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Inside the FBI Crime Laboratory

Added Oct 07, 2015 •

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An inside look at the world's largest and most sophisticated crime fighting lab. Use the worksheet provided to answer questions with the video

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and terrorism futuristic equipment Cutting Edge Technologies now the FBI on Modern Marvels can you prove a 2003 many of the world's greatest forensic scientists witness the dedication building the promises to be in the Vanguard of American law enforcement the New FBI Crime Lab at Quantico Virginia theme States behind every case is a victim a man a woman or a child and the people who care for them we dedicate our efforts and the New FBI sorry to all of these victims nearly 500,000 square feet the lab is almost triple the size of its former home and FBI quarters in Washington DC the state-of-the-art facility cost over 150 million dollars to build an equip construction took four years to complete it is most experts agree the finest crime lab in the world has been nicknamed Battlestar Galactica not only for its innovative technology but also its unique design the design is built around the Tegrity and security of evidence that's the most important quality of this building to ensure that the evidence were handling is secure as LS contamination free so the building has been designed with the offices in the front part of the building and the back two-thirds of the building is all Laboratories the office and laboratory section have completely separate air Handling Systems in showing evidence is kept contaminant free is born into the building via special handling days celebrates are large enough to back in a tractor trailer  all of these efforts are directed toward solving crime good modern forensic science forensic science is the art of finding whatever is left at a crime scene developing it in such a way that it can be Associated to a person or people who are at the crime scene it isn't art and in the hands of the right investigators it is the strongest kind of tool because you can't fool science cold a massive building a forensics lab is really a misnomer it's actually many different labs house together Under One Roof the FBI laboratory is composed of 25 different units those units are basically forensic analysis units doing such exams as latent fingerprints Firearms DNA analysis trace evidence chemistry we also have a number of units that are responsible for responding to crime scene for the collection and preservation of evidence apple and employs nearly 700 people ranging from phd-level scientists to technicians and lab assistants what is largest it is calamus merely One Division of 13 that comprise the Federal Bureau of Investigation surprisingly much of its caseworker widgets outside of yourself the FBI laboratory actually provides its services to all law enforcement across the United States as well as international law enforcement agencies all crime Laboratories have the full range of capabilities that we have in this laboratory we provide the analysis we provide the report and we will test lie about that report free of charge to any state or local law enforcement agency  the lab currently receives over 600 pieces of evidence from outside age cheese everyday  it has become the busiest crime lab on the planet but it wasn't always so that it's rather humble Origins over seven decades ago  the first impetus for the lab occurred in 1928 during the infamous second Vancity case in that case for the first time forensic evidence was introduced in court in the form of bullets fired from the suspect's gun the US Bureau of Investigation as it was then known wasn't directly involved in the case Federal Bureau of Investigation nearest telephone but it's recently appointed director J Edgar Hoover was intrigued by the possibility  can you ask special agent Charles app to attend classes at the nation's first Crime Lab at Northwestern University run by Colonel Calvin Goddard on returning to Washington Rappel rope to Hoover proposing a separate division for the handling of so-called crime prevention work under which a criminological laboratory can be placed Hoover asked Appel to spearhead this effort he wrote back to go over I believe the bureau should be the Clearinghouse for all information may be needed in criminological work all police departments in the future will look to the Bureau for information of this kind as a routine thing on September 14th 1932 Appel reported to Hoover that room 802 in the old Southern Railway building was ready to begin to as a crime lab the equipment on that day consisted of an ultraviolet light machine for inspecting handwriting I machine to examine gun and one microscope on loan from his manufacturer IT staff was a single agent Charles Appel shoe places in the building that had available running water and its capabilities were really limited but its primary purpose was really to be a public relations tool for the FBI and makeover  one of the first case is the new lab tackled was that of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping  two handwriting samples Appel was able to add by Bruno Richard hauptmann has the