On Q Professional Investigations

Cyber criminals who have forced U.S. hospitals, schools and cities to pay hundreds of millions in blackmail or see their computer files destroyed are now targeting the unlikeliest group of victims — local police departments.

Eastern European hackers are hitting law enforcement agencies nationwide with so-called “ransomware” viruses that seize control of a computer system’s files and encrypt them. The hackers then hold the files hostage if the victims don’t pay a ransom online with untraceable digital currency known as Bitcoins. They try to maximize panic with the elements of a real-life hostage crisis, including ransom notes and countdown clocks.

If a ransom is paid, the victim gets an emailed “decryption key” that unlocks the system. If the victim won’t pay, the hackers threaten to delete the files, which they did last year to departments in Alabama and New Hampshire. That means evidence from open cases could be lost or altered, and violent criminals could go free.

Since 2013, hackers have hit departments in at least seven states. Last year, five police and sheriff’s departments in Maine were locked out of their records management systems by hackers demanding ransoms.

Ransomware crimes on all U.S. targets are soaring. In just the first three months of 2016, attacks increased tenfold over the total entire previous year, costing victims more than $200 million. Authorities stress that this number only represents known attacks. One federal law enforcement official told NBC News that the “large majority” of attacks go unreported.

The viruses – most of which come from Russia and Eastern Europe — are typically so impenetrable that even FBI agents have at times advised victims to just pay up and get their data back.

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“They play an important role in not just fighting crime, but also in learning from actual encounters with the public,” he said in a statement.

The department launched its pilot program in January 2015 in the Shakespeare District on the Northwest Side. Thirty officers have been testing the cameras. Those officers made an average of 16 videos a month, compared with an average of 60 videos a month per officer during a pilot program in Seattle and 80 videos a month per officer in New Orleans, where virtually every cop wears one, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis found.

Chicago Police Department policy requires officers with body cameras to keep them on a “buffering mode” during their entire tour of duty. That means the camera is turned on, but not recording. But officers in the pilot program in the Shakespeare District were not required to follow that policy all the time, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

“It was a technical and usage analysis,” he said. “We were running a limited pilot, not requiring officers to turn them on at all times.”

That’s why the Chicago Police officers have recorded fewer videos on average than other cities, Guglielmi said.

Starting this spring and throughout the summer, the department will expand its pilot program to six other police districts — Austin, Wentworth, Deering, Ogden, South Chicago and Gresham. About 450 body cameras are being shipped to Chicago this week, officials said.

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Sgt. Jason Covey sits at a conference table in the Middlebury Police Department offices. Displayed out in front of him are three guns. Each one has a little tag attached by a string, looped around the trigger like a price tag, with information about how the department acquired the gun.

“This we’ve had since 2005,” Covey explains, lifting a pistol from the table. “It was a firearm used in a violent crime in Middlebury.”

Putting the first gun down, he picks up another.

“This one we’ve had since 2000 and it’s a firearm that the serial number was purposely defaced and cannot be restored and that gun can legally never be released. So the only thing that can be done with it is stored forever or destroyed.”

These are a couple of guns the department would rather not have. But there are plenty of others that the department would like to be rid of too.

“Off the top of my head, 17 that could be destroyed today,” Covey says with a sigh.

These guns have to be stored appropriately, tagged, sometimes kept in climate controlled areas and preserved in the same shape as when the department acquired them. But they serve no evidentiary purpose.

“They take up a significant amount of space in an already packed evidence room that holds evidence and property from all our cases,” according to Covey. “That is a storage issue.”

Why can’t the department just destroy these guns? Covey says it’s complicated.

“I’m not aware of a specific rule that says we cannot,” he explains. “But the difficulties in doing so would be complying with all … Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms regulations, and having the appropriate means to completely destroy the weapon.”

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ELLOREE, SC (WIS) - An investigation by the Elloree Police Department uncovered an employee theft ring at the Dollar General store on Old Number 6 Highway.

Police say the store’s management reported a loss of merchandise costing more than $56,000 over eight months.

Seven employees have been arrested on charges of felony criminal conspiracy and breach of trust involving more than $10,000. They were booked into the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center where they have posted bail.

