Liaison Tip Most agencies have a line-up system and procedure in place so their identification process meets their legal advisor’s standards as well as those established by the County Attorney or other Prosecutor that the agencies deal with because of local, state and federal laws. But what if you can’t get the witness to the line up process? Could you do it another way in a crisis so you don’t lose your suspect while you wait to do your regular line-up and preserve the results for prosecution? Get your COPLINK out, we have an alternative!

A drive-by shooting occurred and the victim is seriously wounded. The victim is able to give a description of the suspect as a white male, 20 to 30 years old, with brown or gray hair. He had a black colored handgun and began an argument with the victim, then shot him. The victim is in the hospital, still conscious and awaiting surgery. Officers stop a suspect in the area. The victim cannot be brought to the stop and the Officers don’t want to take the suspect to the hospital environment. They decide to use COPLINK for the lineup immediately because they believe they have the correct suspect, and they use their laptop computer to conduct the COPLINK “6pack” line-up. They will have to do it without paper or printing but they must preserve the results Most agencies can do a viewing up until you reach two hours since the crime. The problem arises when doing the show up is physically impossible or not practical

The Officers use Detect to begin the process by putting the suspect’s name and date of birth into the person search query At the person search, enter the suspect’s name and date of birth, then find The result comes back, now click on his name to get to his person details page

Now they begin to set up the line-up From the person details click on Create Photo Line Up You are asked to select the type of generation you want, facial similarity, demographics, or both. We will select both

The workspace for the line up will appear The suspect will appear in #5 as a default. You may want to adjust that depending on your agency rules. Click on the small tab to close the Search Window Now your whole screen is devoted to the line up

Now select the photos you want to use from the photos provided from the system Drag from the photos on the right to the spot you choose for the photos to compare to. If you need more selections, use the slide bar on the bottom Drop down the file tab, select export output

You will be saving your line up to your computer by output to PDF and choosing a file location You are asked to select an export method, select PDF Save it to your choice of your computer files

Now the line up is in your chosen file The system verifies that the export is complete. You could have printed it or chosen other export options This line up was saved to the desk top, and will be opened from there. Once opened, this is the first page

The second page shows the identity of each. This is generated automatically when you print or save the Line Up

How you conduct the photo line up will be guided by your departmental procedures. Some departments require recording or even doing video recording of the process. You can show the first page, mark the chosen person And make notes on the identification page C Chosen , 1800 “That’s Him” Conducted at St Joseph Hospital Room 22

Mike Widmer Law Enforcement Liaison And that’s this week’s tip….. Don’t Forget, follow your agency procedures