Exploring the Science of Violence: A Conversation with GTD Scientific

Episode Summary

In this podcast episode, Eric invites Geoffrey Desmoulin from GTD Scientific to discuss video analysis and its applications in various fields. He shares his educational background in kinesiology and engineering, which provides him with a unique perspective on analyzing injuries. He explains how his company combines engineering and life sciences to analyze the force that caused an injury and its magnitude.

Desmoulin emphasizes the importance of starting with the injury and using it to drive the analysis and testing process. The company also employs a feedback loop to ensure consistency with independent sources of information, such as case materials and scientific literature. 

Desmoulin also shares his experiences in communicating technical concepts in court, especially when dealing with violence. He emphasizes the importance of using visual aids and limiting the number of concepts to three to explain arguments effectively.

The podcast concludes with Desmoulin highlighting how they used machine vision to analyze a video of a police shooting incident, highlighting the importance of shape recognition and algorithms for object identification. Listeners are encouraged to visit GTD Scientific's website to learn more about video analysis and the company's operations. Overall, the episode provides valuable insights into the intersection of engineering, life sciences, and video analysis in investigating incidents of violence.

Resources

• Learn more about GTD Scientific
• Science of Violence Training Series
• Follow DLG on LinkedIn
• Learn more about the DLG Learning Center
• Training Built for Supervisors & Command

About the Guest: Geoffrey Thor Desmoulin Ph.D., R.Kin., P.L.Eng., Principal

Dr. Desmoulin is the Principal of GTD Scientific Inc.  GTD offers Biomechanical Consulting Services on behalf of clients throughout North America, as well as abroad.  Focused practice areas include Injury Biomechanics, Incident Reconstruction, and Physical Testing with a sub-specialty in the Science of Violence®. GTD has been retained in significant complex injury litigation cases involving municipal police department use of force, violent encounters, and TASER International to name just a few examples.  Furthermore, landmark testing and shooting reconstruction methodology developed by Dr. Desmoulin was recently upheld as reliable and admissible by the U.S. Federal District Court for the 9th District of California.  This methodology has now been published in the International Journal of Forensic Engineering entitled “Application of biomechanical modeling to police shooting reconstruction”.