Police 3D Scanning Crime Scenes to Use as Evidence in Court

Crime scenes are opening up to more than just the police in an American city.

The sites of homicides and fatal car crashes – once only available to law enforcement and emergency workers – are being digitally preserved in Roanoke, Virginia using a Faro 3D scanner.

“You can bring the actual scene of the crime into the courtroom and share it with … everybody that’s in the courtroom,” said Roanoke Commonwealth’s attorney, Don Caldwell, to WDBJ7.

The scanner is able to capture evidence like “blood spatter, artifacts, skid marks, vehicle positions or charring patterns,” according to Faro, and helps speed up evidence documentation.

The city has seven forensic investigators who can operate the scanner and digitally recreate crime scenes in color to add to traditional evidence like photographs.

“What I do is I document the scene the way that I find it however it happens to be,” said the department’s forensic investigator Chris Levering to WDBJ7. “This will allow me to basically bring a judge and/or a jury into the crime scene and see the scene the same way that I saw it.

Read more about it on wdbj7.com.

(Lead image source: WDBJ7)