Police Face Computer Age -- New Software Lets Police Make Better Sketches Of Suspects

BELLEVUE - It started in the late 1980s when Bellevue police detectives got used to the idea of keeping records of stolen property and pawned items in a computer database.

Records and information on local suspects, suspect cars, arrests, incidents, case follow-ups and crime statistics were soon added to the department computer files.

Next was E-mail, an electronic message system that allows officers to communicate with each other and city government departments.

Now comes the agency's latest venture into high tech: a computerized method of making more realistic sketches of criminal suspects based on witness information.

Lt. Bill Ferguson, who heads the white-collar crime unit, says the Compusketch program gives officers the ability to sketch a suspect, write up a brief description of the incident, make copies from the computer and have them distributed to other officers within an hour.

"It saves time," says Detective Marv Skeen. "Witnesses like it because they can see the changes being made."

While the department has had the program since 1987, Ferguson says the earlier version was so difficult and time-consuming it was never used on a single case.

"Only one officer was trained to use the old program and he never used it," says Ferguson. "The new program is much easier and six officers have been trained to use it."

Training time is roughly six hours plus practice.

The actual suspect drawings take about 30 minutes to complete and the results are much more satisfying to witnesses than those created with the department's old composite kit, Ferguson says.

For the past 20 or so years, most Eastside police agencies have used a product called Identi-Kit, in which officers design a face from an assortment of eyes, noses, mouths, hair styles and other facial features painted on acetate sheets.

The problem with Identi-Kit is that witnesses often were not satisfied with the results because the kit wouldn't allow for fine-tuning of details - such as widening or narrowing a face, says Ferguson. Compusketch allows the user to stretch, shape, shrink and enlarge facial features as well as the face itself.

Skeen says the old kit also took longer to compose a face and circulate copies because the acetate sheets had to be carefully placed on the photocopy machine to make sure facial features were aligned with the rest of the face.

With Compusketch, detectives ask witnesses 112 specific questions about a suspect's facial features, hair, race, shape, height and weight.

The answers are fed into the computer and the detective and witness watch the screen as the program constructs a suspect's face. With the initial sketch, witnesses can request subtle changes like moving the eyes closer together, adding a cleft, widening the face or making the nose bend a tad to one side.

If a witness doesn't have all the answers, the program frames the question in a multiple-choice form to make it easier.

Moles, dimples, scars, tattoos - just about any facial feature can be added.

Compusketch also allows police to age a suspect's face by adding wrinkle lines and receding hair.

The advantage to the program is its efficiency, says Ferguson. "If there's a criminal at large and you need to get a suspect's face out quickly, Compusketch allows you to do this."

While detectives haven't yet nabbed any criminals with the upgraded Compusketch, which they acquired in November, Skeen and Ferguson are confident they will.

The old kit's one advantage is mobility. Identi-Kit comes in a portable plastic brown box about the size of an adult lunch box.

Ferguson says he hopes the department will soon add the new program to laptop computers so that officers can compose suspect sketches and recreate accident scenes in the field.