“When you arrested Cysco in the past,” I say to Gina, “you were wearing a bodycam?”
She nods. “Every time. It’s departmental policy.”
“Did you draw your sidearm when you made the arrest?” This from Tomasetti.
Sighing, she gives him a withering look. “Once. But I’d dealt with Eddie before.” Another sigh, this time imbued with the sound of regret. “I needed to make an impression on him, so I stepped up the force continuum.”
Tomasetti groans. “Of course you did,” he mutters.
“I needed his cooperation, and I wanted him to know I was in charge. Cysco might’ve been small-time, but he was smart. I knew making a good arrest was my ticket, so I came down hard. There was no wrongdoing on my part.”
“Is the audio correct as you remember it?” I ask.
“Not even close,” she tells me. “That’s not my voice.”
“Sounds like you.” Scowling, Tomasetti pulls out his cell again, scrolls through the menu to the footage. “I want you to take us through every step.”
“I can take you through the footage in which I was there,” she says.
To entertain the notion of a coordinated effort within the police department of a major metropolitan city to modify bodycam footage in order to frame an officer for murder chills me to the bone.
Holding the cell so that both Gina and I can see the screen, Tomasetti hits the play button. No one speaks as the video unrolls. This time I pay attention to the details. The date and time match the report of Cysco’s death. The numbers indicate the division and the officer involved. I look for skips or jumps, anything that doesn’t appear intrinsic to the original video.
“That part of the video is from another arrest,” Gina murmurs. “Date and time have been altered.” She points. “I made contact there. He’s cooperating. Nothing in his hands.”
“Do you have the report that corresponds with the original footage?” I ask.
“All the corresponding reports are on file. Or should be. Under normal circumstances I’d have access. Now…” She shrugs.
The video ends. It’s 2:18 minutes in length. Tomasetti hits the play button, backs it up, plays it again.
“Quality is bad,” he grumbles. “Dark.”
“Especially early on,” I say. “Audio is scratchy.”
Gina makes a sound of irritation. “A year ago, when that original footage was recorded, the technology wasn’t as good as it is now. It’s grainy and dark. Whoever altered it tried to match it, but it’s not the same.”
At 1:17 Gina raises her hand and points. “There,” she says. “That’s when the original footage ends. Even the voice is different. It’s not mine.”
Tomasetti stops the video, rolls it back, and hits play again.
I watch, but I don’t see anything unusual or suspicious. No skips or bumps. No unnatural movement. The audio is too scratchy for me to tell if the voice is hers or someone else’s.
“I can’t tell,” I say.
“In the original video, my arm is visible from the elbow to hand.” She points. “At 1:17, the footage becomes clearer. The voice changes.”
“Audio shifts slightly,” Tomasetti says. “It’s subtle.”
But like most bodycam footage, both the audio and visual are poor quality, with a lot of movement, rustling, and background noise that got picked up by the mike.
When the video finishes, Gina straightens, her gaze flicking from me to Tomasetti. “Someone took footage from one of my arrests of Cysco and somehow spliced it with my arrest of Lee Kilpatrick. The rest is … added footage that has nothing to do with me.”
“Have you ever been involved in a shooting while on duty?” Tomasetti asks.
Gina shakes her head. “I’ve had to draw my weapon two or three times in all the years I’ve been a cop, but I’ve never fired a shot. Not once.”
“You upload your bodycam footage after every shift?” I ask.
“Of course I do. It’s policy. It’s routine. Easy to do. Never had a reason not to comply.” As she speaks, despondence and hopelessness leach into her expression. “That footage is damning. I don’t see how I can overcome it.” She says the words in a monotone, as if suddenly realizing it’s the last nail in a coffin that is now sealed. “Bodycam footage is indisputable.”
I look at Tomasetti. “Can bodycam footage be authenticated?” I ask. “Forensically?”
“There’s an authentication process,” he tells me. “BCI is contracted with an image-forensics expert out of Bowling Green. We’ve used them a dozen times in the last four or five years. They’re good.” He frowns. “We’ve never encountered dashcam or bodycam footage that’s been altered.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” Gina mutters.
“Especially when it comes to you,” he says nastily.
“How do we go about getting it authenticated?” I ask.
“There are procedures in place,” he says. “Protections. In some cases, we’ve had to get court orders. In some jurisdictions, videos fall into the ‘personnel records’ classification, which means they’re private. Some of the unions have gotten involved.”
I can tell by the way Tomasetti’s looking at me that he’s concerned about the ongoing and open investigation. The one his superior refused to discuss and purportedly involves someone in the upper echelon of the Columbus Division of Police. Because of the sensitive nature of it, we didn’t tell Gina.
Tomasetti scrubs a hand over his jaw. “Most departments don’t keep the original recordings indefinitely.”
“If the original has been destroyed or altered, I’m screwed.” Gina jabs a finger in the general direction of the cell phone in Tomasetti’s pocket. “If I get charged and that video gets to a courtroom, I’m going down for murder.” She tosses a defiant look in my direction. “Looks like they found a way to get me out of the picture.”
“The media is running with it,” Tomasetti tells her. “It’s getting a lot of attention. The department is under scrutiny.”
“I did not shoot Eddie Cysco,” she snaps. “There’s got to be a way to prove it.”
“I’ll see if I can get that authenticated,” Tomasetti tells her. “It’s going to be tough. That footage is at the center of a media shitstorm and it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”
Gina sinks into a chair at the table, looking defeated. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Tomasetti frowns at her. “I suggest you lay low and, if it’s not too much trouble, refrain from doing anything stupid.”
“I think I’ve used up my quota of stupid,” she mutters.
A moment of silence ensues. Tomasetti makes eye contact with me and then starts toward the door. Knowing there’s more, something he didn’t want to discuss in front of Gina, I follow. He’s quiet, which likely means he’s as uneasy about this as I am.
We reach the front door. He turns to me, sets his hands on my shoulders, and squeezes. When his eyes land on mine, they’re troubled. I feel that same disquiet pulsing in my gut.