Cyber Crimes Increasing
The threatening e-mails at the University of Iowa held the campus in the grips of terror for several weeks. In addition to the e-mails, police allege that Claiborne entered an apartment complex next to hers and placed a plate of dyed-red noodles outside the door of a Black male dental student with a note that read: "Dead Black Man's Brains" (see Black Issues, May 11).
The threats received a tremendous amount of publicity in the local media, and university officials were under added pressure to find the culprit. Green says his officers used a combination of old-fashioned police investigative techniques and 21st century cyber sleuthing to nab Claiborne.
Although he advocates training a campus police department officer, Green doesn't rule out making use of resources outside the department, if necessary. In fact, in the e-mail case, his officers consulted experts within the university's information technology department, which determined that the threatening messages were being sent from a computer within the college of dentistry. Officers then set up surveillance cameras to help catch the culprit in the act.
"If police departments can't find or afford to have one officer specialize in computer-related crimes, then I think they need to look at entering into some sort of collaboration with another agency where they could pool resources," he says. "Because this is not going to go away. We can't ignore it. It's just going to increase."
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