Google Earth Used to Help Make Arrest in Florida

If you watch CSI: Miami, you might be under the impression that Miami-Dade has the most tech-savvy crime fighters in the state. You might be wrong. A Santa Rosa County deputy used Google Earth to help track down a man and make an arrest.The crime isn't nearly as interesting as...

By Kyle Munzenrieder

April 1, 2010

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If you watch CSI: Miami, you might be under the impression that Miami-Dade has the most tech-savvy crime fighters in the state. You might be wrong. A Santa Rosa County deputy used Google Earth to help track down a man and make an arrest.

The crime isn't nearly as interesting as the police work, though. A one-ton, 25-year-old boat mysteriously showed up on a piece of undeveloped land in Pace, Florida, according the Pensacola News Journal. So Dep. Gregory Barnes hopped on Google Earth, the satellite map-enhanced globe software, and searched the nearby area to see if he could figure out where the boat was at the time satellite images were taken.

Barnes found that the boat used to be on the property of Dwight Everett Foster. Foster confessed and could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for illegally dumping more than 500 pounds of litter.

Foster's son collected the boat and properly disposed of it at the city dump, which cost him all of $18.

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