Comment on BSO’s forensics unit, real-time crime center receive $1.5 million in federal grants

The Broward Sheriff’s Office has received nearly $1.5 million in federal funding to expand its Real Time Crime Center, which was created after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, and its Digital Forensics Unit to help with investigations of human trafficking. U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz, who submitted the funding requests, held a news conference with Sheriff Gregory Tony to announce the grants Thursday. The $525,000 for the Digital Forensics Unit will be used to pay for hardware, work stations, computer software to “boost evidence tracking and collaboration with prosecutors” with a focus on investigating child sex crimes and human trafficking, said Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. “Unfortunately, as the Sheriff has talked about so many times, human trafficking is a really terrible scourge right here in South Florida,” Wasserman Schultz said.