Sheriff’s office debuts new tech

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office implemented new and improved technology to help officers at accident and crime scenes. The department purchased a FARO laser scanner, hand scanner and software that will save the department both time and money.

Jason Myrick, who was promoted to captain in December, is the commander of the criminal investigation division for the department. He said Sheriff John Samaniego found out about it when the Hoover Police Department came out and did a demonstration.

“Hoover has had theirs for about a year,” Myrick said. “Once we knew about it and saw it in action, we were immediately interested.”

Samaniego added, “It really came to light on one of our major cases where Hoover let us use theirs. They came down and ran it for us and helped us investigate a major event. It may have been 10 years ago when we bought Total Station, which at the time was state of the art, but it had become burdensome. As soon as they brought this to me, I had to find it.”

The equipment

The S70 stand scanner can scan 70 meters (229 feet) out. It utilizes laser scanning on a rotation nimble and takes a thousand scans per second in color. It comes within one millimeter of accuracy in a 360-degree circle.

For anything the large scanner misses, the department also purchased the hand scanner. It can get up close and photograph smaller evidence, including blood spatter and bullet holes. Myrick said it will not only analyze photos of the scene, but also the trajectory of bullets.

“It does a lot of science for us and gives us a lot of different data we don’t have instant access to,” he said. The main scanner is a fixed tripod scanner and along with the freestyle unit, will work in conjunction together, leaving no stone left unturned.

There is also a dedicated laptop fit with FARO software that features a graphic video card and processing machines. Once a scan has been done, the data card is taken out and inserted in the computer rendering software. It also has its own Wi-Fi built, in and it can be controlled from a cellphone.

“The technology will allow us to walk a jury in a court trial through a crime scene from a 360 angle and see from above and below 3D rendering and 2D drawings,” Myrick said. “We’ll be able to walk a jury member or someone part of a county case through the crime case initially as we found it.”

Samaniego said these photos and drawings will be helpful for prosecutors to explain crime scenes to juries and look at any angle, up close and in very high detail through the entire scene.

“We will still take traditional photos, because as advanced as the HD scanner is, it does have some limitations when it comes to fine detail,” Samaniego said. “If we need to show grain on a piece of tape or a fingerprint on a glass, the scanner would pick up finger print but be unable to show fine detail. That’s when we would use a high definition camera.”

FARO representatives came out to certify operators during a hands-on training in mid-May. Initially, six certified users were trained, both crime scene operators and evidence technicians. Those six will in turn train the rest of the agency.

Saving time and money

The cost of the FARO system was $80,000. Although the equipment was expensive, Myrick thinks it will pay for itself within a year.

“In the long run, it will save us personnel costs like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.

Samaniego said he used the departments discretionary funds to pay for the equipment.

The SCSO will be sharing the equipment with other departments and the countywide homicide traffic group that request to use it for major scenes.

“I want everyone to have access to it,” Samaniego said. “Just because we are buying it, if [other departments] have evidence techs who want to use it for major cases, they can. Other municipalities can come train with it if they’d like. If we see we have a need, we’ll purchase another one. It might end up that traffic homicide and crime scene investigators both have their own. We have the ability to share it with other departments as Hoover shared with us; it’s about everyone working together.”

The former program took hours. Even a two vehicle or minor collision that involved a death would take 6-8 hours. Myrick said where it would normally take 10-12 man hours at a scene, this technology will reduce it down to just a few minutes.

“This one will do it in less than an hour and give us 100 times more detail and ability to work within the scene and see what we couldn’t before,” Myrick said. “The old one wouldn’t produce a scanned picture, but this takes a full scan of everything, every detail.”

Traditionally, to process a regular crime scene, Myrick said it takes about 100 man hours, but with FARO, it can be done in about a tenth of the time because the system can calculate every measurement in the space instantaneously.

How it will be used

Myrick said the SCSO will definitely use FARO for anything that is of a serious nature where they have enough physical evidence present to show for a court case. That could include robberies, homicides and more.

It can also be helpful when executing house warrants and can let the officers know what they are getting into by presenting an accurate representation of what the house looks like.

“If we have a warrant for the house, we can go get photos and do a quick look when we make sure the address is correct,” Myrick said. “It’s another tool we could use for the safety of everybody.”

Myrick said future plans are to take the scanner to Shelby County Schools and get as many scans as possible to have a 3D image and layout so we can have the floor plans for all of the schools inside and out.

“I believe this equipment will be a game-changing piece of technology by bringing the department into the digital age in a very cutting-edge sort of way.”