In response to a change in Illinois State law a partnership was formed between the Chicago Police Department, The Cook County State's Attorney Office (CCSAO) and the Courts. An electronic system was designed that allows for Detectives at six different geographical locations to flip a single switch and continually record a homicide interrogation. Upon the Detective terminating the interview, the electronic digital file is automatically transferred to the central storage SAN in Police Headquarters and a digital tape back up is made for archiving.
The Detective can add an unlimited amount of scene selection markers to the digital file allowing for quick indexing and review of the interrogation. Once the file has been appropriately identified and marked by the Detective, it is available to all investigative personnel and CCSAO attorneys for review by way of video streaming.
The Chicago Police Department Records Division can order copies to be burned to DVD disk by way of the same application. The system automatically copies the selected files to a robotic DVD burner, which makes and labels the correct number of disks segmenting them into five hours of video per disk and identifying them accordingly.
The CCSAO installed a T-3 line into the Department's intranet and by use of our streaming server can provide on demand video stream directly to the desk tops of all their Assistant States Attorney's in their offices, 24 hours a day seven days a week. (The Chicago Police Department assigned passwords and roles to each attorney for this purpose.) CCSAO personnel can also FTP the digital video files over to their SAN to answer discovery and/or enter the video files as evidence in court. The court has agreed to the use of the MPEG-4 format for court presentation.
The system also maintains a video file access log, which automatically logs users and their transactions every time they save, view, transfer or update a digital video file.
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