author of The Ransom notes for the child Hoffman was convicted and ultimately executed for the crime next few years old expanded and was moved into the justice department building in 1936 it was among the first labs to test the new polygraph borderline detector  one year later they began spectrographic analysis  this process use the beam of refracted light that will shown through what did mixture  as it passed through the chemical composition of a mixture would absorb specific wavelengths of light  remaining like within create signature display of the mixtures chemical makeup  in 1940 the lab was designated a full-fledged division of the bureau with its own directory barge during World War II the lamb supported the bureaus Prime espionage  When developing a method to materialize handwriting instrumental in the capture of Nazi saboteurs who would landed on the beaches of Long Island New York in the 50s and 60s I'm kept pace with a burgeoning growth of forensic science including the creation of the serology unit which through chemical tests could determine human blood types are the 1970s the field of forensics was virtually exploding to stay current the lab was again compelled to expand  list the inevitable move was to yet another office building with more space FBI headquarters in Washington DC what should become vitally important crime-fighting tools what has been shown over and over and over is that physical evidence of any kind is for more accurate than any kind of eyewitness description and good prosecutors would much prefer to have forensic evidence then to have eyewitnesses the Lambs remarkable growth over its first five decades was based on a simple but forward-looking philosophy it Embrace new technologies adapted them to fighting crime and they've done it with great success pretty much to the exclusion of any other hair rainbow to use chemistry in crime-fighting they were able to figure out how to use the DNA technology not just to convert people but find people who were had been wrongly convicted  but despite its best efforts one stumbling block it always into the lab from being recognized his woolly world class  play FBI for a long time was inhibited by the facilities in the odd thing was that the FBI crime was the accrediting agency for Oil National Crime Labs the FBI crime lab wasn't accredited and really couldn't be in those facilities cuz it was too cramped it didn't have the ability to have what they call clean rooms they were all kinds of things they couldn't do I can remember entering the FBI Laboratory as a as an agent in 1987 and at that time there was already talked about needing to move out of head first Indian to a building designed specifically for the FBI Laboratory in 1997 Congress approved funding for the new crime stop construction followed and now we're in the building  while the new building itself is impressive alone it would be an empty shell for the real heart of the lab beats inside as polished steel walls and the scientists and technicians who make up his highly specialized units Andrew Daly match wits with those bent on destruction the FBI crime lab always are reaching y quarter mile in length the FBI crime lab will return on Modern Marvels  we now return to the FBI crime lab on do you have an inch that arrives at the FBI lab is off in the remains of a violent crime robbery rape murder frequency of firearm is involved in such cases the evidence goes to one of the oldest of the last 25 units firearms Firestone machine has been in existence roughly since the beginning of the lab which was established in 1932 on a fundamental basis it's still the same kind techniques we use back in the 1930s comparison microscopes looking at ammunition components were sometimes called the blacksmith's of the laboratory but the amount these blacksmiths conduct are deadly serious  the core examination is looking at firearms and the ammunition components that good possibly be linked to that is we get in a firearm or several we get in cartridge cases from a crime scene we get in bullets from a body when the crime scene in a wall and we take those bullets we take those cartridge cases we perform some tests and we try to decide did they come from this gun or did they not or can we not tell Mount that occurs has to do with the nature of how Firearms are manufactured how to get a gun out with the nature of the inside of a barrel where there are grooves that are manufactured into the barrel you can often think of taking your fingers moving turn down the barrel and then rotate the reason they rotate just like when you throw a football you wanted the spiral because it gives his stability  decoding and raised portions orlandes enables the matching a bullets with gun barrels with remarkable precision  every gun that we've ever seen turn research my others will leave its own individual unique microscopic marks I can use a model here for illustration you can see this little Valley here that's impression from part of the interior of the barrel  this portion is raised portion is from another part now if we have 10 of these different those marks on a bullet but only five land and grooves inside of barrel then obviously it didn't come from that bear we can eliminate it right off on the other hand everything matches we start looking at the smaller microscopic marks and it's from those that we can actually individualize a particular bullet to a particular Barrel a microscopic markings are the results of specific wear patterns unique to each Barrel to Tina sample Bullet From A suspected weapon the unit has specialized piece of equipment we take that gun to a water tank a big 8 foot long tank fire into it  the bull will a slow down very fast drop to the bottom of the tank then we pluck it out and we take that test fired bullet and we compare that to a bullet from a crime scene we can look at those small little striations or scratch marks on those bullets side-by-side at the same time and again if there's a significant amount of Correspondence we can say they're from the as part of their charge the Firearms unit also maintains a remarkable collection of weapons are Reference fire with collection is the largest forensic collection of its type in the United States we have close to 6,000 weapons in here are firearms reference collection is not a museum this is an actual working collection and it's that has many purposes we use them for training purposes to strip them down and look at the parts and see how they were very often will need to tear down an what is gone but we don't want to start with that we want to take a duplicate from our collection and tear it down first we won't be damaging or altering any way of evidence got anymore is Ashley necessary  within the vast collection are many Firearms of historical significance we have a revolver they would use by John Challenger the gangster we have two semi-automatic pistols used by Pretty Boy Floyd semi-automatic pistol by Alvin creepy karpis and all these weapons to my knowledge are in Phil good operating condition  working with these tools of violence the scientist to the Firearms unit strive to make a positive impact when you do make a definite social contribution here we're helping to get to the truth in a courtroom helping to put the bag has way helping them set the innocent free and I know it sounds hokey but that's a good feeling  criminals for home of firearm isn't powerful enough the different type of weather  extend the delance explosive unit is called in components of a bomb would be to have some sort of energetic material which would provide that explosive for sore or really Savannah and then some means to initiate that those are are the key ingredients in any bomb  what are the members of the explosives unit it's really that simple most commonly we run into what we call improvised explosive devices or IEDs and these IEDs we also will refer most commonly asked homemade bombs and it's the homemade bomb that we are most concerned with because these are the things that are completely foreign to us and can't have booby trap features or certain trick designs that make them very dangerous for us here in the laboratory so that the homemade bomb is not only our most common but our most dangerous were threatening device probably the largest case ever tackled explosives unit 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988 Pan Am 103 was  clearly the is crime scene in history was almost 800 square miles and one of the things that has never been reported was how the entire town Lockerbie became detectives picking things up marking where they found them and handing them in they develop bags and bags and bags of evidence and it came to the FBI crime lab in in Washington one of the first things looked for was the evidence of high explosives damage because of its its characteristics it can't be attributed merely to the breakup of an aircraft it's high-energy explosive force at work it creates knife edges to the metal it causes unique Rippling which we sometimes refer to his gas washing examiners from our unit recognize this high your damage on these particular pieces that went to a particular cargo container and from that they were then able to determine certain pieces of luggage exhibited as high explosive damage and knew that the device had to have been in that piece of luggage once established that a bomb hit a d brought down flight 103 it was sheer tenacity that led investigators to the bombers working in the explosives unit  they found a thumbnail piece of plastic that he knew he'd seen before but he didn't know where he's seen it and she took that piece to a friend of his another expert in this kind of materials and that x-ray looked at and said you know I seen that before too I know where Tiffany went in the back hey brother another unexploded bomb that had been found in Africa and they took back off and this thumbnail piece of a timer was identical to the timer using these other bombs they knew who had made these other bombs there's a hard work finally paid off to members of Libyan intelligence were charged with a bombing after the Libyan government refused to turn them over to World Court 4 tried and found guilty In Absentia  today's current climate and its heightened risk of terrorism the exclusive what is more important than ever we're working to try to help solve some of the most violent and and cowardly Acts more terrorist activity that occur is exciting in that it's like a major puzzle that has all these variety pieces and we