Tucson, Arizona, police detectives Tim Petersen and Jim Schultz are investigating a brutal murder where the victim was shot, stabbed in the neck, and run over. They had almost no clues to go on, other than the suspect's nickname, "Shorty."
Seems like an impossible case to crack, right? Wrong. On tonight's "Tech Live," we'll show you the revolutionary new software these cops used to nail the suspect in just a few hours.
"We had 'Shorty' and not much else," says Det. Schultz, remembering the case and the little they had to work with until they plugged in some data on their computers.
Like Google, but for cops
The software they used is CopLink, made by
Knowledge Computing, which lets the police link their databases together and search them simultaneously, even across different departments.
Company CEO Bob Griffin walked a visitor through the process. "This is the way police would actually be using CopLink," he says, typing in the nickname of a suspect. Police simply type in some clues -- a nickname, a location of the crime, a weapon used, even what seems to be the most insignificant piece of information. The program will then search out any relevant matches.
"It has a set of analytics that allow you to understand that this person has a relationship to this person who may have a relationship to this vehicle that may have a relationship to this gun," says Griffin.
Dr. Hsinchun Chen, an artificial intelligence expert and professor at the University of Arizona, says CopLink's capabilities are astounding. The software uses specific algorithms that build a kind of digital bridge, according to its creator, from one platform to the next.
"From data to information, information to intelligence, and from intelligence you can derive knowledge," he says.
"A search previously I might have been able to do in two or three weeks time, I can now do within two or three minutes," says Petersen. "It's just phenomenal."
More CopLink users, more arrests
The Tucson Police Department was the first in the nation to use the technology. Several more have signed on since, and now dozens of other jurisdictions are examining whether they want to deploy it. Even the FBI and CIA have expressed interest.
Washington, DC law enforcement officials say software like this could have dramatically cut down the time it took to arrest that area's sniper suspects last year. That's because police could have simply typed in the locations of all the shootings and asked the software to return any relevant data connected to those locations.
Knowledge Computing's Griffin says police would have instantly seen that the two suspects later arrested in connection with the sniper killings had been stopped for unrelated incidents at several of the locations where victims had been shot. It would not have named the two men as suspects in the sniper case, "but it would have given police a place to start. It would have turned them in their direction," says Griffin.
As more agencies sign on to use the system, the bigger the searchable database becomes, making the software even more valuable to investigators.
"It is a blessing," says Det. Schultz.
CopLink won't solve the puzzle, he admits, but it should give him all the pieces he'll need.
As for "Shorty," who had been released from prison only 24 hours before his rampage, he's back in an Arizona prison, serving another 16 years for attempted murder and other related charges.