According to the arrest warrants, the employees, “while utilizing a scheme, did knowingly, with intent to permanently deprive the owner, remove, carry away or allowed to be carried away, retail merchandise without payment.”

“They would wait until the close of business at the end of the day and they would already pre-load buggies or shopping carts and right when it time to close the business, they would pull those buggies up, pretend to scan the items, and the buggies would be completely full,” Elloree Police Chief Joseph Avinger said. “Then we went back with the video and checked it along with the register tape to see how much money was spent at the register and it would be only a few dollars — $10 to $15 from buggies filled with merchandise.”

Avinger says the investigation was a cooperative effort between the store management, police department, and 1st Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

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A weeks-long investigation into an organized retail crime ring led lawmen to seven suspects and hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen goods in what authorities say is the first case of its kind in Alabama.

“Organized retail crime is a huge problem throughout the U.S.,” said Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls.

Those already arrested on theft charges are Nichole Battle, William Mason Jr., Alfred Williams, George Bryant and Carl Humphrey. Two others are still at large.
The probe began when area investigators notice area burglaries going unsolved, and at the same time they were approached by retailers from several big-name stores seeing what they believed was a shoplifting ring. They were able to develop an informant and the probe ballooned.

Dubbed Operation Molten Iron, the effort was led and carried out by the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office White Collar Division, the Vestavia Hills Police Department, the Birmingham Police Department and investigators from CVS, Home Depot, Publix, Target, Walgreen’s and Walmart where they had been witnessing some popular items disappearing from their shelves.

Falls said basically items were being stolen, stored and then sold, much like drug operations. The items were then sold at flea markets throughout Alabama, as well as some convenience stores.

To further the investigation, those stores provided merchandise to be used in the undercover operations. Investigators also “allowed” other merchandise to be stolen so they could follow the trail. In all, $55,000 worth of stolen or “loaned” merchandise was used.

The goal of the probe was to identify those responsible for theft of merchandise at the retail level, and to uncover the destination of the stolen merchandise as well as those buying the stolen goods. During

Operation Molten Iron, officers and agents spread out over multiple locations throughout Jefferson County. During that time period they recovered vehicles and merchandise valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Falls said. At one location they also found about 15 pounds of marijuana.

The items ranged from high-dollar lawn equipment to shaving cream and razors, Falls said. Some of the items were stolen off store shelves one or two at a time, such as more expensive tools, while others were taken in warehouse heists. “At one home we found a 5-foot tall set of shrink-wrapped shaving cream in someone’s living room, two deep and two wide,” Falls said. “People were going to flea markets and getting $2,300 lawn equipment items for $700.”

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The suspicious fire that started in a top floor apartment in a building near 35th and Kaul in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, December 8th was so intense all the units are unlivable and the building remains boarded up. Police say they know who started the fire because the suspect was already detained when they arrived.

It was a hectic scene outside the Florist Townhomes Tuesday night — an apartment complex with 24-hour care for its residents.

“It’s definitely unbelievable just to see it,” said David Tribble Junior, Silvermill Plaza security officer.

Tribble was the first person to arrive at the scene.

“I seen flames blazing out of the window,” Tribble said.

Tribble was also the first person to run into one of the residents he recognized from her trips to the plaza to shop.

“I asked her what happened and she said, ‘I set the fire,’” said Tribble.

When Tribble asked her why…

“She said ‘because someone stole my cigarettes.’ I grabbed her and I said, ‘just come with me and I will make sure you’re safe,’” said Tribble.

Tribble held the 27-year-old woman until the Milwaukee Police Department showed up.

“She was calm, very calm. She answered all the questions straight forward, very honestly and very cooperative,” said Tribble.

Now a few days later, he says he’s still a little overwhelmed by it all because even though no one was hurt, he can already see the dramatic affect this is having on those that lived in the complex.

“It’s sad seeing them sit outside or wondering if they can come back or when are they going to come back into their homes and it’s around Christmas,” said Tribble.

Officials with the facility say all of the clients have been taken care of and placed elsewhere. They don’t know when or if they will be allowed back in.

