Atlanta Police cannot access important homicide cases

ATLANTA - For one week, detectives who work for the Atlanta Police Department have been unable to access files on homicide cases. The restriction is part of the fallout from the hack of the government network.

Authorities acknowledge the hacking, said to have come with a ransom demand of $51,000. It led them to tell employees to turn off their work computers.

On Tuesday, officers got the go-ahead to turn on their computers and police saw a sarcastic comment, "I sorry". They could not get in.

Ash Joshi, an attorney who used to work as a Fulton County prosecutor, said no one knows if criminal evidence has been left untouched by the hack.

He said detectives won't know until the case management system is unlocked whether information that took months to compile is still there.

Joshi said the data is absolutely necessary to proceed with a prosecution.

A spokesperson for the chief, Carlos Campos, says there is no evidence investigative files have been corrupted. He adds the city is making progress getting the network back up and accessible to police employees.

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