Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Equipment allowing the recovery of data from the automotive equivalent of airplane "black boxes" is one of two new gadgets the Juneau Police Department can expect to boost their forensic tools.

A city attorney said Juneau may be the first police department in Alaska to get the crash retrieval system that can access information from certain models of vehicles equipped with "event data recorders," or EDRs.

The Juneau Assembly approved drawing down nearly $10,000 in state grant money and a city match of about $5,500 this week for the system.

"They often times are compared to the black boxes that we hear about all the time on airplanes," said police Lt. Troy Wilson. "They're gathering some of that data."

The information can be critical to an investigation, particularly if the accident is fatal, and tell investigators things like how fast a vehicle was traveling and when or if brakes were applied, he said.

"It's giving some information on what that vehicle was doing moments before the crash took place," Wilson said.

Assembly member Randy Wanamaker said there are some concerns about privacy rights. Wilson said that could lead to requiring search warrants to retrieve data from a vehicle in some cases.

The device will not be compatible with all vehicles, only certain models manufactured after a certain time.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler install EDRs, as do some foreign carmakers. It is expected that 85 percent of all new vehicles manufactured will have the recorders installed by 2010, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

The Assembly also approved a grant for nearly $36,000 in federal stimulus money to purchase a handheld device that can identify explosives, drugs and unknown substances in the field.

"We could take a sample and run it through this instrument in a testing process and it would be able to give us some indication of what the compounds were," Wilson said, including whether it was a drug like cocaine or some sort of explosive compound or chemical.

The device would have been helpful in the anthrax scares in Juneau last year and several years before, when suspicious powdered substances were found at different locations, Wilson said.

The police department is looking at several different vendors and will begin a bidding process in the near future, he said. He expects investigators will be able to begin using the device in the field by next summer.

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