Canastota Evaluation Report

[Sunset Sea Islands]

On Wednesday, January 10th, 2018, three young men were brutally murdered in an abandoned salmon processing plant in the docks of Canastota, the only city in @Prymont where the Synapse Crime Prevention System is installed. The perpetrators, thirteen armed individuals associating with the Isbrytere, a criminal organisation which has been on government watchlists for decades, ambushed the victims outside a Canastotan local, kidnapped to the previously mentioned derelict building and then tortured to death in an abhorrent way.

The fact that this crime happened in a city under the Synapse System's surveillance is not only a tragical event that cost the lives of three young, promising individuals, but it also is a great embarrassment for both the Synapse System Administration and the Sunset Sea Islandian Government. The Prymontian authorities had the right to call the Synapse System a "severe, total disappointment" (sic!) and now it is our duty to solve this crime and to prevent shameful incidents like this from ever happening again.

Immediately after this information reached the Sunset Sea Islandian authorities a team of highly trained system administrators, investigators, analysts and programmers have been sent to Canastota to evaluate this incident and start investigating.

---

After several days of intense work, the team of specialists came up with the following questions that have been raised by this incident and searched for answers to these problems.

1. Who are the victims of the crime?
2. Who are the perpetrators?
3. How did the perpetrators gain access to lethal weaponry?
4. What was the motivation of the perpetrators to commit this crime?
5. Why did the Synapse System fail to prevent this crime?
6. How can similar incidents be prevented in the future?
7. After carefully evaluating the available date this paper presents the current state of the investigation.

1. Who are the victims of the crime?

Identifying the victims posed a problem as the three young men were not carrying their passports at the time of the discovery of the corpses. However, after analysing surveillance camera feeds from the local the group was dining in before being ambushed, they were carrying their IDs at that point in time, as they were purchasing alcoholic beverages at the bar and the bartender was legally required to confirm their age before selling them alcohol. After talking to the owner of the mentioned bar we were able to trace back the identities of two of the three victims by requesting the personal information from the digital monetary transactions within the bar, the alcohol was paid for with EC cards. The identity of the last man was confirmed after scanning all street surveillance camera feeds of Wednesday night. By reverse-engineering the path he took to the bar his place of residence was found and his identity confirmed. Their names were:

Christopher Hardman, 17 years old
Robert Magneanberg, 18 years old
Kilian Greatcross, 19 years old

Their families, schools and employers were informed about the fate of their children, students, friends and employees.

2. Who are the perpetrators?

One of the top priorities of the team of specialists dispatched to Prymont was the identification and acquisition of the perpetrators of the crime. The analysts began analysing surveillance feeds from the general area of the derelict salmon processing plant and the docs. The faces of everyone leaving the target area were compared to the citizen database and checked for criminal records or connections to organised crime. Matches were also made when friends of the recorded individuals fell into the mentioned categories. A total of 24 people were identified as potential perpetrators, seven more than there were actual murders. A rapid response unit consisting of Prymontian and Sunset Sea Islandian police forces was quickly dispatched to arrest the individuals. So far 20 men were arrested. Sixteen of them are currently being held in prison cells of the Prymontian Police Force and the remaining four were released because they could quickly be proven innocent. The rapid response unit is still searching for four men, as at least one of them has direct connections to the crime.

The identities of the arrested individuals are being confirmed using similar methods to the way the victims were identified.

During the attempts to arrest several of the potential perpetrators shots were fired at the members of the police unit without care of nationality. Two Prymontian and one Sunset Sea Islandian officers were hit by grazing shots, there have been no fatal injuries so far.

3. How did the perpetrators get access to lethal weaponry?

So far this question could only be answered partially and only for those men who have been arrested. Based on the ID numbers of the guns, most of the weapons were illegally imported from @The Hellenic Rus and several of them were stolen from Prymontian huntsman supply stores. We have confirmed that those within the latter category have been reported missing, so the official owners of the weapons could be cleared from any alleged connection to the crime. Both categories are being investigated further to understand how the perpetrators could slip the guns through the authorities and import controls.

