Jan. 31--Using a new fingerprint scanner, Gloucester police over the weekend were able to match an accused drug dealer with the identity of a man wanted in Wisconsin -- and who may be in the country illegally.
A man known locally as Nino Hernandez was arrested at 5 p.m. Friday following a search of a Staten Street apartment where he was allegedly selling cocaine, according to police.
After he was arrested, police say Hernandez gave them several false names, so detectives utilized some new equipment: a 7-month-old fingerprint scanner called the L1 Identity Solution, that can search records from across the country in less than 10 minutes.
Using the scanner, detectives discovered that a man with Hernandez's fingerprints had a warrant out for his arrest from a Milwaukee court on charges of violating parole on drug distribution and heroin possession.
Police also learned that Hernandez used the names Alexander Martinez, Alexandro Hernandez, Valentin Hernandez and Hernandez Rossario.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who assisted police in serving the search warrant that led to Hernandez's arrest said she believes Hernandez is Luis Hernandez Rosario, and that he is in the U.S. illegally.
Hernandez was charged by Gloucester police with two counts of distributing cocaine, two counts of possession of a Class B controlled substance, one count of possession of a Class B substance with intent to distribute and one count of providing police with a false name.
"We wouldn't know all that we know without the fingerprint machine," Lt. Kathy Auld, Gloucester's chief of detectives, said Monday.
Police knew to search Hernandez for drugs after he sold cocaine to a police informant, but according to Auld, police would still not even know his history without the new policing tool.
Using the old method of fingerprinting suspects, police would have taken a print from each of Hernandez's fingers, then sent it to a state lab to be processed.
"We used to fill out the form, then send it to the state where they get thousands and thousands of them," said Detective Jeremiah Nicastro. The new machine, Nicastro says, is much faster, and it can make and take palm prints, prints from the lower part of the finger and prints from the side of the hand.
"It makes processing more complete," said Nicastro.
The fingerprint scanner was not the only new tool to be used, police said. The city's new K9 police dog also helped out, according to the police report, alerting police to a bag of cocaine on the basement floor of the Staten Street house.
Police obtained the warrant to search the house after a police informant twice bought cocaine from Hernandez.
When police went to serve the warrant, Hernandez wasn't in the house, so Nicastro called him to ask to buy drugs -- essentially bringing Hernandez to the house so he could be arrested.
Because the police did not know Hernandez's name, simply collecting the cocaine, the digital scales and the inositol powder used to cut the strength of the cocaine to keep the profit up for the dealer would not have been enough to arrest him.
Hernandez had to be arrested in the house in order to be sure it would be possible to connect him with the crimes he is alleged to have committed.
"It's all about getting a drug dealer off the street," said Nicastro.
Stephanie Bergman can be reached at 978-283-7000 x3451, or [email protected].
Copyright 2012 - Gloucester Daily Times, Mass.
