Instant photos capture crimes
Posted on 12/27/2002 12:22:15 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Instant photos capture crimes
New tools help Dallas police increase arrests, prosecutions of abusers
12/27/2002
The women in the photos look straight ahead, caught mostly expressionless in the camera's flash. The bruises, busted lips and torn clothing say plenty, and that's the idea for police and prosecutors.
The impromptu portraits speak volumes even after the black eyes fade and - more often than not - the victims return to their attackers and lose any desire to prosecute, authorities say.
Using simple instant cameras and a new detailed series of questions for domestic violence victims, Dallas police are dramatically increasing their ability to arrest and prosecute abusers. With such strong evidence, they can increasingly prosecute even when victims recant and testify on the defendants' behalf.
The difficulties in the cases were apparent last year, officials said. Dallas police were filing charges against only half the people they arrested for family abuse because of insufficient evidence, and prosecutors were accepting only about 80 percent of the cases they received from officers.
 "You see jury members look at the pictures. Sometimes you see them gasp at the injuries; their eyes kind of get wide. They accept them. It just helps the case," said Senior Cpl. Jenny Nance, who has a call to use her Polaroid camera nearly every work shift. (KIM RITZENTHALER / DMN) |
"The jury needs to see these injuries at the time that they happened," Dallas police Sgt. Andrea Perez said. "It's not to prove why it happened, it's to prove that a crime did occur."
Now, after stopping the violence and taking reports using the new questions, patrol officers use a Polaroid camera to make a visual record of the abuse. A close-up lens attachment allows officers to take detailed photos of injuries.
The results document the faces of domestic violence in Dallas. The images capture the faces of victims - different socioeconomic levels and scattered across the city - as well as close-ups of bruised arms, scratches and bloody eyes.
One woman looks out from a photo, the whites of her eyes turned red. That's an indication that she was choked, Sgt. Perez said.
"No matter what the injury is, we can prove it when they come to court three months or six later," she said.
Most of the cameras were purchased in the summer using money from a federal block grant. They're only now being fully implemented because police had to wait to purchase film until the new budget year began Oct. 1.
Prosecutors say they're just starting to see the photo evidence in Dallas cases because of the lag of several months between an arrest and a trial. The delay averages about five months in Dallas County.
The cameras and more-detailed domestic violence reporting are dramatically improving the cases that police file. Now, police are filing charges against nearly 70 percent of those they arrest, and the district attorney's office is prosecuting about 90 percent of the cases it receives.
Officers are bolstering their cases by carefully documenting their reports and noting the victims' "excited utterances."
Such utterances immediately after incidents are considered hearsay in other crimes but are allowed under domestic violence laws. Even if a victim refuses to testify against her attacker, an officer can tell a jury what the victim said at the time of the offense.
Cindy Dyer, the chief prosecutor in the district attorney's family violence section, said the detailed reports help build a case and the photographs make them stronger.
"Nowadays jurors watch TV, and they expect to see photographs if there are injuries," she said.
Senior Cpl. Jenny Nance said she has seen the effect the photos have on a jury.
"You see jury members look at the pictures," she said. "Sometimes you see them gasp at the injuries; their eyes kind of get wide. They accept them. It just helps the case."
Senior Cpl. Nance, an officer in the northeast Dallas patrol district, says she has a call to use her camera nearly every work shift.
"You see love-and-hate relationships," she said. "They're probably physically and emotionally abused. Months down the road when we go to court, these people have fallen back in love. They don't want to prosecute, but we go anyway."
E-mail rtharp@dallasnews.com
Yep, those Polaroids are wicked expensive.
Seriously, taking pictures of abuse victims is some sort of new, unheard-of federal plan? How'd these 'officers' find their ass with both hands without Fed help?
Hard to argue evidence when the camera/mike is literally over the officer's ear.
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