CCBI Adds Video Image Enhancement Capabilities

7/6/2005

Wake County's City-County Bureau of Identification (CCBI) has added video image enhancement to its portfolio of services for Wake County law enforcement agencies and the District Attorney, thanks to the support of Wake Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC).

Wake ABC provided $22,000 to enable CCBI to acquire an Intergraph Video Analyst System for video image enhancement.

Video image enhancement allows crime scene investigators to take surveillance-camera and security-system video images, typically of low to medium quality, and enhance those images, so investigators can examine those images for crime-scene information that might not otherwise be available.

Here are two examples of the critical role that surveillance and security camera video can play in a criminal investigation:

• In New York, a motorcyclist was killed by a hit-and-run driver. A gas station surveillance camera recorded the accident, and a security camera at a nearby construction site taped the hit-and-run driver removing the license plates from his car, and throwing them into a trash can. Investigators recovered the license plates and arrested the driver.
• In Texas, a Wal-Mart parking lot security camera recorded the abduction of a 19-year-old woman, who was later found murdered. Police used the images of the abduction to identify her abductor.

CCBI officials note that the rapid growth of business surveillance and security video systems increases the probability that those systems will capture images of a crime in progress.

"If there's a video image of a crime, our crime scene investigators now have the tools to squeeze as much information out of that image as they can," said CCBI Director Lee Roberts.

back to current news items