The Henry County Police Department is getting a major boost in the way of crime-fighting technology thanks to the generosity of a large multinational corporation.
SUMURI, which touts itself as “a leader in the digital forensics software and hardware industry,” recently concluded its year-end SUMURI Gives Back campaign and announced December 23 that the HCPD is this year’s winner. The department will receive a yellow TALINO forensic workstation nicknamed Bumblebee and valued at $10,000.
“The forensic work station will allow our department to process computer data, hard drives, HD images, cellphone data and extractions more proficiently,” according to HCPD Capt. Randy Lee, the department’s spokesman. “It will be used by our department to work computer based crimes, crimes against children, financial crimes, Internet crimes against children and any other computer or phone based criminal investigations.”
Lee said the workstation is designed to be faster, more reliable and able to work cases faster than an ordinary desktop computer, which HCPD staff are using now. It is equipped with specific tools such as an HD imager, write blocker and other digital forensic programs.
It comes with a large amount of digital storage space for data storage and digital working space, as well as a liquid cooling system and several fans to keep the system running cool. That will make it work faster and extend the life of the system.
According to Lee, the system will be operated by Detective Special Victims Unit J. Maher and Digital Forensics Examiner Intelligence Unit A. Bray.
This new equipment is much-needed. The HCPD examiners each complete more than 400 digital forensic examinations each year for its own department and surrounding agencies as the only dedicated digital forensics personnel in the region. They have been doing this with regular office computers and secondhand equipment donated from a local photography business. The two examiners have regularly self-funded equipment purchases to keep the computers running.
The SUMURI initiative “is a continuation of the company’s long-standing tradition of supporting the law enforcement community through humanitarian missions and donations of software and computers,” according to a company statement.
In the previous year’s campaign the company tallied about 10,000 total votes and donated a workstation to the police department in Kearney, Neb. This year the total number of votes skyrocketed to almost 700,000, which means a lot of HCPD fans got busy. Because of the overwhelming number of votes cast for the second-place finisher, an additional workstation will be donated to the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations in east Africa.
For more information about SUMURI and the SUMURI Gives Back campaign, visit https://sumuri.com/about.
