This section provides an overview of the use of RED to perform investigative reporting. In this scenario, there have been a string of incidents at ATM machines in which a suspect has robbed or attacked ATM users. The suspect has always carried a uniquely identifiable bag so he has been given the nickname "bagger".
The investigator starts RED:
A description of the incident is added:
Reported suspect details are entered:
The investigative proces atarts by searching for all incidents in which the nickname "bagger" appears:
The results appear in a summary report:
This report contains a summary of each matching incident with "totals" type information at the bottom. These reults can be sorted by date by clicking on the "Date" column header text. The full event report can be viewed by right clicking on a row and selecting "Open Event Report" in the popup menu.
It is often useful to examine the locations involved in a string of incidents to look for a pattern. In this case, we can select the "Map" menu item to produce a geographic view of the incidents:
Note that if the mouse cursor is positioned on the black dot in a marker, the date of the event at that location is displayed as shown above. From this output, it is immediately evident the the suspect is traveling south (based on the dates) on Interstate 95 and that he is likely to be seen again south of Jacksonville within a few days.
A satellite image can be selected from the map display:
