A Duluth pastor is working to raise $10,000 to buy computer equipment for the Duluth Police Department to investigate such things as child pornography and sexual predators on the Internet.
"This is something that impacts the morality of the city and will protect a lot of children," said Pastor Bob Aspling, senior pastor of Crown Christian Family Church. He also is a volunteer law enforcement chaplain and organizer of Northland Transformation Network, a group that meets weekly to pray with and for people in government, business and education.
John Beyer, Duluth's investigative and administrative deputy police chief, said a community donation would be greatly appreciated.
The technology for computer forensics is expensive, Beyer said, and with the city's budget problems it's hard to find money for equipment and training. "We recognize this as a great need," he said.
Aspling learned about the Duluth Police Department's need last fall when two Superior police officers gave a talk at a Kiwanis Club meeting about Internet safety.
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He learned that Superior has a couple of officers who work on computer-related cases in addition to their other duties. He also learned that the Duluth Police Department has officers capable of doing the computer work but didn't have the necessary computer hardware and software.
The Northland Transformation Network has received about $3,000 in donations from about 12 area churches, and Aspling wants to make a push to raise $7,000 more.
When Duluth police seized a computer in a criminal case, it was sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in St. Paul and it typically took six months or more to get results, or it was sent to the Superior Police Department, which usually is booked up for weeks, Beyer said.
Duluth recently had an officer receive training in computer forensics technology and was able to buy a basic computer system with the help of a grant, but more is needed, Beyer said.
When a law enforcement agency gets a computer that might contain something illegal, it has to make a duplicate of the hard drive, which can take days if there's a lot on it, he said.
This preserves the computer in its original state and prevents tampering. Investigating what's on the duplicate hard drive is an arduous task that may involve looking at thousands of files, he said.
It would be helpful for the Duluth Police Department to have an additional computer to do this kind of work, Beyer said.
Computer forensics is a growing area of law enforcement and involves not only computers, but such things as cell phones and iPods -- anything that can store or send files, he said.
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Computer forensics not only involves sexual cases such as child pornography, but also financial crimes, he said.
"What we have is a bare-bones starting point," Beyer said. "To effectively investigate some of these cases, we need additional hardware and software."
The Northland Transformation Network is raising money for the Duluth Police Department to buy computer forensics software and hardware.
Donations can be sent to Northland Transformation Network, 901 E. Third St., Duluth MN 55805.
