More eyeballs

My Monday night effort to use crowdsourcing to identify the make and model of the vehicle involved in tossing four Molotov cocktails last week paid off. Several readers definitively pinpointed this as a first generation Neon (1995-1999)--including an FBI agent in another state who reads the Director's Desk.

Wednesday morning around 7:00 AM, a Crimestoppers tip was received from a person who had spotted a vehicle parked on the street in the vicinity of S. 50th and South Streets, with a pretty poor attempt at a car cover. The source mentioned two of the specific descriptors contained in my Monday night post, and knew that these matched the arson vehicle. Looks like he or she is a reader of my blog.

Dagnabbit, every time I think about calling it off and recapturing a few hours of my personal life, something like this happens that makes me rethink the value of blogging. In any event, the car has been seized, the suspect has been identified, and his surrender for arrest is presently being negotiated. These offenses will be cleared, and social media provided the key information.

It is the golden age of criminal investigations, suspects are leaving trails of evidence our predecessors could hardly imagine. No way a camera would have captured such images during the first 35 years of my career. We are still trying to figure out the best thing to do with these relatively new information streams. In some circumstances, keeping the cards close to the vest is the best police strategy. In most, however, engaging thousands of more eyeballs in the search is vastly preferable.

Cash strapped

An interesting article appears in the current issue of The Atlantic, "How the Decline of Cash Makes America a Safer Country." The article relates the decrease in crime in the United States to the decrease in the use of cash, and cites some interesting research that supports this, leveraging a naturally-occurring experiment: a multiple time-series in the State of Missouri. I may have scooped The Atlantic in a way, as I blogged about this very topic several weeks ago, on February 4.

There are two other factors in the declining U.S. crime rate that rarely get mentioned, but I believe are significant: the growth of remote sensing security systems (i.e., CCTV and alarms), and he proliferation of cellular telephones. Not only is there less cash floating around the steal, but your basic thief is far more likely to trip an alarm or be caught on camera, and every single witness now has a hotline to the 911 center in his or her hand.

Traffic monitors

The City of Lincoln Public Works and Utilities Department has a network of about 50 cameras for traffic management at major intersections in Lincoln. These cameras are not recorded, but I use them on occasion to check on a situation within their view--such as this rollover collision this morning at 87th and Highway 2.

Yesterday afternoon, I queued up the camera at Interstate 180 and Cornhusker Highway as we were responding northbound to an emergency, and found a whole committee of traffic monitors surveying the flow.

More than a scuffle

The ongoing saga of LPD's proposal to light up two CCTV cameras in the public right of way near 14th and O Street was back in the news this week. The police would like cameras here to both deter illegal behavior and to aid in the investigation of crimes that occur within their viewshed on the public streets and sidewalks. This is a logical spot, because of the frequency of such crimes as assault in the area--primarily during the late night and early morning hours when the bar scene is booming.

One of the opponents to these cameras has asserted that many of these assaults were mere scuffles between college students. Well, in a sense he's right: most of the assaults are misdemeanors, although nowhere close to half of these actually involve college students, and I would hardly call these mere scuffles. There are a lot of trips to the hospital involved, many injuries, and I don't think the shoving contests and chest-bumping confrontations are typically reported to the police.

Among the 103 assaults this year that have resulted in an official police report and occurred within a block and a half of the camera location are 25 felony assaults. These one-liners provide a glimpse of what some of the "scuffles" were like:

B3-015567  UNK PUNCHED V IN HEAD / LACERATION / REQUIRED MEDICAL GLUE

B3-013859  UNKNOWN PR PUNCHED V CAUSING INJ REQUIRING STITCHES

B3-025969  ASSAULTED BY UNK DOWNTOWN  /  MRI SHOWED BRAIN BLEED

B3-028530  UNKN MALES STRUCK V IN FACE WITH FISTS / BROKEN NOSE

B3-036926  KNOWN PR HAD KNIFE DURING BAR FIGHT

B3-047357  HIT V CAUSING UNCONSCIOUSNESS AND FRACTURED NOSE

B3-037339 KNOWN PR STRUCK VIC IN FACE / FELL TO GROUND / STAPLES REQUIRED

B3-040203  UNK PR PULLED OUT GUN IN STORE

B3-052590  UNK MALE KICKED V IN HEAD / GASH TO HEAD REQUIRING 5 STITCHES

B3-074883  KNOWN CUT V ON RIGHT FOREARM WITH A KNIFE

B3-083255  PUNCHED TO FACE/HEAD / BROKEN CHEEK BONE  / OTH INJ

B3-090864  V UNCONSCIOUS AFTER UNK STRUCK HIM IN FACE

Mobile traveler

Yesterday's snowstorm was a bit of a surprise in eastern Nebraska. We are certainly familiar with March snowstorms in Lincoln, but this one was supposed to hang further to the east, with Lincoln predicted to get only a dusting. I will be blowing about 8 inches of that dust off the driveway shortly.

