The Online Reflector

An Integrated Riot Investigation Team, along with the world’s top forensic video experts, gathered in the Digital Multimedia Processing Lab at the University of Indianapolis from Sept. 25 through Oct. 10 to help process footage of rioting that occurred in Vancouver after the June Stanley Cup hockey finals.

Through this process, they hope to identify suspects and bring them before courts when they return home.

The Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab is also known as the LEVA (Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association) lab.

This is because the lab is used by LEVA to train law enforcement and security professionals from around the world in processing video evidence.

Tom Christenberry, director of strategic operations for the School for Adult Learning, played a significant role in bringing the lab to UIndy.

Christenberry retired after 25 years with the FBI in January 2003. LEVA had then been holding training at the FBI Academy in Virginia. After Christenberry moved back to Indianapolis, he asked them if they would be interested in hosting the trainings here.

The first LEVA training program was held in the lower level of Schwitzer Student Center in 2004. Training continued to be held there until that lab was built in 2007.

Assistant team commander for the IRIT and member of the Vancouver Police Department Joanne Boyle said that the LEVA lab is unique and is helping the team make a lot of progress.

“There’s nowhere else in the world that could process this video to this degree. This lab is unique in its capabilities, and we are actually pushing the capabilities of this lab to new heights,” Boyle said. “This is groundbreaking work that we are doing. And as we move forward, problems are being identified and solved here in the lab as well. People who have a wealth of knowledge are bringing their skillsets together and we’re problem-solving things as they arise. So this lab will forever after have those advanced skills to rely on.”

The LEVA lab is unique in that it houses 20 workstations that use state-of-the-art technology allowing investigators to work at the same time processing video.

Having the lab is beneficial not only to those conducting investigations, though.

“First and foremost, it [the lab] brings a lot of notoriety in terms of cutting-edge technology because the lab is really a one-of-a-kind lab around the world,” Christenberry said.

Christenberry also said that he hopes more students will be able to get involved with this lab in the future.

“LEVA is only here 12 times a year. The lab is basically vacant during other times,” he said. “We’d like to have more opportunities for students to get involved, because the forensic video examination is a nice skillset that could be something that could be utilized by some of our graduating students.”

What brought the IRIT team to the LEVA lab was the need to process volumes of video.

They initially thought they had 1,600 hours of video but, through their work in the lab, found there was actually much more video to process than that.

“It’s an interesting balance, because although we’ve found more video than we anticipated, we’ve also found ways to streamline the process as we move forward, so we are absolutely on track,” Boyle said.

Boyle is not new to this type of investigation and was actually involved in a similar investigation after the Vancouver riots in 1994.

Initially investigators expected that there were more than 300 suspects in the 2011 riots, but due to the technology in the lab, the IRIT team has identified 500-700 suspects and plans to continue until all those who were instigators or participants in the riots will be brought in front of courts.

There are 42 different law enforcement agencies assisting with the case.

“The thing that strikes me the most is how these people—although they are in law enforcement, some of them are civilian analysts, some of them are police officer, so there’s a combination of both depending on how the agency deploys their video analysts—but they have become completely engaged in our investigation,” Boyle said. “They are working as hard as our investigators are back home and as our own people are here, so they have a vested interest in identifying the suspects and tagging them. It is phenomenal how hard people are working. I have people in the lab who have actually taken holidays from their regular jobs to be here. It’s absolutely amazing how the law enforcement agency as pulled together.”

Christenberry described how it is good to have many things that a university is known for, such as the UIndy Woodrow Wilson programs and the Mayoral Archives.

“I think the LEVA lab is just another one of the many important things that makes UIndy notable and I think the LEVA folks are very glad to be here,” Christenberry said.