IAFIS Hits?

Ann Horsman · Post by **Ann Horsman** » Tue May 22, 2007 10:33 am

How many of you have had success?

mary ellen holmberg · Tue May 22, 2007 10:49 am

We use IAFIS a lot and have very good luck with it. In fact, we get hits on IAFIS when we don't get a hit on AFIS. (Hillsborough County,
FL S. O.)

Bill Schade · Post by **Bill Schade** » Tue May 22, 2007 11:07 am

Funny that you asked this today.

We just made a hit this morning on a guy in the hospital who was unidentified. Inked prints were taken and searched statewide with negative results.

Ran the two index fingers on ULW and got a hit on second search in the 16th position? Hate to admit it was that low, but it did hit and it turns out the guys record is in our state. It might not be in the state AFIS however since it is an early 70's record.

How many old timers remember taking three inked print cards on an arrest

Best one stayed local
Crummy one went to the state
The very worst one went to the feds

Just goes to show that sometimes that "crummy" inked print matches the latents we search better than the "perfect" inked print

Overall we have had excellent results with the ULW including old deceased identifications for our Medical Examiner and a 1974 Homicide case that was open all this time.

It's kind of "clunky" and unfriendly at first but well worth the aggravation on those cases where everything else has failed

Angie · Post by **Angie** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:22 am

Very good Bill!
Many idents. here too. My area is about half way between Miami and New York on I-95 and home to a couple of large military bases making it a very transient place. For example I've had idents. on a couple of unidentified bodies found on the side of I-95 and an ATM thief. None of which had been arrested in NC. Therefore neither my local or state systems were of any help.
I agree its a bit time consuming but very well worth it!

Ann Horsman · Post by **Ann Horsman** » Wed May 23, 2007 6:10 am

I just had a hit, #1 candidate, on a 1972 unsolved Homicide. The victim was unknown and now I know who he is after 35 years. It was the first time I ran an IAFIS other than test prints when our new Moto system was installed a few months ago.

Now maybe the case detectives can solve this one with the new information.

hannaford · Post by **hannaford** » Wed May 23, 2007 11:13 am

Ann...Great work. Vermont is in good hands!!!

Jen and Rach

lpexaminer · Post by **lpexaminer** » Wed May 23, 2007 2:56 pm

When I was at Oakland Police Dept. We had a grant funded project in which we searched cases from the 80's forward in IAFIS. It was great. We had several hits.

mdavis · Post by **mdavis** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:51 pm

My lab is in a 4-state corner, so we often do not get AFIS hits on cases where the suspect came from the "other" 3 states and has no felony history in our state. Although I do not often ask for IAFIS search, I think my success rate is around 25%, although admittedly for a small sample of attempts limited to bigger cases.

Also, I wouldn't be concerned about the "rating" of the AFIS search. I had one a couple of weeks ago that was #40. Our state used to search about 20 deep, now we've increased our hit rate by going deeper. I don't know if this is a new policy, faster hardware or better software algorithms, or simply a bigger database, but the results are getting better all the time for in-state AFIS searches.

Steve Everist · Post by **Steve Everist** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:53 pm

I'm curious, for those using IAFIS, are you doing it through a dedicated terminal or another way? How many are using it through the LEO.gov/JABS method? We've also got the old encrypted dial-up modem, but it doesn't really get used any more.

Although only three of our examiners are currently set up, we've got access via the LEO.gov email accounts through JABS. I haven't used it a lot as we've got about 25% of the neighboring area of the country searchable from our AFIS terminal, but I did get a hit on a search (#1 candidate) while our database was unavailable once. Not long after, our system was up and running and also produced the candidate.

Ann Horsman · Post by **Ann Horsman** » Wed May 30, 2007 4:01 am

Steve,

Our Motorola AFIS has the ability to, when selected, to send a latent image to the IAFIS program. It is pretty neat, Moto tied the two together and it works great.

Jen and Rach,

Thanks! We are having a blast here and finally kicking butt with the newer AFIS version. Call sometime for details.....

Glad to hear you all are doing the same in B Town!

Lauren Cooney · Post by **Lauren Cooney** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:48 pm

Hey Steve -

How the heck are you? We use the LEO.gov/JABS method - it is much faster than what we used to do at county.

Steve Everist · Post by **Steve Everist** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:50 pm

Howdy Lauren,

That's the way I'm doing it too. The old dial-up modem was such a pain - it's still the same one we got when we were one of the first West Coast agencies to have IAFIS connectivity about 5 or more years ago...

You're the first person I've heard of that uses LEO/JABS for their IAFIS searches outside of our office (although I know there are others).

I just recommended this to a detective in a small county in south central WA who wants to do his own searches instead of mailing off his images and lifts to WSP and waiting a couple of months for results. Hopefully he'll be up and running with it soon. With the small number of searches he'll do, it'll work well for him.

Do you know if the LEO/JABS method will work with the New Generation that the FBI is working on?

Lauren Cooney · Post by **Lauren Cooney** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:00 am

I don't know for sure, but I would image it should. The current IAFIS was a Lockheed system and they are doing NGI as well. I should be able to find out for you though and I'll let you know. 8)

Lonnette Kendoll · Post by **Lonnette Kendoll** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:33 pm

We've been up and running since Aug 2005 and have had some luck. I'll agree that it's a little 'clunky', but well worth the effort. I remember one of our first 'hits' was from a burglary of the bar area inside one of the hotels along the highway running through town. Seems someone was awfully thirsty and helped themselves to several bottles of liquor. After being awakened in the wee hours of the morning to process the scene (I get a little cranky when I get woke up), I searched one of the latents through our state system with no luck. Hit it on IAFIS later in the day. Just so happened the individual had been arrested in Missouri somewhere and was currently sitting in jail. Now I'm not MUCH of a vindictive person, but that certainly made my day!

We also have the ability to search the state data base using the ULW software, which is handy, especially right now, as we are temporarily without a state system. A little glitch in that system only allows searching one finger at a time tho, which can I say, is just a tad bit time consuming. On the bright side, someone is working on it .....

PGalletta · Post by **PGalletta** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:07 am

We use the LEO.GOV / JABS method with ULW and have had good luck with it.
New York State Police
Forensic Investigation Center