With Printrak and Key Tip Off, Robbers Fingered

The slogan “help take a bite out of crime” was never supposed to be taken so literally.

Walking in the suburbs of Amsterdam, a young couple were attacked by two men who stole the woman’s purse and threatened the male victim with a handgun. In the scuffle that ensued, the male victim bit off the tip of one assailant’s pinky finger.

Now this is where it gets even more bizarre. The victims took the fingertip to a police station, where it was used to produce a fingerprint that was fed into a computerized matching system designed by Anaheim-based Printrak International Inc.

Within minutes, a match was found in the police department’s fingerprint database, and several days later, the attackers were found, identified (presumably, the missing tip made this a no-brainer) and arrested.

“This is an absolutely true story,” said David McNeff, vice president of sales at Printrak, who added: “It’s a bit out of the ordinary . . . no pun intended.”

For making such interesting use of Printrak’s technology, the Amsterdam police force was awarded the company’s “Hit of the Year” award at its annual users conference in Anaheim two months ago.

Printrak is one of the leading suppliers of electronic fingerprint identification systems increasingly used by law enforcement agencies. The company has contracts with more than 150 law enforcement agencies, a third of which are outside the United States, McNeff said. Printrak recently completed a deal with the Anaheim Police Department.

The company, which has 300 employees, sold stock to the public for the first time last summer, shortly after another Orange County fingerprinting company was making headlines. The latter company, Newport Beach-based Comparator Systems Corp., was accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and settled the case earlier this year.

McNeff said he was glad that the culprit was caught in the Amsterdam case, but that Printrak does not recommend going to such extremes to obtain a fingerprint. “This is going the extra mile,” he said.

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Greg Miller covers high technology for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and atgreg.miller@latimes.com