{"id":32199,"date":"2023-08-16T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/is-fingerprinting-still-a-worthwhile-crime-solving-tool\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:54:15","slug":"is-fingerprinting-still-a-worthwhile-crime-solving-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/is-fingerprinting-still-a-worthwhile-crime-solving-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"Is fingerprinting still a worthwhile crime-solving tool?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kathleen
Kathleen O\u2019Toole, a detective with the Durango Police Department, demonstrates dusting for fingerprints Tuesday at the police station. O\u2019Toole is a big believer in the use of fingerprinting to solve crimes, but others in law enforcement say it rarely provides the \u201csmoking gun\u201d to solve a crime. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When a man was found dead in his vehicle last month in La Plata Canyon, investigators used a tried-and-true method to identify him: fingerprinting.<\/p>\n

Authorities had good reason to believe they knew the man\u2019s identity<\/a>, based on the vehicle he was driving and the vehicle\u2019s registration. But vehicles can be borrowed or stolen, so they needed a more definitive answer.<\/p>\n

By obtaining a fingerprint from the man\u2019s body and running it through a database, law enforcement was able to positively identify the man in a matter of days, said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.<\/p>\n

Investigators could have sought dental records, but that method requires authorities to know who they are trying to identify, Smith said. Had they wrongly identified the man, it would have been a waste of time.<\/p>\n

\"Kathleen
Kathleen O\u2019Toole, a detective with the Durango Police Department, shows a fingerprint that came up Tuesday during a demonstration. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The fingerprint method was more likely to yield a positive result in a short amount of time, she said.<\/p>\n

Smith said she uses fingerprints to identify bodies about five times a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, we don\u2019t have to do it very often, but we do have to do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Influence on pop culture<\/strong><\/div>\n

Decades ago, fingerprinting played a prominent role in popular culture when it came to crime-solving. It was widely believed that any intrepid investigator could dust for prints and solve a crime.<\/p>\n

Crime dramas spent a fair amount of time depicting fingerprinting: investigators dusting for prints, criminal offenders taking precautions to mask or remove their prints.<\/p>\n

The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solved a crime using a bloody thumbprint in \u201cThe Norwood Builder,\u201d published in 1903. Almost 100 years later, Agent J played by Will Smith in the 1997 film \u201cMen in Black\u201d had his fingerprints removed as part of his identity erasing procedure.<\/p>\n

\"Billy
Billy Castaneda, left, a police service technician with the Durango Police Department, and Moon Williams, a records technician at DPD, demonstrate taking digital fingerprints Tuesday at the police station. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In recent years, DNA evidence, genetic genealogy and other forms of forensic testing have played a more prominent role in popular culture crime-solving \u2013 and for good reason.<\/p>\n

DNA evidence is everywhere, in the form of hair, saliva, semen, blood and skin cells, and it can be linked to a suspect with near-certainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to DNA coming online, there was a much, much bigger focus on things like fingerprints,\u201d said 6th Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne. \u201c\u2026 But with the advent of DNA \u2013 it\u2019s the gold standard, right? \u2013 there\u2019s a much bigger push to try to seek DNA evidence than there is to seek fingerprint evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Use of fingerprinting today<\/strong><\/div>\n

Despite the recent success in identifying a deceased individual, Durango and La Plata County investigators say they rarely solve crimes using fingerprints.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my career here, I can count on one hand \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 the number of crimes it helped me solve, and I took lots of fingerprints over the years,\u201d said Cmdr. Deck Shaline, who has been with the Durango Police Department for 36 years.<\/p>\n

\"Billy
Billy Castaneda, a police service technician with the Durango Police Department, demonstrates the fingerprinting process Tuesday at the police station. (Jerry McBride\/Durango)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango police Detective Sgt. Chris Thompson said fingerprinting is done in many investigations, in hopes that it could help bolster a case. He could not recall a single instance when fingerprinting was the \u201csmoking gun\u201d that helped solve a case, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really can\u2019t think of any cases where an investigation hinged around a fingerprint,\u201d said Thompson, who has been in law enforcement for 17 years.<\/p>\n

Champagne also couldn\u2019t recall a single case that hinged on fingerprint evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t remember a time, really ever, that I personally worked on a case in which fingerprint evidence \u2026 positively identified the defendant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Broader use for latent prints<\/strong><\/div>\n

Despite the lack of crimes being solved locally using fingerprints, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said the number of latent prints \u2013 those lifted from a surface \u2013 being submitted to CBI has increased by more than 28% in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n

\"(Adobe
(Adobe Stock)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

And of those, forensic scientists are making more conclusions. In 2019, the CBI had an Automated Fingerprint Identification System hit rate of 30%. In 2022, the hit rate was 38%. As of this year, the hit rate is 44%.<\/p>\n

In addition to the identifications represented in the hit rate, which is the percentage of time an AFIS entry results in an identification, the CBI makes identifications outside the AFIS system.<\/p>\n

One of the primary reasons for the increase is because of technological advances in photography, scanning and the AFIS databases, CBI deputy director Lance Allen said in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>. Unlike a DNA database, the AFIS has fewer restrictions and houses a larger number of records for a broader range of people, he said.<\/p>\n

The Combined DNA Index System houses only records of convicted offenders, whereas the AFIS houses both civilian and criminal records, or \u201ctens of millions of records,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n

