Testimonials

As Police Chief for the past ten years, I have conducted several audits over the years on our Evidence Vault. We have been having a difficult time in even maintaining workspace, often with over 15,000 pieces of inventoried evidence. And with increasing challenges of having to maintain more articles than ever involving major crimes for lengthy amounts of time due to criminal court proceedings being dragged on, we are struggling with space and efficiency. One example is our evidence from a homicide in the 1970s in our vault was contained in one standard size box. Comparatively, a recent homicide contained nine extra-large boxes of evidence that must be maintained forever. As soon as I heard about Fortress Plus Solutions being a viable options that covers the State of Illinois standards for Chain of Custody, Illinois Law Enforcement Accreditation Program standards, and high security maintenance, we visit their facility and asked assurance questions. We then immediately designated approximately 3,000 articles of forever evidence, such as homicide and sexual assault cases for transfer to Fortress Plus Solutions. With an aging Police Department building, cause for concern that a pipe may burst, or another building tragedy could affect the integrity of very important criminal cases. The solutions that Fortress Plus Solutions provides has been both a relief and has definitely increased the efficiency of our evidence vault management.

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to all of the employees of Fortress Plus Solutions. The evidence storage solution that Fortress has provided to small agencies like ours, is invaluable. With changing retention laws, and the need to reevaluate older evidence with current technology, our evidence room was beginning to overflow. Fortress came to our rescue by offering a cost-effective way for us to store long term retention items while still having the capability to take in new evidence. Alternatives to Fortress Plus Solutions came at an extreme cost to taxpayers. Building a new storage site in our current building was not feasible and a new station was cost prohibitive. Fortress came through by offering a secure site with state-of-the-art security technology, maintained the chain of custody with professionals that have served as evidence custodians and had a strong law enforcement background. We cannot thank the staff enough for helping us and others like us with the cost-effective storage solutions for evidence. You are not only helping law enforcement, but the victims of crimes to ensure the collected evidence in their cases can be secure and evaluated with future technologies.