Police department utilizes web service

The Green River Police Department will get some online-based backup in the form of Leads Online.

The Green River City Council approved a motion for a software agreement with Leads Online, for the investigations division of the GRPD last week. Detectives will utilize Leads Online as an investigative tool.

Use of the website for a year will cost $2,848. Funding for the years-worth use of the software will come out of the regular allotted budget of the GRPD Investigations Division, and will not require additional funding.

Leads Online is an online data base of information helpful to law enforcement, such as second-hand sellers reports from pawn shops and other reports and clues vital to solving cases. Information found on the site have aided law enforcement in solving a variety of crimes including arson, campus crime, cyber crime, financial crime, firearms theft, identity theft, insurance fraud, metal theft, meth, narcotics, precious metals, property crime, retail theft, and violent crime.

“What it boils down to is, people do things for money,” Lt. Burke Morin of the GRPD said. “And so if they steal something, they need to pawn it so they can get money.”

The GRPD Investigations Division decided to try the Leads Online free 30-day trial. During that time, they pursued investigations in Green River’s residence’s stolen properties.

“Within about two weeks, we recovered stolen property totaling over $3,000,” Morin said. “So right away, we recognized the benefits.”

Morin said, in a way their money has already been paid back in the stolen property they’ve recovered and returned to their rightful owners.

“That’s kind of the gravy on the potatoes, because not only do we get the stolen property back to the rightful owner, which is really what we like to do, then we also like to charge people that commit those crimes,” Morin said. “So for us it’s a good deal, for the people that have things stolen, it’s a good deal.”