Committee on Finance
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has an immediate need for technology to help increase clearance rates on violent crimes including homicide and carjacking; and,
WHEREAS, violent crimes typically leave an immense amount of physical evidence, yet processing violent crime scenes currently takes far too long and valuable evidence is missed; and,
WHEREAS, the Chicago Police Department currently has no reliable means to collect and transmit latent fingerprint information while in the field; and,
WHEREAS, current fingerprint collection methods are outdated and carry the risk of damaging the information collected, rendering it useless; and,
WHEREAS, crime scene investigators often overlook fingerprint information because it is too cumbersome and time consuming to collect; and,
WHEREAS, Forensic Photonics LLC, a Chicago-based small business, is developing latent fingerprint detection technology capable of simplifying current techniques and retrieving data off of nontraditional surfaces, including porous material (cloth, paper, leather, skin), highly reflective or fluorescent surfaces, and in some cases, even materials damaged by explosion and fire; and,
WHEREAS, the information collected by Forensic Photonics can be wirelessly submitted to fingerprint databases and instantly compared for matching information while investigators remain on scene; and,
WHEREAS, Forensic Photonics' technology can allow fingerprint evidence to be processed directly on scene and wirelessly transmitted to the FBI and other fingerprint databases; and,
WHEREAS, the typical fingerprint evidence examination period can span 30 to 90 days, Forensic Photonics' technology can allow investigators to identify a suspect's fingerprint in as short as 10 minutes; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Members of the City Council of the City of Chicago, assembled this twenty-third day of May, 2018, do hereby recognize the need for new and advanced technologies within law enfo...
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