The snow caused all sorts of traffic woes, especially on the Interstate. I was headed to Omaha for lunch with my daughter. An inch of snow wasn't going to deter me, until I started checking the Nebraska Department of Roads web cameras. It was pretty obvious from the cameras between Lincoln and Omaha that the conditions on I-80 were horrid, so we hunkered down and bagged the lunch date.

The NDOR network of traffic cameras is a mighty nice resource for such purposes. The main interface is a map application, the Advanced Traveler Information System. Personally, I prefer Mobile Traveler --which is optimized for a smart phone or tablet. Mobile Traveler presents a simple table of links to the cameras. Despite the fact that I am obviously a GIS and mapping geek, I just find it a little easier to navigate quickly.

You can't beat the near-real time view of conditions these traffic cameras offer. They are great for winter travel, and for checking traffic conditions. The City of Lincoln's extensive network of traffic cameras at major Lincoln intersections provides the same benefits.

Caught on camera

Earlier this month, officers Chad Staley and Conan Schafer made a nice arrest of an alleged serial graffiti vandal.  Among his dozens of targets was the statue of Abraham Lincoln that stands right in front of the Law Enforcement Center and Hall of Justice. The vandal painted the letter V in a circle on the base of the statue--similar to the emblem in the film (and comic book) V for Vendetta.

There is an interesting back story concerning how the arrest was made. Officer Nate Flood, who investigated one of the vandalism cases, reviewed video from the camera systems at the Hall of Justice, which showed the vandal walking towards the statute from the convenience store on the opposite side of 10th Street.  Officer Flood went to the convenience store, and found video of the suspect from that vantage point, too. The convenience store's footage (is it still called "footage"?) was even better.

The video was not of sufficient quality to identify the suspect by facial features, but it did reveal a rather distinctive logo on the suspect's back pack.  Still images from the video were shown during daily roll call briefings (we actually call it "lineup") at the police department the following day.  Later that evening, two officers preparing to  do a little traffic enforcement a mile or so south of Abe's location happened to see a pedestrian sporting a backpack with a logo they recognized from lineup, and made the arrest.  The backpack, of course, contained several cans of spray paint.  Case cleared--or rather 34 cases cleared.

Images from various privately-owned and operated CCTV systems are helping to clear a lot of crimes in Lincoln.  Sometimes it is an eagle-eyed police officer who makes the identification, and often it is a citizen.

Public place cameras

The police department has been experimenting with a public place camera at 14th and O Street, monitoring the street and sidewalks in this area.  The camera (actually, it's a pair) is on a 36 hour recording loop, with the idea that this strikes a balance between the police desire to capture evidence in the event of a crime on the one hand, and the discomfort some people have with government recording them on the other hand.

While many police agencies around the world have implemented camera monitoring of some public places, often reporting significant reductions in crime, I have a little discomfort with the concept. Simply put, I am concerned over the extent to which our daily lives are being cataloged by all manner of electronic gizmos and databases.  I'm not sure there is much we can do about it, since most of this is done by non-governmental entitites.  Our own desire to use such things as debit cards and smartphones is apparently greater than our concern that the bank and the cell phone provider have data about where we've been as a result.

It is noteworthy that privately-owned cameras are plentiful in such places as retail stores, parking lots, shopping malls, parking garages, a growing number of apartment complexes, office buildings, and the like.  It is also worth noting that government-owned cameras are also commonly operating at such places as schools, public transportation facilities, and university campuses. Private enterprise is already operating several public place cameras in the downtown area.  Nevertheless, when the police decide to install cameras in public places, I think it is beneficial to do so after some public discussion, and a consideration of input from citizens.  Because of this, the police department's cameras have gone dark until this discussion can take place a bit more broadly in the community.

If Lincoln is going to have any public place camera monitoring by the police, 14th and O Street is the logical choice, because it is simply the most troublesome location in the city.  This is due to the density of bars and the combination of testosterone and alcohol that converges there--espeically on weekend nights as bar break approaches.  So far this year, there have been 122 assaults reported to LPD that occurred within 1/2 block of the intersection--basically the effective range of the camera to potentially capture useful evidence outdoors. There is no other place in Lincoln that comes close to that concentration.

This is a good discussion to have, and I look forward to the dialog.

