Police use YouTube as way to help solve crimes

By AMANDA-MARIE QUINTINO

It has changed the face of the Internet, made 15-minute celebrities out of bare-knuckled boxers and air-guitar impresarios and educated the world about the explosive properties of mixing Mentos and Diet Coke.

Now, police forces are hoping to add crime-fighter to YouTube's impressive resume.

In Ontario, they're starting small - a minute-long clip of surveillance video that Hamilton police Staff Sgt. Jorge Lasso posted to the immensely popular video-sharing site in hopes of appealing to witnesses who might help them catch a killer.

Police are looking for two "people of interest" who were at a hip-hop concert the night a 22-year-old man from nearby Grimsby, Ont., was killed. The video clip has been viewed over 2,000 times since it was uploaded earlier this month.

"Posting the video just made sense to me," said Lasso, who decided to test YouTube's suspect-seeking abilities after realizing how much his own 20-something children depended on the Internet to stay in the know.

"Our target demographic, the age group of people who was present at that concert, is the same age group of people who has made a habit out of watching YouTube and chatting online."

With the emergence of social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as the continuing popularity and prevalence of blogs, getting a snapshot of someone's identity is "just a Google search away," Lasso said.

It also works both ways: a pair of Winnipeg teens who posted a first-person, white-knuckle street-racing clip earlier this year soon found police knocking at their door, looking to talk to the people responsible for putting the clip online.

The two, whose names haven't been released, are scheduled to appear in court next month on a variety of dangerous-driving charges.

Another YouTube video posted in July depicts a person trying to break into a surveillance camera store in California. The video, recorded and posted by the store's owner, allowed police to nab a suspect wanted for auto theft, burglary and bank robbery.

Last month, a YouTube video also served as evidence in the case of two Los Angeles police officers who allegedly used excessive force while arresting a suspect in Hollywood this summer.

Although the Hamilton video has not yet led to any arrests, it has generated "some chatter from concert-goers and attracted a great deal of media attention," said Lasso.

"The Internet is like having an encyclopedia at your finger tips - people post their lives online and we can easily access that information."

Police across North America are getting serious about tapping what they consider a wealth of potential case-cracking tidbits. Homicide investigators in Hamilton are even taking a course at the Canadian Police College about using the Internet as an investigative tool.

Toronto police Staff Insp. Stephen Harris, a member of the force's Fraud Squad unit, said he's confident the Internet can be "a police officer's best friend" as long as they know how to use it.

"The criminals seem to utilize (technology) to their advantage. That's the bad news," Harris said.

"The good news is we're using that to our advantage, as well. And we're able to use some mordern technology to track some of this information...and to identify suspects and their criminal activity."

Security and policing expert Chris Mathers said the Internet marks a whole new frontier in law enforcement - for police officers and criminals alike.

"This is the kind of alternative police officers should start looking at," said Mathers, a former RCMP officer who now works as a consultant. "This could definitely be a plausible future alternative for law enforcement."

Posting a video on a video sharing service is much more effective than putting up flyers or making a public announcement, he added.

"You can find out just about anything about anybody online. There's no reason why police shouldn't capitalize on that."

But Mariana Valverde, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto, said while the Internet remains a law-enforcement tool not unlike the telephone and television, officers shouldn't mistake it for a crime-fighting panacea.

The best type of information gathering comes from the "old-fashioned person power," she said.

"I dont think there's anything magic about the Internet," Valverde said. "Just pick up the phone or the TV. Using the Internet isn't necessarily going to provide better or more accurate information than putting out a call to citizens on the evening news."

"Obviously if people who break the law are using the Internet, then police should be wise to the ways of the Internet too. It makes sense, but everything has its pluses and minuses."

Writing the Perfect Email

There is something special about writing a good and effective (thus perfect) email, and if you wish yours to be read and acted upon, read on.

The Email Form

Emails can be letters, or memos, whatever you wish, and delivered instantaneously to your recipient.

The proper form must be adhered to, and that is stating a subject, and has one and only one subject, following the subject with support information, and a summary re-stating and clarifying the subject at the end.

The Subject

If at all possible, hold to one subject per email. You may have several topics in one email, but one general or specific subject.

Say are writing a colleague about an upcoming businesses meeting, you can state the subject as “Upcoming Meeting”.

As a rule the shorter you can state your subject, the better.

The Body of the Email

· Be brief and go straight to your point

· A lead paragraph, an information paragraph and a summary paragraph

· Be polite

The email should not be full of stories or long introductions. Go to you point. In the information paragraph expand the point, support it, and remember points 1 and 2 above.

The salutation in any email is also important.

• Kind regards
• with kind regards
• Best Regards
• Kindest best