The Discrepancies Between the Camera Clocks

During the pretrial hearing of James Fields, case agent Detective Young said that the clock

* of the helicopter camera was approximately 12 minutes fast (page 27, lines 9-10)

* of the camera of the Red Pump Kitchen (RPK) was approximately 13 minutes fast (page 29, lines 4-6).

Young did not specify what was the "correct" clock to which these two cameras were compared, but I assume that it was the clock of the Charlottesville Police Department's dispatch clock. Anyway, Young considers some one clock to be correct, according to which other clocks are deemed to be fast or slow.

At one point in his testimony, Young indicated that Fields drove into the crowd at approximately 1:40.

At approximately 1:40, many witnesses and victims describe the Dodge Challenger drive at a very high rate of speed, south on Fourth Street, striking many people and striking the white [Camry] ragtop sedan.

In all these estimates, Young uses the word approximately.

* The car crashed into the crowd at approximately 1:40

* The helicopter camera was approximately 12 minutes fast.

* The RPK camera was approximately 13 minutes fast.

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In another couple of passages, Young indicated that the car crashed into the crowd before 1:40. Since he rounds these times to the minute, he means that the impact happened between 1:39:30 and 1:40:00.

When talking about the RPK camera, Young said

We confirmed through the personnel at Red Pump Kitchen that this footage is ... approximately thirteen minutes fast, but if you fix the time ... just before 1:40 it becomes relevant.

(Page 29, lines 4 - 8)

The above statement indicates to me that Young had calculated that Fields drove into the crowd just before 1:40.

In another passage, Young mentioned that the police dispatcher broadcast the first report of the incident at approximately 1:40.

Prosecutor
At some point throughout the day, did you hear radio traffic for an incident that had occurred here in the City of Charlottesville at approximately Fourth Street and Water Street?

Detective Young
Yes.

Prosecutor
What were you able to hear just for purposes with what you did next?

Detective Young
So, the time I heard radio traffic, I was actually on foot at Emancipation Park. I heard an officer claim that many people were reporting that a vehicle struck a large crowd of people and that the vehicle fled the scene. ...

Prosecutor
Do you recall the time that this radio traffic was being related to you?

Detective Young
Approximately 1:40 p.m.

I assume that Young verified that this police report was broadcast at approximately 1:40, and so the car must have crashed into the crowd just before 1:40.

By interviewing the police officer who reported the crash to the radio dispatcher, Young could have determined that that police officer reported the crash less than, say, 30 seconds after the crash occurred.

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Let's suppose for the sake of argument that, in precise times, Fields drove into the crowd at 1:39:30, that a police officer at the scene sent a radio report to the radio dispatcher at 1:39:45, and then the radio dispatcher broadcast the first report, which Young himself heard, at 1:40:00.

The only precise times that Young would know for sure would be the 1:39:45 and the 1:40:00 times, because those two precise times would have been recorded by the dispatch system in accordance with the dispatch clock.

The 13:39:30 time would be an estimate that the police officer at the scene later told Young that he sent a radio report to the dispatcher about 15 seconds after Fields drove into the crowd.

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The helicopter's video shows Fields driving into the crowd. If Young determined that moment to be 12:39:30, and if the helicopter camera's clock showed the moment to be 13:51:30, then Fields could estimate that the helicopter's camera was running approximately 12 minutes fast, compared to the dispatch clock.

The helicopter crashed. If the helicopter camera survived and its clock continued to run, then Young could have compared the helicopter camera's clock to the police dispatch clock and measured the time discrepancy.

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During the investigation, Young could have compared the RPK camera's clock to the police dispatch clock.

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However, Young was not able to synchronize all these events and clocks precisely, to the second. That is why Fields had to say rather imprecisely that

* Fields drove into the crowd just before 13:40

* Young heard the dispatcher broadcast at approximately 1:40

* Although Fields' car, after the crash, backed northwards into the RPK camera's view when its clock showed 13:54:06, this camera's clock ran approximately 13 minutes fast.

If I correct the RPK time by precisely 13:00:00 minutes, then the corrected time is 13:41:06. However, the actual precise time might be as much as 30 seconds earlier or later, because Young's 13-minute discrepancy is rounded to the whole number 13.

In other words, although the RPK camera showed the car backing northward into the camera's view at the camera's precise clock time of 13:54:06 (corrected precisely to 13:41:06), the actual precise time might have been 30 seconds either way -- anywhere between 13:40:36 and 13:41:36.

Roughly in time, Fields drove into the crowd just before 13:40 and then backed northward into the RPK camera's view at approximately 13:41.