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Some suburban police departments' records wiped after computer glitch

123 views · Published 12 December 2018 · 2:01 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: LOCAL 12 · 2018 · News & Politics

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GREENHILLS, Ohio (WKRC) - Twenty-seven police agencies across suburban Cincinnati are relying on paper police records after the computer system they used experienced a glitch.

Some agencies have been using the PAMET system for years, and now all those computer-based records are gone. The police departments are hoping a data recovery company can retrieve those records before it's too late.

The Greenhills Police Department has used the PAMET computer system since 2011.

“This has always been a very easy system to use and easy to get data from, but it's not easy to get data from the system when it's not there,” said Ferdelman.

The system stopped working on Oct. 27. Years of police reports, arrest records and traffic citations were gone in an instant.

“We were assured that it would be just a matter of a day or two and they would get things up,” said Ferdelman. “We're now looking at well over a month and, at this point, it's looking like we're not going to see our data back."

Chief Ferdelman says no criminal cases in Greenhills will be affected, but bigger agencies could experience an issue.

"It may for some larger agencies, but in police work, we rely a lot on notebooks and notes, so when an officer responds to a case, he's probably going to make some preliminary notes himself by hand,” said Ferdelman.

A spokesman for the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office says the situation has been less than ideal. Triffon Callos also says no criminal cases have been jeopardized, but it is problematic.

Chief Ferdelman says there's an important lesson here.

"We're going to make sure the backups are in place, and we're going to trust and verify,” said Ferdelman.

Ferdelman says this could also affect open records requests because it will take more time for police departments to find the records.

The Cincinnati Police Department is not affected by this data glitch.

Local 12 News reached out to PAMET but did not hear back Friday night.

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