Oxygen Forensic® Detective is a Crucial Part of the Toolkit

Chad Gish is a 20-year veteran of the Metro Nashville Police Department in Nashville, Tennessee, where today he serves as a detective and lead digital forensics investigator in the department’s Surveillance and Investigative Support Unit. Chad wasn’t always a digital expert. Like many law enforcement professionals, he got his start as a Patrol Officer. But after thousands of hours of training, and years of hands-on experience building and maintaining the department’s forensic lab, he’s become one of the MNPD’s star investigators—earning the department’s Police Officer of the Year award in 2018.

Chad began his digital forensics career in 2005, which means he’s seen a lot of investigative tools come and go. And while he may be an adept technology expert with well over a decade of experience in the field, he still has a keen appreciation for tools that are not just effective, but also intuitive and easy-to-use. That’s why Chad and his team rely on Oxygen Forensics.

The Challenge

When DNA testing first began appearing in courtroom evidence in the late 80s, it was a novel science that juries were hesitant to trust. Thirty years later, it’s become a cornerstone of the modern criminal justice system—so much so that juries are now hesitant to issue a conviction without it. Chad has watched firsthand as digital forensics has followed a similar trajectory, progressing from technological curiosity to become an essential component in the vast majority of all criminal investigations. These days, every jury expects to see a video, photo, internet search, phone call, or text included among the evidence. For Chad and his team, that means managing a massive caseload, all the time.

Chad has trained enough forensic investigators to know that the job requires tremendous amounts of patience. Not only must investigators endure hours upon hours of training before they’re ready to take on a real case, they also have to make it through the cases themselves, which require hours upon hours of waiting. Processing data takes a long time, even using the NPD’s state-of-the-art facilities, so Chad’s team can’t afford to waste a moment dealing with clunky, overly complicated forensics software. To do their jobs well, they need tools that lessen their workload rather than adding to it. That’s why Oxygen Forensics is a crucial part of their toolkit.

The Solution

Chad and his team first started using Oxygen Forensics more than a decade ago, and still use the software as one of their primary investigative tools. The user-friendly and intuitive interface has made all the difference for his department, both saving time and allowing young investigators to focus their energies on mastering the complicated art and science of digital forensics, rather than the ins and outs of a difficult software program.

Chad and his team have also found that Oxygen Forensics gives them the ability to look at raw data more efficiently than other comparable products, thanks to its powerful, all-in-one solution. With the proliferation of cloud computing, mobile data is no longer limited to the size of a device’s hard drive, so Chad’s team are processing more raw data than ever before. That’s why they rely on the Oxygen Forensic® Jet Engine module, which is capable of executing extraordinarily fast, multi-threaded processing of files and parsing of user data. For MNPD’s Surveillance and Investigative Support Unit, every minute saved is invaluable.