Crowdsourcing cold case files

It might not be America’s Most Wanted but the police force in Toronto Ontario Canada have been in the forefront of reaching out and using all the web tools available to it. A few years ago when trying to solve a murder of a 22 year old in a club shooting they posted a video to YouTube in the hopes that it would help identify the killers. Fast forward to today and we have things like the Toronto Crime Stoppers YouTube channel and Facebook Page.

Not satisfied with just those couple of options the Toronto Police department has setup a homicide website that will give people the opportunity to help with both current and old cold cases. While the site might not be the epitome of what we think social services site to look like it is definitely a beginning of an interesting way to get people involved.

From the main page of the new site you can select to look through a list of current unsolved cases, unsolved cold cases and a list of the Most Wanted in Canada. In all the available unsolved listings you will find at least a link to a Google Map of where the murder took place. In some cases they will also provide addition links to other information including any YouTube posting they have made relating to the case.

The Toronto Police have apparently been experiencing some pretty good solve rates using these additional sources of getting information – good enough to impress a recent Interpol conference.

Chalk one up for us Canucks.