Visiting the Ohio BCI

I had a great time today touring the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Headquarters in London , OH.  I also learned quite a bit.  Here's a sample:

The BCI has three Divisions:  Identification, Investigations, and Laboratory.  I had a pretty good idea what the Identification and Laboratory Divisions covered but I was intrigued but Investigations.

The Investigations Division contains the following Units:

• Crime Scene 
• Criminal Intelligence
• Cyber Crimes
• Environmental Enforcement (includes hazardous waste, pollution, and OSHA)
• Narcotics
• Clandestine Drug Lab and Marijuana Eredication
• Special Investigations (serial crimes, police-involved shooting, public corruption investigations, dignitary protection, etc.) 
• Missing Persons
• Technical Operations

 These guys would be involved in pretty much any crime I might dream up.  Got my imagination working overtime.

Did you know that their Predictive Analysis people can study five crimes (commited by the same person) and predict where number six will be?  They're doing so, and very successfully.

Other interesting facts:

• 25% of the usable prints found at crime scenes are palm prints, not fingerprints
• The Ohio BCI gets 100 hits per month on their CODIS (DNA) database
• Light wave technology can be used to identify different inks on the same document (i.e. altered checks)
• Fingerprints scanned into the computer system are assigned identification points (70-75 ave. per print).  The system uses the points when searching for matching prints.
• It takes approximately five minutes for the system to search four to six million prints on file and yield twenty possible matches for further comparison.
• The Trace Evidence Lab can tell if a car's headlights were on or off at the time of an accident
• Normal turnaround time for DNA analysis is 125 days, although this number is being reduced with the addition of newer equipment and more staff.  (NOT TV CSI's <60 minutes.)

Oh, and I never realized the BCI falls under the State Attorney General's Office.  I guess it's obvious but I never made the connection.

All in all, a very interesting day.

How was yours?

Groaner of the Day:  (Lots of reading above so here's a short one.)  A farmer was milking his cow. He was just starting to get a good rhythm going when a bug flew into the barn and started circling his head. Suddenly, the bug flew into the cow's ear. The farmer didn't think much about it, until the bug squirted out into his bucket. It went in one ear and out the udder.