Captain Jason Berry
Government and Media Relations
(360) 596-4010 – office
(360) 596-4015 – fax
http://www.wsp.wa.gov
*** For Immediate Release***
Date:
June 2, 2010
Contact:
Deborah Collinsworth
Phone:
(360) 534-2102
E-mail:
deborah.collinsworth@wsp.wa.gov
WSP Fingerprint Unit Gets a Grip on Crime
Tacoma Burglary Suspect Identified by Palm Print Instead of Traditional Fingerprints
(Olympia) – The Washington State Patrol Identification and Criminal History Section is getting a new grip on crime, by accepting palm print submissions into the State Automated Fingerprint Identification System, also known as AFIS, in addition to traditional fingerprints.
The Section recently began accepting palm prints using Spokane County as a pilot site. Spokane County began transmitting palm prints to the Section in February.
Just recently, a crime suspect was identified by using palm prints: A 19-year old woman was arrested in Spokane for a traffic offense. Corrections officers also took her palm prints and transmitted them with the booking information to the State AFIS. AFIS quickly linked her to a 2008 burglary in Tacoma.
“30 percent of the prints recovered at crime scenes are from the palms, not the fingertips,” said State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste. “Having the ability to compare palm prints will solve more crimes, hold more criminals accountable and improve public safety.”
Fingerprint matching is a two-step process.
Fingerprints are electronically transmitted to the state patrol’s AFIS database when someone is fingerprinted after being arrested. The type of electronic scanner now used makes it easy to record palm prints along with those from the fingers.
The other half of the equation comes from suspect prints, recovered by investigators at crime scenes. Suspect prints are compared with the known database to find the identity of a criminal.
In this case, the unknown print was recovered first, at a crime scene, and held in the state patrol’s unsolved latent data base. The person’s identity did not become known until she was subsequently booked in Spokane.
“This is the first of what we expect to be many cased solved by expanding our fingerprint technology to include palm prints,” said Jim Anderson, director of the patrol’s Criminal Records Division.
Since the pilot project was successful in Spokane, Anderson states the Section is working to expand the acceptance of palms prints state-wide.