CCTV is in nearly 40% of homes in the U.S.
The increase of surveillance video doesn’t appear to be slowing.
Inexpensive CCTV systems are now commonplace in just about every community. My police department saw a 424% increase in the overall number of videos officers recovered over a six-year period (2014-2019). That’s staggering. 😲Despite CCTV video recording us nearly everywhere, many police departments struggle to provide officers with the tools they need to recover critical video during investigations.
Officers need:
- An SOP for recovering video and handling digital evidence.
- Basic video recovery and handling training.
- Forensic video and image enhancement tools.
- Digital evidence management system (DEMS) to secure digital evidence.
I am sharing a OneDrive link (below) to two customizable forms I developed for my police department to help officers document video recoveries. The information captured in these forms can be critical in major cases that end up in court. Both are editable Word docs.
The first is a Video Authenticity Statement to be filled out by the person saving the video and handing it over to the officer.
For example, an officer responds to Walmart to investigate an assault. During the investigation, a manager releases surveillance video of the incident. The Video Authenticity Statement captures the manager’s contact information, details about the video, and a short statement.
The second is a Surveillance Video Retrieval Notes form, which officers can use to document important information about CCTV video when they are directly accessing the system. This includes make, model, time offset, video frame rate, and other important details.
The documents mirror best practices outlined by the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE). 👍
If your agency doesn’t have an SOP or guidelines in place for recovering surveillance video, you’re welcome to adapt and use these forms. They’re unlocked Word docs. Feel free to modify the perjury language and add your patch to the header.
