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Video Forensics Technology Key to Rhode Island Law Enforcement and Convictions

The robbery wasn't all that unusual — but it was the kind that is often never solved. The Criminal Identification Unit of the Rhode Island State Police in Pawtucket was called to help with a service station robbery in January, 2007.

An unidentified white male, approximately 35-60 years of age, with gray hair, escaped with handful of money. Fortunately, the service station had a video surveillance system that recorded it all. And the Criminal ID Unit had VideoFOCUS. The Unit has just five trained personnel, processing video on VideoFOCUS and one other system for nearly 300 members of the State Police in Rhode Island, supervised by Police Detective Lt. Dennis Pincince.

"VideoFOCUS is so easy. When we started using it, we had our team up and running in about a half a day. Only some people on my team can use the other system because of the two to three day training time and associated learning curve, " said Detective Pincince. "My team also juggles fingerprints, footwear and photography, so with the time savings from VideoFOCUS, we are able to be more productive in our jobs."

How They Worked
To get the images he needed from the robbery, Detective Pincince had to capture the analog video to a digital format. Once the data was in a usable digital format, he analyzed and separated the images of the suspect from all the other video "noise" within the multiplexed video.

"VideoFOCUS takes the raw video and digitizes it. Then you open this in a separate window and start to analyze the video by demultiplexing the scenes," said Detective Pincince. "It's that easy, and the cost is significantly lower than other systems."

The VideoFOCUS motion tracking and alignment capabilities allowed the Detective to stabilize the video for a sharper image and capture several clear, usable images for identification. "Now, with VideoFOCUS, I can process several video captures in one day," Detective Pincince goes on. "Our law enforcement officials can now identify and apprehend suspects faster and more accurately."

The Resource That Delivers
Most law enforcement officials requesting Criminal Identification Unit help want usable still photos, so the team relies on VideoFOCUS to capture clothing references, IDs, logos, description of a vehicles and license plates.

"We also pull images to identify robbery suspects, suspects using stolen credit cards, alleged prison assault by guards and patient abuse — it even helped with two murder cases," said Detective Pincince. "On an average month, we get about 20-25 requests to pull images off video."

Case Solved
As a result of VideoFOCUS, several photos were printed from the surveillance video at the service station robbery. These included photos of the robber himself, as well as his vehicle, tentatively identified as a Chrysler New Yorker. The photos were placed on Rhode Island's Most Wanted website and on the nightly television news broadcast.

A few days after the robbery, the Pawtucket Police Department received an anonymous tip as a result of the photo on the nightly news, alerting them to a specific subject. After checking the Department of Motor Vehicle files for a license photo, the Pawtucket Police Department determined that the photo strongly resembled the suspect. When they went to his listed address, they found a white Chrysler New Yorker parked on the street in front of the suspect's residence.

Arrest and Conviction Using VideoFOCUS
The Pawtucket Police Department was able to arrest and change the man with robbery of the service station. While in custody, he admitted to two other robberies in Providence and was subsequently charged with those crimes.

"We have solved a lot of cases thanks to VideoFOCUS — burglary, stolen credit cards and larceny — and have had many cases plead, based on our video evidence," said Detective Pincince. "In fact, we've also had video forensics support alibis."

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