try to piece this together and determine how everything fits and the greatest satisfaction is in putting people behind bars after they've committed such a violent Act while the explosive units cases are often larger-than-life other guys must look closer in order to solve their Mysteries Pinoy crime lab annually conducts about 1 million for rent now she's returned on Modern Marvels  when are we turn to the FBI crime lab on Trump and the FBI's ability to single out one person from a crowd can determine success or failure in cases of this type a latent print unit is the granddaddy of them all if you look back in the lot of the history books clear back before Christ the Chinese and denies that there was friction Ridge patterns on the in joints of the fingers not that they knew to do anything with them they just recognize that they were there but well into the 19th century entirely different system of personal identification was deeply entrenched accepted means was a French system called the what's a way of measuring body parts the distance from the tip of your finger to the point of your elbow the girth of your head above the eyebrows there were 22 different measurements used and it was based on the premise that no two people would have the same bertillon measurements and that's pretty much the way it was until 19 when a man named William West was arrested and sent to Fort Leavenworth Prison and they took his rutilia measurements and they looked in the file and they discovered there was a William West at Fort Leavenworth Prison who had precisely the same bertillon measurements only thing different about the two of them was their thing Prince and that was the day fingerprinting became the chosen method of identifying a person Ethan before the lamb opened its doors in 1932 the bureau was involved the FBI recognize the benefit to using I mean suppose of identification so in 1924 we started and created the first fingerprint files it wasn't until 1933 that we began using Lincoln prints off of crime scene evidence to try to support criminal investigative matters  this breakthrough was the result of discovering the blatant hidden fingerprints are often left at a crime scene if you think of it as a series of ridges and valleys it's The Ridges which are the protruding areas of skin that comes the contact with that object will those friction ridges have a series of sweat pores it is the perspiration from your body that aligns along those ridges so that you touch an object it's that perspiration which gets transferred onto the object in the outline of your fingerprint that perspiration is about 98th and 99 percent water the rest of it has chemical Composites of your body chemistry amino acids riboflavin and so forth it's those elements that we lies to try to develop those late and prints on any object that your touch  fingerprint smooth firmly into the national psyche when Public Enemy Number John Dillinger was killed outside of Chicago movie theater  and it was a real question of whether it was John Dillinger or what John Dillinger This brilliant Mastermind had known about this assassination plot that they're going to kill him and it says somebody in his place Dillinger had made every to change his appearance just like in the movies it dipped his fingerprints and acid he had had some rudimentary plastic surgery there are people today who was still tell you that wasn't you Challenger  Dillinger did in fact succeed in blurring the prince at the tips of his fingers but to no avail the fact is that you're unique this can be identified what are the second and third joints of the finger so all we had to do in that case was look below the first joint of the finger to the second joint and we could positively identify him as John Dillinger  forensic science Advanced the number of techniques to develop latent fingerprints also expanded rapidly and the 90 turtle and had only three processors employing chemical powders or liquids today there are nearly 80 different processes from cyan Kool-Aid fumes to alternate light sources that the lab can bring to bear in their search for suspect many are highly specialized okay we will have evidence that would have blood on it especially in a homicide type case and that poses an interesting perspective to us because now we have another substance on the what is itself  to bring out the latent prints captured in the blood-stained the unit uses a special chemical process called amido Black which reacts with the actual proteins in the blood itself after it is rinsed off the amido black clings to the bloody fingerprints prevailing them an amazing detail another modern process was used for the first time in the 1970s while searching for proof of World War II crimes Valerian trifa was a bishop in the Romanian Orthodox Church of America in 1975 began against him look up his past in the Iron Guard Romania is pro Nazi party Prima deny this accusation confident bedtime had buried any group Sherwin government how to post guard that have been mailed in the early 1940s to Hamlet and if they could make the association that it was in fact a postcard sent by Bishop tree who would prove that he was a Nazi collaborator problem was at the German government considered this in historical document and while they were willing to loan it to the FBI for investigate they were not willing to let the FBI use any method on the card that would have caused any damage the chemical processes of the day all would have when the postcard  returned within radical new technology the lab hope their new laser microbial of fingerprint on the decades-old we detected a latent print on that fingerprint card 41 years after it was put into that bank vault and it was identified with Bishop Treva prefer was caught in his lie and eventually deported  today is sophisticated laser is endo there alternate light sources continue to play major role in the case where the latent print unit the latent unit is a 30 watt laser the laser beam will come out into a fight offic the fiber-optic will have into fracking lens at the end which will disperse that laser light across a display table will simply take the evidence and looking special filters in Layton print will Luminess at a higher frequency than the surrounding area on the object this is dude current luminescence which can be fastly Amplified by the use of a powerful laser  dildo the latent print unit is Pioneer such Technologies it still constantly looking to update its methods today went pretty much deal with a two-dimensional impression of fingerprints what we know is is at the finger is three dimensional The Ridges and valleys are three dimensional configuration we are moving rapidly to that Arena of three-dimensional imagery of the finger as well as being able to capture three-dimensional images of the latent print on crime scene evidence singer Prince have a long history as a forensic tool another of the labs units deals with a Fingerprints of the 21st century DNA is the biological equivalent of fingerprints they've never never found two people with the same fingerprints and they have never found two people with the same to you DNA determines the unique differences in how we all look it stored in virtually every cell in our bodies as genetic code even before the first conviction in the US using DNA evidence in 1988 the FBI lab was in the Forefront of DNA forensic research mid-1980s the FBI laboratory decided that we needed to use the DNA technology that was first being used in Astrid England so we spent three years developing the technology of DNA for application to rapes and homicides and violent crimes and in December of 1988 we began to apply that technology to our case work even with the success the FBI lab continued its efforts to refine DNA testing this led to another breakthrough that were actually two distinct types of DNA which could be where does evidence is found in the nucleus  which is sort of like the yolk of an egg and mitochondrial DNA is found in the outer of the cell sort of like the egg white of an egg nuclear DNA is the substance which encodes physical characteristics such as eye color or hair color but they're only two copies of that DNA in cells mitochondrial DNA on the other hand it's found in much higher coffee number and selves discrepancy in copy number was it critical Discovery because it was so much more plentiful mitochondrial technology now made DNA testing possible ends Adams has bones in other evidence which have been resistant to nuclear DNA testing he says the sayings has been exposed to the environment for a long time so that evidence will be degraded much like food spoils when you leave it outside of a refrigerator in those cases will you perform mitochondrial DNA analysis because there are more copies of mitochondrial DNA present in that evidence to begin with the continued success of both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA testing led to the creation of the national DNA index system DNA index system is a nationwide network of more than 170 crime Labs that are hooked together share DNA information today there are more than 1.5 million convicted offender profiles in the National DNA index system we have solved well over 6,000 cases using this DNA technology with a national online database to share both singer and mitochondrial information of Fingerprints of the 21st century will be identifying criminal suspects with more and more frequency anything is that I get to see my work help victims of crimes and their families I get to see if people have been helped by the work that's done here in the lab what when there is no DNA available the FBI has the Fingerprints of 44 million people or 440 Millions separate fingerprints on file the FBI crime lab will return on Modern Marvels  we now return to the FBI crime lab on Modern Marvels incriminating evidence develop he's almost imperceptible Clues the lab relies and it's chemistry and trace evidence units it's impossible to being an environment without both leaving Aaron fiber evidence that you were there but also picking up hairs and fibers from that environment and taking them with you when we get evidence in we're looking for is the presence of either hairs fibers glass or soil and what we're actually looking at is Whatever item we're examining it doesn't belong on it what we call Farhan to that item and then we're trying to associate either those hairs fibers glass of soil that don't come from that item to a possible determine which hair and fiber evidence is of interest