COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Police in Ohio’s capital city of Columbus are creating a new digital forensics unit for officers to analyze and download information from cellphones taken during investigations.
The Columbus Dispatch reports the new unit is expected to be fully staffed by year’s end.
Police Chief Kim Jacobs says there’s a big need for the digital unit, pointing out that 20 cellphones were taken from a house in one homicide case, leaving the analysis to one detective who covers all three homicide shifts.
Detective James Howe says location information extracted from phones can sometimes put killers near crime scenes. He says it typically takes him three to four hours to search a phone.
Jacobs says the unit will be funded with money exchanged for the department’s help with federal task force cases.
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