COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations is swamped with cases, and Attorney General Dave Yost says a spike in violent crime and the number of requests to assist are up significantly compared to previous years.
“Our folks are kind of running ragged, frankly,” Yost said. “Let’s skip the COVID year, we are way up over ’20. Let’s look at the last non-COVID year, 2019, our request for assistance through the first four months of the year is up over 50%. The number of homicide investigations has quadrupled, a four-fold increase.”
Yost says sexual assault cases are up 33%, and the number of officer-involved shooting incidents has remained steady, but there has been a higher demand for an independent investigation with BCI.
The Bureau of Criminal Investigations supplements and supports local police forces and sheriffs, and needs to be invited to assist, Yost says.
“I’ve gone to the legislature and talked about the challenges we’re facing and asked for additional resources. We are in a budget cycle right now and I’m very hopeful we will have some additional resource because the message we are hearing from local law enforcement is, ‘We need some help.’”
Yost explained more funding appropriated by the legislature will be used to hire more expert agents.