Uncovering crime
Fingerprinting computer
helps police crack cases
By Chad Lorenz
Senior Reporter
Crimes that might have remained
unsolved can now be cracked wide
open by Lincoln police with the help
of a fingerprinting computer.
Gene Rauscher, coordinator of the
Lincoln Police Department’s identifi
cation lab, said since its arrival last
August, the computer had matched 70
prints to help solve crimes.
Before getting the computer, po
lice kept ink-pressed fingerprints on
thousands of cards labeled with the
owners’ names, Rauscher said. To find
a match, police already had to know
names of suspects.
If there were no suspects, police
had a problem. But the computer elimi
nated that problem.
“That’s the beauty of having the
whole database — letting the elec
tronics do the labor,” Rauscher said.
The computer compares finger
prints found at the scene of a crime
with more than 145,000 sets offinger
prints kept in a state-wide database,
Rauscher said.
The computer matches the latent
prints, which criminalists digitally
scan, with any other prints that share
at least seven similar features such as
whorls, loops, deltas and ridge end
ings.
Once the best match is made, the
computer gives the name of the person
belonging to the identified prints.
The fingerprints scanned by the
computer are usually better quality
than those produced from ink prints,
Rauscher said. The computer also
magnifies and enhances the images
for easier inspection, he said.
“We can do some things mechani
cally that we couldn’t do with the
printed fingerprint,” he said.
“That’s a lot of new
tricks to teach to some
old dogs. ”
GENE RAUSCHER
identification lab coordinator
Rauscher said he was using prints
found years ago to solve crimes still
within the Nebraska statute of limita
tions.
Nebraska was one of the last states
to catch on to computerized finger
printing, Rauscher said, but waiting
had an advantage.
Nebraska’s system is more ad
vanced than any other state law en
forcement agency, he said. The sys
tem cost the state $1.5 million.
The computer automatically iden
tifies most of the unique features of
each fingerprint—intricate work usu
ally done by the criminalists, Rauscher
said.
The computer used by LPD is one
of five networked across Nebraska, he
said. The Omaha police department
uses one, and the state patrol uses
three.
Ten “livescan” units stationed at
Nebraska correctional facilities re
placed black ink pads and messy fin
gerprint cards, Rauscher said.
Correction officers now place the
subject’s finger on a plate-glass scan
ner, which digitizes the fingerprint
and files it in the database, he said.
Sometimes the prints lack quality,
but Rauscher said the officers were
still getting used to the new technol
ogy.
“That’s a lot of new tricks to teach
to some old dogs.”
Corrections
Clarifications
Because of an editing error, a
news analysis in Monday’s Daily
Nebraskan incorrectly stated that
no planets had been found out
side the solar system until this
month.
In October, however, scien
tists announced the discovery of
a planet circling the star 51
Pegasi in the constellation Pe
gasus.
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