The Minnetonka Police Department in Minnesota utilizes iCrimeFighter

The Minnetonka Police Department in Minnesota utilizes the iCrimeFighter Digital Evidence Management System for secure gathering, hosting, and sharing of digital evidence files. The Department’s retail crimes officers have been utilizing a feature within the iCrimeFighter system called Evidence Anywhere to send a secure link to retailers who have evidence to add to police case files. Evidence Anywhere is saving them countless trips to retrieve evidence and is greatly enhancing their efficiency on the job.

Minnetonka is a suburban city located to the west of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. It is known for Lake Minnetonka as well as being the headquarters for several large companies such as Cargill and United Health Group. Minnetonka is also home to several large malls.  With retail theft on the rise, retailers need a way to get digital evidence files to the police department in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

In Minnetonka, just as in almost any other city, thefts at retail locations occur daily. This can be from large chain clothing stores, electronics stores, or gas stations. These retailers are used to collecting evidence for compiling police reports after incidents occur. This evidence is typically photos and video caught on surveillance cameras. Recently, credit card fraud, specifically where an individual visist multiple retailers in one day using a fraudulent card, is increasing. In these scenarios, officers may have to retrieve more than 10 surveillance videos all from different retailers all relating to one individual fraudulently using the card(s).

Previously, police officers were dispatched to each retailer where an incident occurred to retrieve the photos and videos from the surveillance system. Primarily this would be on media such as USB thumb drives or CDs/DVDs. There was a significant amount of time and resources spent on visiting retailers to collect this evidence and then processing the media with an evidence technician back at the station. This was also impacting the City’s storage space on its dedicated server; the video files were taking up a lot of valuable space.

The iCrimeFighter Digital Evidence Management System is used by over 300 agencies in the USA to collect, store and securely share digital evidence. After years of use with Law Enforcement, many features have been developed to improve workflow. One of those features is called Evidence Anywhere.  With Evidence Anywhere an officer sends a secure link to a third party who then can upload evidence directly into a case file. This feature is exactly what the Minnetonka Police needed and is one of the major benefits of using iCrimeFighter.

Now implemented with over 80 users on iCrimeFighter, the Minnetonka Police are saving countless trips collecting digital evidence from retailers. They are saving the time of waiting for USB drives to load and CDs waiting to be burned. No longer are they having to manually load this information into their system back at the station. Much of the evidence they receive can be played back immediately in their internet browsers without having to be downloaded. The police and city are no longer worried about video storage space as the files are securely hosted iCrimeFighter and the Amazon GovCloud. The Minnetonka Police are extremely happy with the system as it has allowed them to provide better service to businesses and citizens in their community all while making their workload easier.

If you are interested in using iCrimeFighter to save the time and cost of evidence management, please contact us at support@icrimefighter.com or check out our website.

About iCrimeFighter:

iCrimeFighter is a Cloud-based evidence and file collection, storage and sharing software that helps Law Enforcement agencies and those they work with, including prosecutors and county agencies access the power of AWS GovCloud. More information about iCrimeFighter is available at www.icrimefighterpro.com

‍