in an investigation the unit develop its own distinct protocols we removed from those items of clothing that were submitted and look at them under a low-power microscope for the debris is looked at for hairs and fibers that might be of interest then they are consistent to each other I would look at them under fluorescent microscopy to see if they also floor us the same way if all of these things are consistent between the known fiber and the question fiber than I would take it and have it run on Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry transform infrared spectrophotometer or ftir is on The Cutting Edge of trace evidence analysis it can identify the actual chemical structure of the substance being exam when utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum above visible light when coupled to a reference database it can readily identify unknown compounds Heir will allow us to determine what the subtype of that fiber is although we've determined earlier on the microscope that it's a nylon it'll tell us that it's a nylon six or 166 a specific type of nylon picture one chilling case in 1979 it was the only physical evidence the prosecution had it begin with people Hearing in Atlanta metro area their bodies found disposed of in rural wooded areas we're all connected by a thread that case started with bodies being found that had some fibers on them and they were able to enter relate victims with those fibers so that now they have the idea that the same person responsible for the string of murders after local news reported it common fibers have been found on the victim's bodies began showing up floating naked in a Gucci River and I'll be sat temp to remove any hair or Fiber evidence police soon began sticking up bridges in the area hoping for a break it came late one night after hearing a loud Splash in the river below the Police Stopped Wayne Williams a twenty-three-year-old local music promoter who is driving away  his claim that he had merely throwing garbage over the side was belied two days later when a body washed up just a mile from the bridge hair and fiber evidence against Williams began to mount that were made watching hairs that were found that were consistent with some of the victims consistent with Wayne Williams on the victims and a variety of different types of fibers fibers his vehicle from the carpet in the house some of those things interesting and left turned out to be very uncommon Williams was convicted of murder what is serving a life sentence based solely on a hair and fiber evidence presented at trial  when evidence needs to be broken down into its free Elemental structure the chemistry unit begins its meticulous work one of the earliest cases in which the cam unit provided vital was the crash of United flight 629 in 1955  44 people died when the plane exploded just minutes out of stable dinner boarding Denver  in the lab the chem unit to tecton sodium carbonate what chemical usually found in cleaning powder on pieces of the before long they realize that it was actually a residue of a TNT that they hadn't covered the first case of sabotage in modern in history from those times the chem unit has radically changed here and they happily nicknamed $5000000 room it now flexes analytical muscle with some of the highest Tech instruments founded any forensic lab in the world  the chemistry lab primarily relies on three different types of instrumentation one type is known spectrophotometry which basically is looking at how chemicals absorb or emit light second type-r chromatic instruments things that will take a complex mixture and separate them into their individual components and then the high instrumentation is what's known as mass spectrometry these are instruments that allow us to look at a chemicals fingerprint or its weight in find that information to say with with 100% certainty that's a chemical is this and not something else perhaps the most advanced instrument in the chem Labs impressive Arsenal is the time of flight Mass spectrometer what kind of flight is suggest it's actually measuring the amount of time that it takes a chemical to travel down a particular to now we're talking microseconds but chemicals have different size in different configurations are going to do so at different speeds this is because all chemicals have distinct Atomic weights which affects their travel  the lighter elements pass down the two more quickly that's reaching the detector in a shorter amount of time time of flight spectrometer cilaos to do is look at chemicals and their weights with high resolution for example if I were to look at an individual and say they weigh 180 lb that would be the equivalent of what I can do with older type Mass spectrometers but now with the introduction of the time of flight Mass dramateurs in their high resolution I can now look at an individual and say that their weight is 180.57 for 9 pounds distance to Mentor Naples a microscopic level of certainty in identifying compounds and elements that was previously not even dropped off call the chemistry and trace evidence units have evolved slowly over the years the events of one day changed everything for the FBI and the forever  because the piers and fibers investigators see her easily lost most