“As far as we know, this does not cause cancer,” Ridley joked, as the device — a laser-emitting scanner — silently did its work.
On the nearly wall-length projector screen at the front of the room, a three-dimensional picture of the reporter and his surroundings materialized. The 3-D scanner — one of two Oxford police bought in September for more than $70,000 — generated the image, and could be used to record a digital map of a crime scene or traffic accident. Ridley, who’s been working in law enforcement for nearly 20 years, calls the scanners “the coolest stuff I’ve ever seen.”
Ridley and Oxford’s police chief agree the technology may provide investigators more evidence while also saving them time. They say the three-dimensional renderings of crime scenes will provide jurors a digital version of the victim’s perspective.
Oxford police got two scanners: One is handheld, while the other sits on a tripod and takes in everything within about 1,000 feet. Both are made by Lake Mary, Fla.-based FARO Technologies.
While the scanners haven’t yet been deployed, Ridley sees police using them at the scenes of homicides, robberies, or fatal car crashes — “not fender-benders.”
Ridley’s Traffic Homicide Investigation unit will probably use the technology most, police Chief Bill Partridge said Wednesday.
Ridley on Wednesday spent about two hours taking scans with the mounted device from 19 points around the police station to demonstrate how the mapping ability could come in handy.
Software provided with the scanners stitched the images taken from those 19 points into one composite, three-dimensional map including the outside of the station, the church across U.S. 78, the distant treeline.
The same thing could be done at the scene of fatal wreck or murder. The scanner software can even show the probable origin of any blood spatter, Partridge said.
“We can put a juror inside the crime scene,” the chief said. “That’s something we’ve never been able to do before.”
According to Ridley, Oxford is the only law enforcement agency in Alabama that owns the scanners.
The lieutenant thinks more agencies don’t have the technology because “it’s new, people don’t understand it, and it’s expensive,” he said.
Partridge plans to make the scanners available to other law enforcement agencies in the region.
The technology may be new to Alabama, but it’s not completely unheard of elsewhere.
The Warner Robins Police Department in Houston County, Ga.,bought 3-D scanners in 2014, according to public information officer Jennifer Parson.
Parson said by phone Wednesday the department has used the scanners “40 or 50 times” since buying them, in any traffic fatalities and in cases of arson, homicide, or suicide.
While she wouldn’t say the technology saved investigators time — they still spend hours documenting crime scenes — the accuracy of the 3-D maps means police can revisit those scenes later without leaving the office.
The scanner-gathered evidence hasn’t yet been used in court, she said, but will be soon — investigators used the technology to recreate the scene of a January shooting at a gas station, and the department’s suspects have been indicted in connection with that crime.
©2015 The Anniston Star (Anniston, Ala.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