Every phone is a camera

…these days, and I have frequently warned people that the chances are pretty good that if you do something dumb in public (and sometimes in private) you ought not be surprised if it comes back to haunt you when you are least expecting it.

This warning pertains to police officers, too.  I ran across this controversy in St. Louis.  Police officers should never retain their own “collection” of interesting evidentiary photos they have acquired on the job.  This has been a problem from time to time, and with digital imaging and the ubiquitous cell phone camera, it has the potential to become an issue today than it has in the past. 

Years ago, a police officer could use his or her own 35 MM camera to take a photo, then tag in the film as evidence. It was never retained on the camera itself, the film was not developed by the officer, and the negative was in the custody of the police department.  This is not the case with digital images, hence, it is best to refrain from using personal cameras to take evidentiary photos at work.

Check that plate

We are right on the verge of launching our Automated License Plate Reader system in two police vehicles. In preparation, we have been fine tuning a process for creating and loading a database for the ALPR system to check against. We obtained a dump of six months data on wanted vehicles from NCIC—the National Crime Information Center. I was quite surprised by the number of stolen license plates contained in this national file, so out of curiosity I ran a query of my own this morning on stolen plates this year in Lincoln.

So far in 2009, we have had 225 stolen license plate cases reported to the Lincoln Police Department. In a bit over half the cases (134) both the front and rear plates were stolen. In the remainder, only one plate was taken. There are probably a few cases where a plate simply fell off, but not very many. Our officers encounter stolen plates on a fairly regular basis, but once those ALPR units are in service, that number will certainly increase.

I’m hoping someone locates this plate, stolen from a visitor over the weekend. I suspect, however, that it is adorning a wall somewhere, rather than a bumper, a criminal souvenir of this Saturday night fracas.

Getting tougher

The two stories of failed crimes in my post yesterday are examples of why getting away with crime has gotten quite a bit tougher in the past few years, in my opinion. These pages contain many other examples (just click on the “candid camera” or “crimes” tag in my label cloud.

Yesterday, Officer David Koso cleared up a relatively minor crime, but one that is also a good example. Back on July 21st, he investigated a shoplifting case at a convenience store. A copy of Hot Rod magazine was allegedly taken by a man who was accompanied by a woman (she drove.) Cameras at the store caught her at the check stand, and the two of them beside her car in the parking lot.

We posted these photos on our Crimestoppers blog, and pretty quickly got a tip identifying the woman. Reading incoming tips at home that morning, I checked the woman’s mug shot, and low and behold—although the surveillance photo is a little fuzzy, it looked like a match. Then I clicked the link to her registered motor vehicles: only one, a 1994 red Chrysler LeBaron convertible. Bingo. The parking lot camera wasn't the best, but the vehicle was unmistakeable.

Sgt. Grant Richards in our Crime Analysis Unit also received an email from an FBI agent in another state. He’s a former LPD officer, and a regular visitor to our websites and reader of our blogs in his personal time. He, too, recognized the woman in the photo.

It’s taken a couple months to locate and cite the suspect, because both he and the woman have been in and out of separate jails in different counties, and we really needed to find her for an interview first. That was accomplished earlier this week, and Officer Koso ran him down yesterday, though, and provided him with a fresh court date to take back to his cell block.

The proliferation of cameras is just one of the reasons it’s gotten tougher to get away with crime. In policing, we are also getting better and collecting the digital crumbs suspects are leaving behind. Immersed in the information stream of our databases and information resources, and tapped into a growing social network you have some tools and sources today that would amaze the detectives I envied in 1974.

On camera again

It got pretty exciting around LPD yesterday morning. Things started warming up at 1:41 AM, when a robbery took place at Roc’s Stop & Shop, a convenience store at 27th and South Streets. By about 9:30 AM, the Community Services group had obtained some frame shots from the video, and had those posted on our Crimestoppers blog. The images weren’t bad, and showed the unusual pockets on the suspect’s trousers.

At 10:13 AM, another holdup was reported at the Roc’s Stop & Shop at 56th and Holdrege: same description, same pants. Just 14 minutes later, at 10:27 AM, a third convenience store robbery was reported at the Kwik Shop at 40th and A Streets. Once again, the description matched and this time we got a license plate number from the getaway vehicle.

All over the city, available officers were checking the convenience stores on their beat. At 10:55 AM, Officer Rob Brenner spotted the suspects at the Git-n-Split at 345 W. O Street. He effected the gunpoint arrests.

