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Federal fugitive picked up
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Oscar Saul Olmos-Morfin
MONROE - A routine vehicle check Thursday led to the arrest of a federal fugitive.

The Monroe Police Department received information from the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) Monday about a federal fugitive who could be in the area.

Oscar Saul Olmos-Morfin, 24, Mexico, was wanted by ICE for an immigration violation.

Police Lt. Mark Rohloff learned that Olmos-Morfin had received a citation from the Brodhead Police Department and that he had a Monroe address.

Monroe Police Chief Fred Kelley said ICE agents told him they thought Olmos-Morfin had relatives in Monroe. They also gave the department a photo of Olmos-Morfin.

Rohloff entered all the information about Olmos-Morfin, including his picture, into the city's data information system. He also sent out special notifications about Olmos-Morfin and his last known vehicle to all Monroe police officers.

Cpl. Noah Vig happened to check a vehicle registration Thursday and found that the vehicle was the same one Rohloff flagged in the data system as belonging to Olmos-Morfin.

"A short time later, the vehicle was stopped, the driver was compared to the photo of Olmos-Morfin and the person was captured," Kelley said.

Olmos-Morfin was jailed in the Green County Jail. He probably will be taken to Chicago for an appearance before an immigration court, Kelley said.

Along with Vig's alert response, Kelley said the countywide data system allowed his department to capture Olmos-Morfin.

"Because authorities in Brodhead had reported the routine traffic information to the system, the suspect's vehicle was known," Kelley said.

Olmos-Morfin's vital statistics, wanted status and even his photo was available to the police officers in their patrol vehicle.

The data system was purchased by the city and Green County in 2006 through Spillman Technologies, based Salt Lake City, Utah, at a cost of about $1 million. It's used as the records system and computer aided dispatch for all law enforcement agencies in the county, Kelley said.

The system is used as the records system and dispatch system for the Monroe Fire Department. It eventually will be expanded to include several other fire and Emergency Medical Services agencies in the county.

Kelley said the data system already has made response times faster and allowed various police departments to share information. Green County is one of the few counties in Wisconsin that has one data system for everything - police fire and EMS, he added.

"You just can't appreciate the value of a system like this until something like this type of incident happens," Kelley said.