THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay Police Service’s evidence vaults are so full its chief is hoping to expand the detachment to house it all.
Most seized evidence is a product of burgeoning investigations into cybercrime and most of that is comprised of hard drives and other electronic devices containing child pornography.
“We’re looking at going out the south side of the building, if and when the funds become available through the city,” said Police Chief J.P.
Levesque, adding the detachment renovation will be at the top of his capital needs list once the new communication system is purchased.
Executive officer Chris Adams submitted an audit of property and cash seizures to the police board on Tuesday, announcing the evidence cache has reached 26,700 total items.
Those include drugs and related paraphernalia, cash, weapons and stolen property but Adams said electronic devices storing evidence of cybercrime is on the rise.
“We’re finding that storage is becoming more problematic because cybercrimes in general are increasing,” he said.
“The number of investigations is increasing year after year. It’s not unusual now in the course of a child pornography investigation to seize upwards of 10 or 15 different memory devices.”
Police are extracting terabytes of evidence from cell phones, thumb drives, tablets, external drives, computers and even video game consoles. In child pornography cases, laws require police services to retain those devices through to their safe demolition, even after trials are complete.
Adams added the prevalence of child pornography offences in Thunder Bay exceeds the cybercrime division’s resources to investigate and lay charges.
“Our cybercrime unit could be even busier if we had more resources to devote to it, given the high number of offenders that are out there, unfortunately in our community, engaging in the exchange of child pornography,” he said.