The alleged wheel man was just reported as an escapee from the State Department of Corrections on Monday—he absconded on his first day of work release. He is serving 10 to 20 for four counts of Robbery and one count of burglary from Douglas County. The alleged gunman hasn’t had a good month: he was just identified a couple of weeks ago in a theft at a grocery store where he grabbed cash from an open register door and dashed. A citizen spotted him on our Crimestoppers blog from that case and gave us the tip.

It was a bad morning for our violent Part 1 crime rate, but a good one for our clearance rate. This is the kind of arrest you dream about: great police work by Officer Brenner, supported by his colleagues who arrived to assist, Mike Muff and Ben Kopsa.

Neighorhood a little safer

Friday night was another Project Safe Neighborhoods detail. I won't get all the particulars until the project supervisor, Sgt. Don Scheinost, gives me a briefing later this morning, but the highlight of the evening surely must have been the arrest of two suspects who committed an armed robbery at a 13th and South Street convenience store earlier in the week.

We highlighted this crime on our Lincoln Crimestoppers blog, not because they were the best photos we've ever seen, but because the pattern visible on the back of one of the hoodies was pretty identifiable. All week long, officers have been looking at this photo, displayed on the plasma screens during lineup (our name for what other departments typically refer to as roll call).


Around 9:30 PM, Officers Forrest Dalton and Jason Brownell were driving in the 900 block of S. 14th Street, when Jason spotted the pattern on the jacket. The officers stopped and one of the two defendants bolted. He was caught after a short foot pursuit, and a hastily-discarded Colt .45 auto was located in a window well right beside him. The two defendants, ages 14 and 16, were both lodged in the detention center, and the neighborhood is now just a little safer.

The case reminds me of this one, from earlier this year.

Can't make this stuff up IV

This one hit the news wires and has become quite a phenomenon.

Caught on camera

The rapid proliferation of video recording systems has certainly changed criminal investigations. As I have noted before, we’re all being caught on camera several times daily as we go about our normal business. From the investigative standpoint, this has opened up a rich vein of information that can be effectively mined to help solve crime. I’ve blogged about such cases in the past.

Wednesday’s arrest of a suspect in a startling daytime sexual assault of a 14 year old victim near one of the busiest intersections in Lincoln is another case in point. The victim reported that the suspect walked towards a nearby convenience store after the assault. Follow-up work by investigators turned up some very good video from the store showing a subject who matched the description of the suspect provided by the victim.

Still shots were released to the news media the same day we received the video, and were seen by a few hundred thousand viewers on the Tuesday evening newscasts and Wednesday morning paper. Tips started coming in thereafter. Investigator Mayde McGuire showed the image around in a neighborhood canvass where one Crimestoppers caller reported having seen the suspect, and during that canvas, he was positively identified. Officer McGuire found him walking in the same vicinity, and the arrest was made.

The chances of clearing this case without the video would have been considerably less. Say what you may about the loss of privacy (have I mentioned that it might be wise to refrain from adjusting your underwear on on elevator anymore?), these camera systems are a boon to investigators, and a bane to criminals.

Statue of Liberty play

Well, the ex-husband suspect from our bank robbery ten days ago turns out to be a newlywed instead, with his bride serving (allegedly) as the get away driver. You've got to love the irony of the Statue of Liberty running him down and getting the vehicle description. Check out the detective on the right in this news photo. Is that a bush on his head?

Ex-husbands look alike

When you've been a cop for a few decades, you've come to expect the surveillance photos from a robbery to be fairly worthless--grainy, out of focus, dark, poor resolution. These days, though, things are changing. We are now getting much better photos and video.

It seems that convenience stores always have to best stuff first. Maybe it's because they are smaller and more agile than the big boys. A few years ago, one of our local banks had experienced four robberies at branches over a span of a few months. The COO, a friend of mine, called me up and asked me if there is anything I could think of that the bank could do. "Yeah," I said, "walk next door to the Kwik Shop, buy a big gulp, see what they have for cameras, and then buy the same thing for all your branch banks!"

Last week's bank robbery (the first since October 6, 2008) provides evidence that banks have caught up to 7-Elevens. This was a pretty good beauty shot of the robber--even better at full resolution. You can see his goatee, read the "B" on his cap, and notice the wedding band. Not bad at all. We got this out to the local media pronto, hoping to get some hot leads.

Friday afternoon, I encountered Det. Sgt. Luke Wilke in a workstation examining a screen full of mug shots and drivers license photos. "What's up?" I asked. "I'm chasing leads on the bank robbery," he said, "Everyone is calling to tell us it's their wife's ex-husband, and they all look just like the guy!"

Oh well, better to have plenty of leads than none at all. The photos and video will continue to improve, and we will have plenty of it.

