STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — Stevens Point’s police and fire commission is set to vote this week on sending officers out for special classes on digital forensics training.
Assistant police chief Martin Skibba says the department is increasingly running into crimes that involve or are based in computers and communication, like stalking, harassment, threatening texts and child pornography. “If we are going to stay involved in a good way in our community as law enforcement, we need to adapt and accept the fact that crimes are occurring in this manner and how best to approach them.”
The department is going to be using special software that can connect and scoop data from any digital device you can connect it to. “Collect the evidence needed, meet the elements of a crime and do our job in a more efficient way for the community, providing that service they’ve hopefully grown to expect from our department.” Skibba says those classes also teach officers how to properly collect data using search warrants and the correct procedures involved. “And that’s part of of what our investigators learn, to apply that rule, which is simply: does it apply to this crime and do these elements meet a crime. And then we pursue that.”
Total cost for the classes is $4,123. The police and fire commission meets tomorrow at 4:30 pm at the city conference room.