4. What was the motivation of the perpetrators to commit this crime?

What motivates a gang of thirteen criminals to ambush and kidnap three young men for no objective reason and to end their lives in such a gruesome fashion? This question has been a tough problem for the officials and the authorities, nevertheless, first clues and hints have been found to solve this enigma.

Making quick money as a motive was ruled out as a possibility shortly after the investigation begun, as such crimes are most commonly performed as a hit-and-run, a single perpetrator or a small group attacking the victims and demanding money to spare their lives. In this case, however, the perpetrators actively pushed the victims into their vehicle and kidnapped them, something rather unusual for a robbery-type crime.

After hours of non-stop interrogation, one of the arrested Isbrytere members told the authorities that Greatcross, the oldest of the victims, was involved in dubious business. The gang member accuses the nineteen-year-old of stealing from the Isbrytere on multiple occasions by indebting himself through drug purchases. According to the gang member their leader, who is neither arrested nor identified, lost his patience with Greatcross and demanded revenge.

5. Why did the Synapse System fail to prevent this crime?

The failure of the Synapse System to prevent this horrible crime from happening has brought shame upon the good name of not only the Synapse System but also that of the Sunset Sea Islands. Finding the reasons for this mishap was a task which has been worked on with high pressure. The following three major aspects have been identified which have played a key role in the situation:

• problematic integration of native surveillance equipment into the Synapse System's grid
• lacking surveillance and crime prevention infrastructure in Canastota
• The "Slingshot-incident"

The first two mentioned potential causes have to do with either lacking or partially incompatible technology, a problem which can be quickly solved through investments in the field. As confirmed by Prymontian authorities, "where there were minimal former preventative measures, Synapse has been incredibly successful, effectively eradicating all crime." By replacing and upgrading the infrastructure in Canastota and adding additional surveillance cameras and comparable measures this problem can be quickly sorted out.

However, it seems like this would not have been necessary to prevent this crime and the deaths of three young Prymontians. We have identified one key event as crucial in this crime, internally dubbed the "Slingshot-incident."

On the evening of the crime, the Synapse System calculated an enormously high potential risk for a crime in an area with a radius of two kilometres containing both the local visited by the victims and the deserted factory in which their young lives found their early ends. Multiple police patrol cars have been dispatched to the area. After reviewing their routes one by one, the investigators noticed something peculiar.

Just five minutes before the young men left the restaurant a patrol car was told to drive down the same street by the Synapse System. However, the policemen in the vehicle ignored the order and turned around at the last traffic light, as if they intentionally skipped the scene of the kidnapping. The crew of the mentioned car was to be interrogated immediately, however, the two Prymontian policemen are nowhere to be found.

We strongly suspect their involvement in this crime. Both of them have been put onto the Synapse Systems most wanted list, however, the probability to find them through the Synapse System is low. Both men have probably left the city to hide from the Synapse System's surveillance grid.

Both the Sunset Sea Islandian and the Prymontian authorities are working hard on localising and arresting both men.

6. How can similar incidents be prevented in the future?

The first step of preventing similar incidents is to solve this crime. Not only will apprehending the murders and their supporters make the streets of Canastota safer, but the data gained from the investigation will directly improve the Synapse System's ability to analyse risks and prevent potential crimes better in the future.

The government of the Sunset Sea Islands recognises the bad state of the Canastotan infrastructure or the lack thereof as a factor of this crime and is willing to donate fifty million Sols to improve the Canastotan infrastructure. Additionally, Elegy Corporation has expressed its willingness to install ten thousand Synapse System Surveillance Cameras more throughout the city of Canastota free of charge, especially in the sparsely populated and derelict areas of the city, for example, the port. Furthermore, the government of the Sunset Sea Islands offers the families of the victims a collective sum of nine million Sols, three million per family, to compensate for their losses. They are also invited to the Synapse System headquarters in Sunset City to learn about the technology of the Synapse System.

---

The top priority to solve this crime is the apprehension of the last suspects and the missing policemen.

We hope that this report could prove that we are working hard on solving this crime and bringing peace to the cities of Canastota.

With the utmost respect,

 

Edited January 13, 2018 by Sunset Sea Islands (see edit history)