When terrible crimes are committed, the Internet can be a vital tool for law enforcement, allowing officers to do everything from running “virtual command centers” for big investigations to going undercover to expose child exploitation.
But first, law enforcement has to catch up–and quickly–to the criminals. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of catching up to do, because while criminals get more technologically sophisticated by the day, most police departments are still struggling to set up an on-line account for their officers or just figure out what the Internet is.
This was a key message Wednesday for the 40 police officers and other law enforcement officials who attended the first day of a three-day conference in Chicago on major-crime investigations and crime trends of the future.
“It’s like they have semiautomatic weapons and we have batons,” said Sean Malinowski, a Los Angeles police officer and executive director of the Office of International Criminal Justice, a co-sponsor of the conference.
Invoking the 1993 Brown’s Chicken & Pasta murders in Palatine as a grim reminder about the need for police to be prepared, an advanced-technology expert described how the Internet could be used to assist investigators in a similarly complicated crime.
For criminal investigations that involve officers from different departments or jurisdictions, access to the Internet would let the lead police agency distribute work more quickly among the other agencies, without officers constantly having to drive back and forth, said J. David Coldren, an OICJ director and former director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
Setting up a Web site on the investigation would help not only the police but also the public and the media, Coldren said, because they could simply look to the site for updates rather than tie up phones–and investigators’ time.
But Detective Robert Farley, who heads the Child Exploitation Unit of the Cook County Sheriff’s Police, warned that the Internet is a double-edged sword that not only helps police but also puts criminals like child molesters in better contact with potential victims.
“It’s the greatest scam in the world,” he said. “(A child molester) doesn’t even have to leave his house. He can sit in his bedroom and talk to all the kids he wants, lowering their inhibitions so that he ultimately can meet them and abuse them.”
The drive for justice: What usually decides legal cases is a ruling from the vaunted judge’s bench.
But earlier this week, a Cook County associate judge figured he needed some additional evidence that he could obtain only from the driver’s seat.
So Cook County Associate Judge Earl B. Hoffenberg wound up settling a legal dispute between an Itasca woman and a car-repair shop by climbing behind the wheel of a maroon 1980 Pontiac Phoenix and taking it for a spin around the parking lot of the Rolling Meadows courthouse.
The test drive was the finale to a civil lawsuit filed last month by Itasca resident Marilyn Beecroft against J&J Auto Repair in Mt. Prospect. The suit was filed in the county’s pro se court, where small-claims disputes are argued without lawyers.
Beecroft had sued J&J Auto for $5,000, claiming that the business, owned by Juan Dorado, had worked out an unsatisfactory car swap with her grandson a year ago.
She came to dislike the car she got in the deal, a maroon Pontiac Phoenix. But by the time she tried to get back the car she had traded in, a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass, it was in a junk yard.
Complicating matters, Beecroft didn’t file the lawsuit until the Phoenix had sat in her driveway for a year. By then, the keys were missing and the car wouldn’t start.
Hoffenberg decided at the time that the best solution was to get both parties to work together and get the Pontiac running again. So Dorado was ordered to replace the car’s locks while Beecroft was ordered to install a new battery.
But, to the judge’s exasperation, the plaintiff and defendant kept coming back to court with more squabbling. Friday marked their sixth appearance.
He declared then that “this case has cost the county more money than the car is worth.”
With that, he ordered that the vehicle be brought to him for a test drive.
Outside the courthouse Monday, Hoffenberg climbed into the lightly dented Pontiac and drove off, followed by a sheriff’s police squad car. The plaintiff, her granddaughter, the judge’s clerk, several deputies and other assorted onlookers watched.
Hoffenberg returned after about 5 minutes. He needed a hand getting out–the driver’s-side door got stuck.
“It goes, it drives, it steers,” he concluded.
“I think you made a stupid mistake, but I can’t help you with that,” the judge told Beecroft. “You made a lousy deal. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with it.”
Case dismissed.
