FORT COLLINS — New technology allows the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office to virtually take a crime scene back to the lab for further evaluation.
Brian Wangler, who works in the Northern Colorado Crime Lab as a sheriff’s office employee, was honored Thursday with an innovation award from Larimer County commissioners for bringing the three-dimensional laser scanner to the county.
His project was one of three grand-prize winners to receive a grant from the county for innovative ideas.
The Faro scanner is a laser device that allows Wangler to take a 3-D scan of any room or crime scene, allowing that area to be processed more quickly, replacing pen-and-paper measurements with technology and preserving an exact image of a scene for analysis in the lab or display in court.
Experts can “return to the scene” again and again without ever leaving the lab once the scan has been taken.
An area that benefits from this technology, according to Wangler, is the determination of bullet trajectory. With the scan, it is simpler and more accurate, according to a video in which he explains how the Faro scanner works.
As another example, Wangler showed how he was able to match a scan of damage to the front of a pickup to a scan of damage to a metal gate.
For this innovation, Wangler received a $500 award.