\"(Adobe
(Adobe Stock)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dozens of professions require fingerprinting, including nursing, child care, schoolteacher, social workers, military members, casino workers, cannabis cultivation agents, bank employees, pawn brokers and tow truck drivers.<\/p>\n

There is a good chance those prints end up in a state or a federal fingerprint database.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvances in technology are making search times faster and more accurate, seemingly on a daily basis,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n

Champagne said the \u201ctechnology\u201d is still good, but it can be a challenge to obtain good prints.<\/p>\n

A \u2018lost art\u2019<\/strong><\/div>\n

There is an art to collecting fingerprints, and even the most skilled forensic investigator can struggle to lift a usable print if the surface area is not conducive to gathering them.<\/p>\n

The textured grip of a gun may have no usable fingerprints, but the smooth barrel of the gun may yield better results.<\/p>\n

\n

How police dust for prints<\/h4>\n

Durango Police Department Detective Kathleen O\u2019Toole said fingerprinting is a \u201clost art\u201d that deserves renewed attention from law enforcement for its ability to solve crimes. She described her process for locating prints, dusting for prints and lifting prints.\u201cThe big thing about fingerprints, for me, is that it\u2019s not as easy as it looks like on CSI,\u201d she said. Take a burglary scene, for example. The first thing O\u2019Toole does is look for surfaces the burglar may have touched. If a window is broken, she might look for areas where the burglar grabbed onto the side of the house or a window seal to hoist himself into the living room. She is looking for surfaces that most likely haven\u2019t been touched by anyone else, at least not recently.\u201cYou\u2019ve got to put yourself in the shoes of a suspect,\u201d O\u2019Toole said. \u201cWhere would that person have touched? \u2026 If you were them, where would you have grabbed onto to launch yourself into the living room?\u201dAfter identifying possible locations, she uses a flashlight at an angle, called oblique lighting, to see disturbances in the dust and possibly even fingerprints. Once identifying \u201cridge details,\u201d the tiny ridgelines from fingerprints, she will get out her dusting powders. She has black, white, silver and even neon-colored dusting powders, depending on the color of surface she is dealing with. She applies the dust using a brush, twirling the brush between her thumb and forefinger so as not to disturb the ridge details. After applying the powder, she uses a piece of clear shipping tape to \u201clift\u201d the print. She is careful to apply the tape so there are no air bubbles between the print and the tape.\u201cThis is where CSI on TV makes us mad, because it\u2019s a lot harder,\u201d O\u2019Toole said. \u201cYou know, you\u2019re doing it out in the cold or the blowing wind and usually you\u2019re doing it by yourself and you wish you had an extra hand.\u201dAfter lifting the print, she puts it on a card, about the size of an index card, to be submitted to the FBI or Colorado Bureau of Investigation for analysis.\u201cI think it\u2019s a lost art, and I do think it\u2019s really valuable evidence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Shane Benjamin<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Durango police Detective Kathleen O\u2019Toole is a big supporter of fingerprinting as an investigative tool. She said fingerprinting is a \u201clost art\u201d that still has huge potential in crime-solving. She is currently reading a book about the history of fingerprinting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve run into a number of newer officers who said, \u2018Oh, they did that one day in academy,\u2019 and haven\u2019t cracked a fingerprint kit since. And that saddens me because it is so valuable, so useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said fingerprinting played a key role in solving a crime she worked on more than 10 years ago while serving as an officer in Boulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does take some skill and patience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

DNA evidence is often easy to collect, she said, but it is more expensive to analyze and it gets messy when multiple people may have come into contact with a surface area.<\/p>\n

Fingerprints, on the other hand, are less expensive to analyze and are all unique, which makes them good pieces of evidence.<\/p>\n

Thompson said criminal investigators have gained access to a universe of new information in recent decades \u2013 surveillance video, DNA evidence, and digital forensics found on cellphones, laptops and vehicle computers \u2013 making fingerprinting less prominent.<\/p>\n

\"Billy
Billy Castaneda, left, a police service technician with the Durango Police Department, and Moon Williams, a records technician at DPD, demonstrate taking digital fingerprints Tuesday at the police station. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Shoe prints also prove valuable<\/strong><\/div>\n

Other forms of trace evidence like shoe prints and tire treads have helped solve more cases than fingerprinting, he said.<\/p>\n

Just last week, investigators used shoe prints<\/a> to help link a suspect to an attempted murder case at the Red Cliff Apartments in north Durango, according to an arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things are as unique as a fingerprint, in that everybody wears their shoes a little bit differently, they walk a little bit differently,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cYou step on a piece of broken glass or a pebble or something like that and it can scar the bottom side of your shoe, and that creates unique characteristics that are just as unique as a fingerprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Champagne recalled a drug case in which prosecutors sought to link a suspect to a bag of drugs. Investigators tried to lift fingerprints off the baggie, but the prints were not good enough to make a positive identification.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like it\u2019s totally off our radar screen,\u201d he said of fingerprinting. \u201cWe\u2019re still sort of looking for it, because it is really good evidence when you get it. It just seems like it\u2019s really rare that we ever say, \u2018Hey, we got a fingerprint match,\u2019 and that becomes a key piece of evidence. That doesn\u2019t happen very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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