Policy on Police with PI Licenses Regulated Locally

The executive director of the Louisiana State Board of Private Investigator Examiners says discussions have been held through the years about changing the state laws governing private investigators to exclude law enforcement officers.

"It's suggested from time to time, but it just hasn't happened," said executive director Pat Englade. "There are departments, Baton Rouge and Shreveport, that don't allow it as part of their own policies, because of the possible conflicts."

J.A. Oster, a West Monroe private investigator, said he brought the issue up a number of times during his 13-year board tenure. "I could never get the votes on the board that were needed," Oster said.

The News-Star learned that Sterlington Police Chief Barry Bonner had been issued a private investigator license and formed a limited liability corporation, Rogue Private Investigations. There have been past issues in Ouachita Parish about police officers having a PI license and the possible use of National Crime Information Center and ThinkStream materials, which other PIs would not have access.

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Computer Forensics Faces Private Eye Competition

The Internet is boundless and cybercrime scenes stretch from personal desktops across the fiber networks that circle the globe. Digital forensic investigators like Harold Phipps, vice president of industry relations at Norcross Group in Norcross, Ga., routinely slip across conventional geographic jurisdictions in pursuit of digital evidence and wrongdoers.

Lawmakers across the Savannah River in Columbia, S.C., have different ideas, however. Under pending legislation in South Carolina, digital forensic evidence gathered for use in a court in that state must be collected by a person with a PI license or through a PI licensed agency.