NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Nolensville Police Department told News 2 they've seen an uptick in internet crimes against children and the department wants to hire an extra investigator to help keep up with their case load.

Nolensville Police Chief Dale Armour said that within the last several months, the department has seen an average of about three or four cases involving ICAC per month, which is an increase from the one or two reports they'd typically see in a given month.

"It's really taxing the one forensic examiner that I have,” Armour said.

To help investigate these child sex abuse cases, the department recently received a $10,219 grant to purchase advanced software, which will help Nolensville police sort through digital evidence.

"Recently we seized a computer that had several hard drives that had over a million images on it," Armour said. "Not all of those were criminal, but we still had to go through a million images to look to make sure and categorize those whether they were a violation or not."

Armour said the new technology would help alleviate some of the workload of their single investigator, but a second investigator is still needed.

"He's looking at stuff that nobody should look at all the time, and I want to make sure mentally that he can have time to back off and decompress, but I can still keep up with our case load,” Armour added.

The department hopes to secure another grant to help fund the extra position and in the long run, keep more children out of harm's way, Armour said.

“As many of these people we can take off the street we're going to, and that's as fast as we can get them to the courthouse is what we need to do with it, and this will help us get there faster,” Armour said.

The national ICAC task force has a number of resources, including a list of ways parents can make sure kids are using the internet safely.

News Source : https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nolensville-pd-rise-icac-seeks-investigator/