Electric crews came by on Thursday to start the process of inspecting the building.

Milwaukee police continue to investigate this as a possible arson case.

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If you’ve got a son or daughter attending college, how confident are you that they’re safe on campus?

Some New Jersey universities have armed police forces, including Rutgers, NJIT, Rowan, Stockton, Saint Peter’s and Monmouth, while others, including Seton Hall, Rider, Drew, Thomas Edison State College, Jersey
City University, Fairleigh Dickinson and most community colleges do not.

Princeton University recently announced their campus police will soon have access to guns — in their patrol cars — but they won’t normally be carrying weapons around campus.

“It’s based actually on the kind of issues the police face, in the general case, enforcing the law on campuses doesn’t require being armed,” says Todd Clear, a criminal justice professor at Rutgers University.
Clear said sworn officers on college campuses go through the same training at certified academies as any other police officer in the Garden State.

“They get trained on the law but they get trained on the most recent ideas about police practices and they get assessed in terms of their physical abilities,” he said.

The professor also says sworn university police usually only have jurisdiction on their campuses, but in cities like Newark, NJIT and Rutgers police will also work in areas off-campus and they can make arrests.

He said in most situations, campus and municipal police work together.

“There’s always close cooperation and there’s often-times quite close involvement operationally,” Clear said.

He also said most schools, in addition to having a regular police force, also have community safety officers

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A Good Samaritan rescued a 15-year veteran officer out of a burning vehicle Saturday, WSBT 22 reported.

St. Joseph County Police Department Cpl. Mario Cavurro was heading southbound to another incident when an SUV collided with his cruiser, Asst. Chief Bill Thompson told the news site.

Bystander Mark Grudzinski was first on the scene. He grabbed the cruiser’s fire extinguisher and started spraying the flames.

Cavurro had become entangled in the seat belt so Grudzinski reached in to pull officer to safety. Grudzinski stayed with Cavurro until an ambulance arrived.

Cavurro was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Three passengers in the SUV were reportedly uninjured.

The cause of the collision is still under investigation.

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WASHINGTON — Fairfax County police say confusion surrounding an active shooter drill at a Bailey’s Crossroads office building Thursday led to alarm as businesses unaware of the drill locked down and people in the area scrambled for information.

At about 1:15 p.m., Fairfax County police said officers were investigating a report of shots heard at 5109 Leesburg Pike. Police tweeted that nothing was confirmed and they had not located any suspects or victims.

At about 2 p.m., police tweeted that they confirmed the incident was the scene of an active shooter drill.

Fairfax County police says they were not aware of the drill initially. A federal agency in the building was holding the drill, says police spokeswoman Officer Shelley Broderick, but she says it is still not clear which agency it is.

Neither Arlington County police nor the FBI Washington Field Office were aware of the drill either, both agencies told WTOP.

Fairfax County police say one of the building’s tenants received an email that there would be an active shooter drill, and the tenant forwarded the email to another person who worked in the building. The other person, not realizing it was a drill, called 911 presuming there was an active shooter.

Fairfax County police had a large presence and the incident caused alarm to people in the area who seemed to be unaware of a drill.

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Drones are becoming a go-to tool for law enforcement — here are five ways your agency can use them

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more commonly referred to as drones, have been a popular topic among both businesses and law enforcement agencies due to growing interest in their use in non-military applications.

Police departments can deploy drones to improve their ability to enforce the law and protect lives, all while saving valuable resources like police officer time and tax dollars.

1. Active Shooter
A bird’s eye view can enable police to gain a quick understanding of the scope of what is going on in an active shooter situation.

The view from a drone can not only provide the location of the shooter, but also an understanding of the surrounding area, offering valuable information such as the direction the shooter might be headed, escape routes for victims and the shooter’s firing line.

UAVs are also great tools for active shooter situations because they can be deployed from almost anywhere and stored in the trunk of a cruiser.

They can also access areas traditional helicopters cannot. UAVs have an ability to fly lower to the ground, get into tight spots, hover under bridges and structures, and even fly inside buildings in order to help the experts gather as much detail as they can.

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