of it and sent to the FBI crime lab is the trace evidence unit first we have to be like levels  we now return to the FBI crime make mini American institutions bfbi was dramatically affected by the events of 9/11 the whole Lab changing shape as it moves from its traditional task of fighting domestic crime to fighting worldwide terrorist or whole mission is now centered around for the engine of crime prevention of other terrorist acts the impact of 9/11 to our FBI Laboratory Aladdin in a number of ways first of all we had units now that respond to hazardous crime scenes crime scenes like Anthrax laced letters Paws unit the lead for the anthrax case in the FBI Washington field office or wfo wfo has test hm are you with assisting in collecting evidence and with responding to the initial events we had a heavy presence in sorting the mail operation that we undertook in Springfield Virginia that resulted in the finding of the letter posted for Senator Leahy letter where the First Act of Anthrax spores found more would it come due to the dangerous nature of their field missions HMR was equipped with Ally technology in gear we're in equipment heavy unit we have protective equipment their suits gloves boots protective mask detection equipment for toxic chemicals biological materials and nuclear radiological materials the different types of suits that we use or levels of section are Level D protection all the way through level a protection which is the highest level of dermal and respiratory protection that were that we can use celebrity suits a vapor tight suit you have the gloves constructed into the suit and also footies are built into the suit as well so you are fooling slated this type of suit would be an extreme News high Vapor pressures that sort of thing that pose a very very high threat another of the lads response units that evolved in the wake of the events of 9/11 is the bomb data center the basic purpose is to provide a database Republic safety bomb technicians to provide for their training and to gather intelligence from overseas that deal with Infernal Devices as they were once called explosive devices are improvised explosive devices  Georgia Quitman is the latest generation of bomb defusing robots always be replaced the arms can break at you can blow off at Red if a device functions it can't replace a bomb technician the robot allows that bomb technician to have eyes and hands down there suspect device be able to manipulate it move it remove it from the hazard to the public without exposing himself to Danger this robot is an Andros model who won the state of the yard and you stood a pretty beastly robot as you can see it's heavy it's designed to pull heavy loads and fact the robots capable of moving at the park car bear controller on the robot allows the operator to have full vision of all the cameras on the robot the robot has a drive camera to allow the operator to see basically robot would be seeing where it's driving this particular model also has another camera mounted on the disruptors the disruptor system known colloquially as a water cannon the robot uses its disruptors to literally blow the package apart what just how this is done is a closely guarded secret can't really discuss you decide what we're going to do on the bomb where we're going to Target that gets into some very sensitive areas that we need to safeguard the purpose of using water is it allows being not compressible it allows it to tear things open at allows it to separate components and allows it to open packages another of the labs units was what drastically affected by the events of 9/11 that was formed in the early 80s and it existed serving primarily the traditional forensic Sciences for about 20 years and all of actually changed after 9/11 when the FBI is a whole had a significant Mission change toward of preventing and disrupting terrorism Liam its Research into combating terrorism has taken on various forms including a weapon-specific CD-ROM which can be used by local field offices Vision investigative tool don't go into the specifics of the types of weapons that were looking at because it's classified but basic this investigative CD-ROM manual gives the people on site information as to what type of weapon could have been used in these wet pretty specific to terrorist events the men and women of the FBI crime lab stand poised to confront the future we FBI laboratory today is in a world-class facility always had world-class scientists and world-class Technologies but until today we've never had a world-class facility facility the FBI crime lab has clearly become the best in the world the most exciting part of this job is coming here each and every AMC in the 700 employees of this laboratory pour their heart and soul into their work and knowing the difference that it's making in the lives of victims in allies of just ordinary citizens all across this country squirted flatter it lay it on thick so maybe glue isn't glamorous but without it the world we live in would simply fall apart how did we get ourselves in incredibly sticky situation going to get up in the morning to the time to go to bed at night really everywhere Modern Marvels on the History Channel

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