"... Today thousands of officers across the
country use professional drawing software to recreate crime and accident scenes.
What’s more, the migration to these drawing programs is growing at an
ever-expanding rate.
Bobby Jones, owner of Jones and Associates in Knoxville, TN, has long
advocated the use of diagramming software. His software of choice is The Crime
Zone from The CAD Zone. “The Crime Zone is designed specifically for the job
that we do,” Jones says. “The symbol library is very good and the print
capabilities are among the best we’ve seen.”
Jones uses the diagramming software in many ways. “On
special response team calls, we’ll hook up a portable printer to a laptop,”
he describes. “Then, someone on the scene who’s familiar with the drawing
software will do some fast scanning with our LTI equipment (a laser measuring
device from Laser Technology Inc.) From there, we can create a quick rough
sketch for the response team and provide critical information – distance to
the subject, location of windows and doors and so on.”
Doug Jordan, a detective in the financial crimes unit with
the Eugene (Oregon) Police Dept, credits drawing software with saving time and
producing professional results. Eight Eugene police officers – three in
investigations and five in patrol – presently use diagramming software.
“I’d been searching for a CAD program for collision
reconstruction,” Jordan says. “I was using a DOS-based drawing program, but
our computer platform migrated to Windows.” After engaging in some trial and
error with various programs, Jordan decided upon The Crash Zone, a companion
program to The Crime Zone.
“I don’t consider myself a big CAD expert by a long
shot,” says Jordan. I just want to be able to draw fairly complicated scenes
as quickly as I can, because there always this big push to get things done.
“We don’t have time to learn complicated software.
With an easy-to-use program out officers don’t need to use it every day to
maintain proficiency. Guys can step away from the software for a while, then
pick up where they left off.”..."