Philly cops have 1 in 3 chance of making an arrest if they have video but no other lead

When it comes to finding criminals, video makes a big difference.

If the Police Department releases a video of a suspect with no other leads, there’s a one in three chance of making an arrest from the video alone, the Philadelphia Daily News reported. This past fall, the department announced that it had made 100 arrests from tips gotten through its social media and Youtube efforts.

So it’s probably no surprise that there’s a handful of officers who focus on extracting video clips from surveillance footage from store owners and sharing it with news outlets and social media. The Daily News profiled one of these detectives, known as “video-extraction experts.” Every detective division has one, the Daily News reported, and there are about 50 officers trained in video extraction across the department.

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