** Truly Amazing Article Gives Insight To Cutting Edge Crime Scene Investigations! **
A New Perspective on Crime Scenes
New York Times
November 18, 2011
In 2009, to better record crime scenes, the New York City Police Department began using the Panoscan, a camera that creates high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic images. Each panorama takes between 3 to 30 minutes to produce, depending on the available light, and is added to a database where detectives can access it. Before the switch to the Panoscan, crime scene images sometimes took days to process. Now, soon after the photos are posted, investigators can point and click over evidence from a scene that they might have missed in the hectic hours after the crime. Explore the crime scenes below and listen to Detective Michael J. Cunningham of the New York Police Department discuss the technology.
Related Blog Post » http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/crime-scene-investigation-360-degrees/
The scenes are not for the faint of heart. Images of blood and the corpses themselves have not been doctored or blurred.
A Shooting in Flatlands
Focus Among the Chaos
CASE #: 09-6729
DATE: July 22, 2009
This man was sitting in his S.U.V. outside his home in Brooklyn when he was shot three times, at close range, in the neck. The case has gone cold.
A Boy and a Gun
The Camera as a Partner
Case #: 09-7111
DATE: Nov. 6, 2009
Undercover narcotics officers chased a 15-year-old suspected of having a firearm into a building courtyard. After firing at him, police learned that the suspect was holding a pellet gun covered with black tape, not a real gun. The boy was hospitalized and was later charged in family court. The investigation is closed.
The Man on the Bed
Speaking for the Victims
CASE #: 09-7144
DATE: Nov. 15, 2009
The dead man in this scene had knife wounds on his torso and left arm. His girlfriend found him this way, with his hands and feet bound by duct tape. A broken knife was recovered outside the building. His killer has not been arrested. The Panoscan itself is visible in the center of the room.
A Stabbing Victim
Case #: 09-6990
DATE: Oct. 7, 2009
Officers found this man in the apartment. He had been stabbed multiple times.
In this apartment building’s stairwell, the police confronted another man with a knife and ordered him to drop it. He didn’t. Officers fired six shots, killing him.
Dinner, Interrupted
An Investigative Aid
CASE #: 11-28
DATE: Jan. 10, 2011
Police officers found this man, who had been stabbed multiple times, in his kitchen in Brooklyn. There was no sign of forced entry and the man’s roommate confessed to stabbing the man multiple times with two knives after they had a dispute over making dinner. The roommate had checked himself into a psychiatric ward and was arrested days after the body was discovered.
** PRODUCED By EBA HAMID, JON HUANG, MICHAEL KOLOMATSKY and NIKO KOPPEL
Direct Link to visit the New York Times article to see & hear all the details…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/20/nyregion/nypd-crime-scene-panoramas.html
**********
Crime Scene Investigation: 360 Degrees
NEW YORK TIMES (LENS blog)
By MICHAEL WILSON
November 18, 2011
This essay will appear in the Metropolitan section on Sunday. The Panoscan images were published in an interactive Friday afternoon. (The scenes are not for the faint of heart. Images of blood and the corpses themselves have not been doctored or blurred.)
The photograph shows the panorama of a messy bedroom (Slide 2). A box of Honey Nut Cheerios is on the floor, near a pack of cigarettes. The closet doors are all open, as if someone were trying to show the size of the place to a prospective tenant and did had not have time to clean up first.
But there, on the bed, face down, is a man’s body. His hands are bound behind his back. He is so perfectly laid out, that it looks like a photo from a haunted house tour, but this crime scene is very real, and so is the corpse.
The New York City Police Department began using a new camera, the Panoscan, in 2009, revolutionizing crime-scene photography in the city. Part Weegee, part video game, the camera creates 360-degree images that allow investigators, from the comfort of their desks, to point and click over evidence from a scene that they might have missed in the hectic hours after the crime.
Maybe the Cheerios are a clue?
The police shared several Panoscan images with The New York Times. Upon arrival at a scene, officers can quickly assemble a kit with a fish-eye lens that produces the high-resolution, 360-degree image. It takes between 3 to 30 minutes to produce the panoramic photographs, depending on the available light. They are not for the faint of heart, especially when viewed online. Images of blood and the corpses themselves have not been doctored or blurred.
The man in the bed was Ivan Shaw, 45. It was Nov. 15, 2009, in the 113th Precinct in Queens. Mr. Shaw had knife wounds on his torso and left arm. His girlfriend had found him that way. The police found five cigarette butts and narcotics on the table, visible in the photograph. Because the victim was wearing a necklace, the police suspected that robbery was not the a motive.
But just as compelling as the body on the bed are is the flotsam of a life lost: the musical equipment piled nearby, the baseball caps, the antacid, leather coats and what looks like an open Bible.
More than a thousand words, there are a thousand mysteries in a single, sweeping picture. Mr. Shaw’s killer has not been arrested.
Source: New York Police Department
The police responded to a dispute on West 144th Street and confronted a 21-year-old with a knife in the stairwell on the second floor of the building. When he refused to drop the weapon, officers fired six shots, killing the man. In Apartment 4C, they found another man, who had been stabbed multiple times.
Direct Link: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/crime-scene-investigation-360-degrees/?ref=nyregion
