One of the most important tools for law enforcement and public safety organizations is the suspect or witness interview, making the retention of this critical information of paramount importance.
High-profile police organizations have had numerous cases ruined because their interview recording devices failed, leaving them without a crucial piece of evidence needed to bring a conviction. Recently, the Milwaukee Police Department suffered a malfunction in their video capturing solution resulting in thousands of lost interviews including countless confessions.
Capture Technologies has provided interview management solutions for a number of agencies including the Walnut Creek Police Department, which utilized a solution from Case Cracker to better manage and retain their all-important interviews.
This solution allows police departments to record and save interviews, share them with colleagues as needed, has a playback frame-by-frame feature, and has a cryptographic hash that proves its authenticity. Hours of interrogation footage can be catalogued and navigated with easy touches of a button and the footage is time stamped for authentication.
From Cardinal Peak, Case Cracker is the easiest to use video interview recording solution on the market. Additionally, multiple people can simultaneously view an interview securely over the network and search for relevant information from long interviews.
The problem in Milwaukee underscores the importance in finding a reliable video recording solution as more states look to join the 19 in the United States already mandating video recording during interrogation.
As the vendor in the system failure continues to try and recover lost interrogation footage, local prosecutors and law enforcement officials scratch their collective heads at how they are going to proceed with prosecutions.
In this climate of increased police activity and a preponderance of courtroom activity, police and law enforcement agencies need to think proactively about upgrading their interview collection and retention systems.
An expense on a video recording solution today may be a budget adjustment but the long term savings and, more importantly, the benefit to public safety, makes it a decision that is a net positive for the future.