pyle said in a previous Post article.
“For crimes that involve passion, like domestic violence … (four to six weeks) is a long time,” Pyle said. “The evidence that sits on (cell phones) is really volatile. In my mind, ($15,600) is a small price to pay for the security of our community.”
After the Cellebrite package is purchased, deleted data can be acquired by APD within 24-hours, Pyle said, adding that he expects officers to use the technology multiple times each week.
“There is a pressing need for it, on a regular basis as much as two to three times a week,” Pyle said.
The advancement of cell phone technology heightens the need for modern forensic equipment at police departments, said Ohio University Police Department Chief Andrew Powers, who added that he hopes to acquire a similar program for OUPD or share APD’s hardware-software.
“If you look at the Steubenville case in eastern Ohio, text messages were an integral part of that prosecution,” Powers said. “It’s a reality these days that it is a very useful tool.”
Washington County Sheriff’s Office has a Cellebrite system, according to Chief Deputy Mark Warden, who called the technology a “very valuable asset.”
While the office has primarily used the hardware-software for rape and stalking cases, Warden said deputies have solved a variety of different crimes by using the technology.
“We’ve used it for all kinds of cases because everyone communicates by cellphone,” Warden said.
Not all cellphones are susceptible to the data-acquisition, though, Pyle said.
“We have to have the legal right to search the phone. We couldn’t search a phone instantly after an arrest,” Pyle said. “We’d have to have probable cause to believe there is evidence of a crime on that phone and then we would have to get a search warrant or permission from the owner to search it.”
sh335311@ohiou.edu
