Most serious crime scenes are either initiated or investigated well into hours of low light. I can’t remember how many times we moved our patrol cars around so we could point our headlights, spotlights and take-down lights onto an area we were searching or documenting. Even with two or three cars, the range and intensity of that makeshift illumination were limited. The nondiscretionary mounting location of the lights meant we either had the light in our eyes or were fighting our own shadows to see what we were trying to document. It was a less-than-ideal solution, for certain.
Law enforcement is always looking for rugged hardware that will give us an advantage in the field, and sometimes we rely on wisdom and look at the experience of others rather than reinventing the proverbial wheel. We’ve benefited from the experiences of the military on what equipment works and, more important, doesn’t work under extreme use. That list includes pistols, rifles, shotguns, optics, etc.
Check out video from the author’s drone test.
FIRE AND LIGHT
However, we’ve only recently glommed onto the well-earned experience of our firefighting colleagues. The dragon slayers (crime scene eradicators) were successfully using handheld infrared cameras to find people through heavy smoke for quite a while before we in law enforcement realized we could use the same technology to our benefit in search of missing people and suspects. Well, here we are again – this time in the realm of scene lights.
You’ve probably envied the incredibly powerful lights the fire guys plug directly into their equally enviable trucks to illuminate fire scenes. At least one of their equipment suppliers is trying to bring that technology to cop work.
Command Light sent me their Trident Tripod and EOS Rapid Deploy Light (EOS-RDL). Here are some of their shared features:
MODULARITY
You don’t just order a generic light from Command Light. You choose between a variety of light heads and power sources, depending on your needs. Watts, weight, lumens and run time are all up to the purchaser.
One of my favorite things about Command Light is they don’t have propriety batteries. We get to choose which easy-to-source quality rechargeable battery we want: Dewalt, Makita, Milwaukee or Hurst. This gives the user options between 9,500 and 28,000 lumens and a run time between 32 minutes and 235 minutes and most anywhere in between.
BUILD QUALITY
The very few plastic parts I found on these lights are in places like the light head shroud, which would get dangerously hot were it made of aluminum. That shroud, though, is protected by an aluminum shroud. The carry handles are a similar high-quality grade of plastic. Other than that, everything appears to be aluminum. I’m just guessing, but if a writer were setting up the Trident for pictures and clumsily knocked it over (twice), it would easily survive without any evidence that ever happened. Both are also capable of shore power (plugging them into the wall or fancy fire truck if you’re one of those guys).
LET THERE BE OUCH
Being a light nerd, I couldn’t wait to try these things out. I should have. Wisely, I didn’t stand in front of the EOS Rapid Deployment Light when I turned it on in my living room, but I wasn’t wise enough to remember the reflection factor on uberpowerful lights. I loaned the Trident to our detective unit for two weeks to evaluate. I warned them to use more caution than I had, but that might not have been necessary with my visibly blown pupils.
TRIDENT TRIPOD
The Trident Tripod is a solid unit. When the tripod’s legs are extended to a fully anti-Oklahoma wind position, it still extends to over six feet in height. The light head can be adjusted up and down depending on what you need to illuminate. One of its legs can be extended beyond farther than the other two to aid with stability on uneven ground or even stairs. Due to its modularity, you can also mount a light bar or even a message bar to the Trident.
RAPID DEPLOY LIGHT
The EOS-RDL is compact and easy to transport and set up. You can set it up on the ground, on the hood of a patrol car or on any other surface. It also can be adjusted for ground level or upward as far as you need.
REAL WORLD
Obviously, lights like this would help with crime scenes, but what else? I thought about area searches for lost children, field searches for suspects and even illumination for night fire exercises. But, one illumination problem in particular has been plaguing me.
DRONE SCENE LIGHT?
An investigative procedure that’s become common is using drones to document serious traffic collision scenes. Investigators mark the pavement with measurements, and the drone operator takes hundreds of pictures in a grid pattern. A program converts those photographs into an interactive model that can be used for reconstruction or court, if necessary. The problem is, many of these scenes either occur at night or their investigations stretch into nighttime hours. It’s nearly impossible to get those pictures at night. We often have to come back, shut down traffic again, then get the documentation later. These lights would eliminate that need and save manpower and the frustrations of our citizens who are just trying to travel from point A to B.
LIGHT IS MIGHT
In our decades-long search for tools that can make our jobs safer and easier, illumination has always been at the forefront. I left these two lights with our Investigative Services Unit (detectives) for more than two weeks. Fortunately, they didn’t have the need to deploy them, but they did play with (evaluate, I mean) the lights while they had them. The reviews were glowing, as are mine. If any administrators out there want to make your cops’ jobs easier or even keep up with your local fire department, check out Command Light.
