Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506050045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They aim, then shoot and, voila! There is your likeness, captured on a computer screen. Picture perfect. No more closed eyes and blurry photos.
Of course, at the DMV, you aren't sitting inside a cage like the one in the basement of the Salem Police Department.
Behind those menacing brown metal bars, the old and the new ways of capturing a suspect's likeness sit side by side.
One - a rolling table with a 35mm camera mounted on one end and a board with the suspect's identification number on the other - is bound for extinction. The other - a video camera linked to a computer and a color printer - is destined for years of use and imitation, Salem Police Chief Harry Haskins said.
The department's video imaging system, which is the only one of its kind in the Roanoke Valley, is the wave of the future, Haskins said.
It takes the guesswork out of getting a suspect's mug shot.
"You're pointing and shooting and sometimes the camera malfunctions, and sometimes they make a face, and sometimes the operator doesn't do something right," Haskins said. "Now he knows instantly what he has."
Before video imaging, an officer had to wait at least two weeks to know if he had a good shot. Salem ships all of its film to Richmond, where the state develops it for free.
Once the photo is taken, it's logged in the computer, and any one of the department's 21 computers with the right password can access it.
The department plans to begin training its staff on the use of the technology this week and will implement the new system once training is completed.
"It's going to cut down on files and losing photographs," Haskins said.
It also will help with criminal investigations, he said.
"If you have a rape victim who says the man who raped her is white and in his 20s to 30s, [an officer] can call up all the sex offenders that are white and in that age range. It will show them right there on the screen," Haskins said.
That sure beats the old method - rifling through countless files in search of mug shots fitting that description, said Sgt. Jeff Lowe.
But convenience comes at a price - $16,000 to be exact.
For Salem, however, that's not a problem, especially because drug dealers are picking up the tab.
"The beauty of this is, we paid for it with dealers' money. It didn't cost the taxpayers anything," Haskins said.
The money comes from Drug Enforcement Administration drug busts. The federal government and the local police departments that aided in a particular investigation divvy up the proceeds from the sale of dealers' ill-gotten assets.
Haskins said Salem police have about $400,000 in equipment - including unmarked detective cars and surveillance equipment - bought through the asset seizure program. That includes their latest investment: an $80,000 document imaging system.
The Salem Police Department is a pyromaniac's dream - there's paper everywhere. It fills file cabinets, boxes and drawers. It's even tucked away in a crawl space just above the station's basement.
The solution is document imaging - scanning all of the current and old records onto the computer. It's an 18-month process that Lowe hopes will begin in July.
Roanoke County is facing a similar problem. Although it started computerizing its records in 1991, it keeps a hard copy of everything. So it has years and years of paperwork filling every cubby.
"We've looked at several systems, but as of yet we haven't purchased anything," said Captain. D.A. LaPrade. "We're approaching a point where we have to do something."
Once Salem gets the video and document imaging systems up and running, a few simple keystrokes will bring up a suspect's photo, arrest record, incident report and criminal history, Lowe said.
"Before, [officers] had to go to the secretaries and say, 'When you have time could you get this for me?' Now it will be at your fingertips," Lowe said.
by CNB