It's all in the palm.For more than a century, the fingerprint has been the quintessential quin·tes·sen·tial adj. Of, relating to, or having the nature of a quintessence; being the most typical: "Liszt was the quintessential romantic" Musical Heritage Review. piece of crime scene evidence. But, aided by new technology, police departments are turning to another source of distinctively patterned skin: the palm. Police say at least 30 percent of the prints lifted from crime scenes--from gun grips, steering wheels, and window panes--are of palms, not fingers. New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of City's police department, using computer scanners instead of ink pads ink pad ink n → Stempelkissen nt , has created a searchable database Refers to databases on the Web that are searchable by typing in a query. The term is quite redundant because all databases are searchable. In fact, that is one of their major features. of 100,000 palm prints. About 30 other departments, including those in Miami, Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , Philadelphia, and Indianapolis, have also built palm databases. The use of palm prints by police concerns some defense lawyers, who point out that the reliability of fingerprint matching has recently come into question in the courts. But proponents of using palm prints note that no fingerprint challenges have succeeded. Investigators hope the new technology will help solve more property crimes, many of which depend on fingerprint evidence for resolution. |
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