The MSU Police Department is the only local department with its own crime and intelligence analyst who helps detectives investigate a myriad of crimes through an expertise in research and crime trends.
The East Lansing Police Department, Meridian Police Department and other local stations all solicit the help of MSUPD’s intelligence and crime analyst Melissa Redshaw, who became MSUPD’s first crime analyst roughly seven years ago.
MSU police Capt. Doug Monette said Redshaw’s assistance in investigations is something that cannot go unnoticed and is a pivotal part of how MSUPD works.
Redshaw graduated from Florida State University and began her policing career in Florida more than a decade ago, where she worked in a similar capacity as a crime investigator and also helped create an Amber Alert type system for lost elderly people.
She said those early experiences helped shape her ambitions in the world of policing and catching criminals.
“I was involved in some serious cases in Florida and got to really see how my work could help people,” Redshaw said. “That was really what put me on this path and brought me here.”
Redshaw is also a liaison for the Michigan Intelligence Operations Center, or Michigan fusion center, which was created following the September 11 attacks in order to encourage better communication between policing agencies about possible terrorist threats and other such crimes.
There are roughly 80 fusion centers in the U.S. As a liaison, Redshaw updates the fusion center on possible terrorist information and helps collaborate with other government agencies to better surveille the possibility of dangerous events such as September 11.
In her work at MSUPD, Redshaw is constantly parsing through suspects’ social media pages, their crime records and any other information she can get her eyes on to help progress an investigation.
“I’ve found criminals posing with stolen items on their Facebook page before, and that’s the sort of thing I look for,” she said. “I’m good at digging. If there is something incriminating online, I’ll find it.”
Redshaw said with the evolution of technology, it becomes more important for police agencies to use crime analysts like her in order to be able to keep up with criminals’ activities online.
“Technology is certainly allowing criminals to use more ways to stay out of our grasp,” she said. “With people like me, we could help combat that secrecy.”
For the future, Redshaw said she would like to see more crime analysts added to the MSUPD staff, in order to better keep up with crimes like credit card fraud which Redshaw said have been increasing in recent years.
“I think seeing more people like me would help everyone,” she said. “We are the ones who can dig deep and find that final thing that will put a criminal away.”
