The News Tribune brings us the sad news that the Tacoma Police and Pierce County Sheriff’s departments in Washington will not get the federal funding that would enable them to set up full-time “cold case” squads.
The National Institute of Justice recently announced the 2010 grants that will allow law enforcement agencies to devote detectives exclusively to unsolved homicides and suspicious missing persons cases. Neither Tacoma police nor the Sheriff’s Department received money. The Police Department has twice applied for federal grant money to create a full-time cold case unit and been turned down.
The King County Sheriff’s Office was the only law enforcement agency in the state to receive grant money from the National Institute of Justice; it got $544,147 to continue its Cold Case Squad.