Though he never carried a pistol or drove a squad car, the Chicago police relied on James Kotsios. During his 30-year career as a fingerprint technician, he worked behind the scenes thumbing through millions of fingerprint cards and straining his eyes to examine prints under a magnifying glass. Mr. Kotsios, 71, died of complications from diabetes, Thursday, Aug. 26, in Community Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Naperville. When he started with the Chicago Police Department in 1963, keeping the city’s criminal fingerprint records was a cumbersome paper chase. Every morning, Mr. Kotsios and his technicians got a pouch full of fingerprints from the previous day’s arrests. “We had one monstrous file,” said Jim Moran, who worked alongside Mr. Kotsios throughout his career. A lifelong Chicago resident, Mr. Kotsios grew up in a Greek community on the city’s Northwest Side. He met his wife, Constance, through a youth group run by the Greek Orthodox Church. The couple were married in 1959. Mr. Kotsios is survived by his wife; a daughter, Yvonne; a son, Mark; a brother, George; and seven grandchildren. Services were held.
