Technology has come so far, so fast

In 2011, the Vancouver Canucks hockey team lost the Stanley Cup finals to the Boston Bruins. The final game of the series attracted huge crowds on the streets of Vancouver who gathered to watch the game on outside monitors. Shortly before the game ended with the apparent loss for Vancouver, fires were set. After the game ended, cars were set on fire and fighting broke out. Soon, a riot was in progress in downtown Vancouver, with police cars set on fire, shops looted and attendant destruction of property. In the aftermath, 5000 hours of proprietary CCTV video and photos needed to be processed and assembled before the Integrated Riot Investigation Team (IRIT) could begin their investigation. In the end, over 350 people were charged with a variety of crimes.

Here's the report of that processing effort from Evidence Technology Magazine: 

An international team of forensics experts assembled under the auspices of the Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA), a non-profit professional organization dedicated to the use and forensic analysis of video in law enforcement. At the request of the Vancouver regional Integrated Riot Investigation Team (IRIT), the group drew more than 50 experts from three countries to the LEVA Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana.

Working around-the-clock shifts, analysts and technicians examined more than 5,000 hours of video while tagging more than 15,000 criminal events and individuals. The approach proved quite powerful. Whereas investigators required four months to process just 100 hours of video after the riots in 1994, the thousands of hours of video recorded in 2011 were processed and initially tagged in just two weeks.

“This will go down as the largest investigation of its kind in Canadian criminal history because of the number of people we are charging,” said Vancouver Police Department Sergeant Howard Chow, “but this is significant for a number of reasons.”

I am proud to say that I was there as an active part of LEVA's Forensic Video Response Team.  I even got to see myself on the Global News nightly telecast.

That was then. That effort cost quite a bit of money. That process, bringing the best and brightest from around the world to a single location, was the best that could be done at the time. Today, we're way beyond that technologically.

If something like the Vancouver riots happened today, we wouldn't need to get everyone together in one place. Why? Technology has evolved.

Proprietary video evidence collected from the scene, all 5000 hours of it, can be easily and quickly converted now with Axon Convert. Once the video files are converted, the evidence and the converted proxy files can be uploaded to Evidence.com with Evidence Sync. From Inspectors to Crown Prosecutors, everyone can now access these files from one central and secure location. Evidence is tagged and assigned to specialized staff for forensic video analysis with Axon Five. As far as photos are concerned, the Crown will want to know that the photos are originals and haven't been "Photoshopped." Axon Detect is well suited to the task of detecting potential forgeries and assuring that whatever is entered into evidence is legitimate and fit for trial. Let's not forget body worn, vehicle mounted, and interview room footage - now a vital part of any investigation.

Thanks to the power of Evidence.com, the specialized staff and forensic resources do not necessarily have to be in the same city. The work can be spread out over the entirety of Canada, or even into the rest of the world wide community of law enforcement / military forensic experts. Working from a commonly accepted workflow, using the industry leading tools that are part of the Axon Forensic Suite, this world wide community can process, categorize, and analyze thousands of hours of footage at a fraction of the 2011 costs - all from the comfort of their local offices.

If you'd like to know more about the Axon products mentioned here, contact us.