Good police work, 2008 style

Back when Case Number 1 was successfully prosecuted, good investigative work was characterized by a sharp eye, an intuitive mind, a good memory, an active work style, and great interpersonal skills. Not much has changed in the ensuing 140 years.

In 2008, though, a few other things contribute to investigations. Automated fingerprint identification systems, relational databases, sophisticated communications systems, DNA testing, and the Internet all come immediately to mind. Another contributor is the rapid proliferation of video surveillance systems. As I have mentioned previously, you and I are increasingly in the field of view of a large and growing number of cameras every day.

An excellent example of the merger of modern technology and good old-fashioned police work occurred over the weekend, when Officer Jeff Hanson arrested the men responsible for an armed robbery that occurred last Thursday. The victim was approached by two suspects who brandished a gun and relieved him of his wallet, watch, and cash.

The suspects and their vehicle were captured by a surveillance camera at the University of Nebraska. Although the scene was rather dark, comparing the video to images from Edmunds.com, we were able to determine that the vehicle was in all likelihood a late 1990's Chevrolet Lumina. A representative photo of the body style was included in all of our daily gotomeeting.com web-cast roll call briefings on Thursday and Friday.

Officer Hanson saw those images on the 50" monitor across town at the Northeast Team Substation during briefing at the beginning of his shift when he reported to duty on both Thursday and Friday night. Shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, he spotted the suspect vehicle with matching passengers several miles away in northeast Lincoln. Further investigation produced more evidence connecting three suspects to this crime. This was good heads-up police work, with a little technical assistance from a CCTV system and the Internet.

Candid camera

The Public Works Department's network of pan-zoom-tilt traffic cameras continues to grow, as three more were added in the past week. Although these are primarily designed to help the traffic center monitor flow patterns and signal timings, they actually have some great potential for assisting us at the police department.

You might be thinking photo speed enforcement, or photo traffic signal enforcement--which is common in Europe and in parts of the U.S. (the Phoenix metro area, for example.) I like photo enforcement for traffic signals, not only because I am familiar with the research, but because I've personally seen the results: it seemed to me when I was last in Phoenix that people actually stop when the light turns yellow, rather than jam the accelerator, bust through the light, and suck three more cars through behind them. It will take action by the State Legislature to enable photo enforcement in Nebraska, and past legislative proposals have not fared well.

What really has me thinking, though, are the applications these cameras may have for criminal investigations and for public-place monitoring to improve safety. A few weeks ago, Capt. Jim Thoms and I followed a suspect vehicle up 27th Street on cameras at Old Cheney, Highway 2, South Street, Capital Parkway, and O Street. We finally caught a good enough shot at O Street to realize that the vehicle we had been following was the wrong one.

The City's traffic cameras aren't recorded (that's not something Public Works really needs), but a Nebraska company, Hawkeye Vision, has loaned me some equipment to cobble together a little experimental recording system right in my office for a few weeks. I'm only recording a handful of the 20 cameras, but it's been interesting. Officer Ray Kansier used it a couple weeks ago to get a better description of the possible getaway vehicle from a robbery. Investigator Shannon Karl found the suspect vehicle leaving the scene of a convenience store robbery on video last week. I've caught and recorded a few police incidents, and a bunch of traffic violations.

It certainly has my head spinning about what the future may hold. Checking video from convenience stores, ATMs, banks, gas stations, and so forth has become a pretty common step in many criminal investigations in the past few years. The difference here is in monitoring public places--streets, in this instance, but it could be parks, bus shelters, or other public facilities. If we have a description of a vehicle leaving a crime scene, for instance, it is almost a certainly that the vehicle will be driving through one of those 20 intersections. If they were all recorded, and the camera resolution, angle of view, and lighting cooperated, we'd really have something!

Some cities, like London and Chicago, are going hog-wild with cameras in public places. After dabbling with it a little bit, I can see why. When you think about it, we're all probably caught on camera several times daily--not just at the traffic light at a major intersection, but using the ATM, buying coffee at the Gas 'n Gulp, at the airport, and all sorts of other circumstances. It's cheap and easy, and lots of businesses are doing it that would never dream of CCTV five years ago. It's a little disconcerting to some people who think about the infringement on their privacy. I have to admit, I'm a little uncomfortable thinking about who's watching whenever I'm on an elevator these days.

I'm not without "big brother" concerns of my own, but on the other hand, the ability to remotely keep an eye on the pot boiling at 14th and O Street, or get a better description of the vehicle involved in the robbery is pretty enticing. My prediction: this is going to be a significant force in the future of policing.

We may not be able to do much about the private sector spread of cameras, but on the public side, it will be up to citizens to determine how far we allow this to go.