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University Daily Kansan / Thursday, October 31, 1991
It's No Secret. It's Good Food.
YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
NOVEMBER 1,1991
Volunteer/Organization Fair
November 1, 1991
9:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Kansas Union, Main Lobby
For More Information Contact The Center for Community Outreach 864-3710 or stop by the tables in Wescoe or the Union
paid for by Student Senate
KU police get new system for creating composites
Kansan staff writer
By Melissa Rodgers
Crime victims at KU can choose from 260 pairs of eyes, 271 mouths, 257 noses, 16 musches, 12 beards and many more facial features to create a picture of a suspect.
The procedure continues until the victim thinks the computer screen image resembles the criminal. When the image is complete, it is printed on a laser printer.
"We work from the hairline down," KU police investigator Scott Ferris said.
The victim must then choose a pair of eyes that is the closest to the criminal's.
Making a composite image of an imaginary suspect, Scott Ferris, KU police investigator, uses a new computer program purchased by KU police for $5,500 in September.
The computer's software program contains the features of white, African-American and Asian-American men.
About 1,330 facial features, clothing accessories and body types are stored on KU police's new computer to create a digital face. The computer received the computer in September.
But no women's features are on the software program.
"There are more men suspects than women suspects," said Lt. Jeanne Longaker of KU police.
Longaker said the police could not afford all the software programs for the computer, including software that was already installed at the time the department bought it.
The victim first must choose a hairstyle from the 285 styles on the program. The hairstyle then is displayed on the computer screen.
The new computer, the composite software program and a laser printer.
KU police this week released its third composite made on the computer from a crime victim's descriptions. The composite is of a man that police suspect in two indecent-exposure incidents.
The two incidents took place Oct. 8, behind Lewis Hall and in the east Carpenter Street.
Victims, who give descriptions of their assaults, are asked to picture the attack.
The two other composites police have done on the new computer are of people who may have been involved in a crime, but who have not been in an attempted strong-arm robbery.
KU police's new composite program is the only one of its kind in Douglas County
County.
Longaker said KU police had wanted the composite computer program for several years.
Crime victims became frustrated with the limits of the manual composite kit that used a combination of facial features photos, he said.
Ferris said it sometimes took as long as three hours to make a manual composite.
With the new computer, it takes about one and a half hours to make a composite, he said.
The new computer program also has '80s and '90s hair and clothing styles, Longaker said. The old manual kit had '60s and '70s styles, Longaker said.
The computer program is much more accurate than the manual composite kit, Ferris said. It can blend the separate facial features and add subtleties to the face, such as wrinkles, scars or pimples.
At a crime victim's direction, an officer can thicken hair lines or mus taches and widen or elongate faces.
As the officers become more proficient creating composites, the computer program will be able to produce graph-quality images. Ferris said.
He said he and four other officers had been honing their composite skills by creating composites of fellow KU police officers.
Police officers have trained themselves to use the new computer by studying a training manual provided by the software company Sirce Fingerprint Laboratories, Inc., of North Carolina.
KU police's new composite computer program is the only composite program in Douglas County, Ferris said.
KU police have offered the use of the computer to law-enforcement agencies in seven nearby counties, Longaker said.
Sgt. Mark Warren of Lawrence police said the department used a Smith and Wesson, Model II manual composite kit.
Composites are made by layering transparencies of facial features over each other until a likeness of the criminal is achieved, he said.
NOVEMBER 6,1991 10:00 AM TO 2:00 PM JAYHAWK ROOM,LEVEL 5,KANSAS UNION
Interested in computers? Come to the Fall Computer Invitational in the Kansas Union Wednesday, November 6 and you can get hands-on experience with a wide variety of computer equipment. Computer resellers from the Lawrence area will have computer equipment and product literature and will be on hand to answer your computer questions. Join us at the Fall Computer Invitational and check out the latest in computer technology.
Sponsored by:
KU Bookstores
Kansas & Burge Unions
Level 2
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