LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a world of computer programs, cell phones and digital cameras, police work can still get its biggest boost from the time-tested techniques of sketch artists.
In Lake County, there is one certified composite artist working in law enforcement – Sgt. Joe Eastham of the Lakeport Police Department.
Eastham has been with the Lakeport Police Department for six years. Last month, he was promoted to sergeant.
He said he’s been drawing since childhood. In college, he took some drawing classes, and since then said he has continued to draw avidly.
Eastham also pursues other creative arts, such as wood carving. Among his creations is a large wooden Lakeport Police badge in the department’s lobby.
He said a sheriff’s deputy encouraged him to put his artistry to work for law enforcement. Eastham said he took that advice, found a class and put in a request with Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen to take the course.
“He was all for it,” Eastham said of Rasmussen.
Rasmussen immediately saw the value in having one of his department’s members trained in those skills.
“It’s not a real common thing, especially for small agencies,” said Rasmussen, who heads a department with 14 sworn officers.
Eastham began producing sketches fairly quickly after taking his initial coursework, doing a few in 2012.
Since then, he estimated that he’s completed two to three sketches a year on local cases in an effort to identify individuals sought for serious crimes, from stabbings to attempted kidnappings. One of his sketches led to the apprehension of a robbery suspect.
Despite the prevalence of cell phones and cameras, composite drawing remains a robust and important area of study. Eastham said digital technology still has not reached the point where it can supplant pencil on paper.
Eastham said his first composite sketch drawing class in 2012 taught him a lot about how to draw faces realistically. He said the most impressive part of the training was the interviewing process necessary to drawing a person from someone else’s memory.
In that interview process, he focuses on having the witness describe facial features and also use photographs from “Steinberg’s Facial Identification Catalog” – a spiral-bound book of different faces with prominent features used as samples – to pick out similar eyes, noses, mouths, chins and hair.
The drawings he produces are called “composite” sketches because they put together the different parts of the face separately, he said.
When he’s interviewing witnesses, the eyes and mouth are among the most prominent features in a person’s memory, Eastham said.
He said he’s not necessarily looking for a photograph-like image when he’s done with a sketch, but almost more like a caricature that would remind people of someone by emphasizing prominent features.
As an example, he said an armed robbery suspect was taken into custody not because of an exact match in the sketch, but because a person who knew the man recognized a feature in the drawing and tipped off police, leading to an investigation that resulted in an arrest.
Eastham believes the old-fashioned, tried-and-true method of pencil on paper still provides the best results – even over computer drawing. “The human interaction with the graphite and the paper is superior because of the imperfection.”
Over the years, many agencies have used flip books to help witnesses describe suspects in crimes, a practice that Eastham said has worked but is not as successful as using composite sketches.
It takes Eastham one to two hours to complete a sketch, depending on how many changes the witness wants to make.
He’s remarkably fast at his work, and was able to produce a sample composite sketch, including the interview and some initial changes, in just 19 minutes.
The interviewing process helps identify if a story has been made up, and a few times he said he’s been able to discern that a story was fabricated.
Eastham said they’ve had a lot of positive reactions when the sketches are released. He said it’s an aspect that people have come to expect from good police work.
“People tend to be impressed with the artwork as well, which is nice,” he said.
Eastham added, “I like the fact that people can see that an effort is being made with some of the best training that’s out there in this field to solve these cases. That’s the best part of it for me.”
Since 2012, Eastham has completed four 40-hour courses in composite drawing and is now a certified composite artist.
He also has advanced training in drawing from surveillance video and drawing from profiles, as well as aging and methamphetamine-related progressions.
Eastham is working toward a certificate as a forensic artist. That will allow him to do two-dimensional and three-dimensional facial reconstructions, such as those used for cold cases. He said that work is very hands-on and uses clay modeling.
The classes require he attend in person, which he said has given him the chance to meet people from all over the United States, both those in law enforcement and those who otherwise do such work for a living.
“That’s been great fun,” he said, adding that he’s met a lot of awesome people.
Aside from his work on sketches for active cases, Eastham keeps up his drawing practice. He recently worked on a sketch of the profile of a man whose image was captured on a surveillance video and who is believed to be connected to a murder in another part of California.
He also has his wife go through magazines and pick out a face, then he interviews her and draws the face from her description.
In addition to doing the sketches for Lakeport Police, Eastham has created them for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Ukiah Police Department.
The Lakeport Police Department is making Eastham’s abilities available to other law enforcement agencies around the region.
“There are not very many trained composite artists on the North Coast,” Eastham said.
Rasmussen invites agencies to contact him at the Lakeport Police Department if Eastham’s skills can help them on cases.
“We’ve available and willing to assist other law enforcement agencies with this resource when they need it,” Rasmussen said.
The Lakeport Police Department can be reached at 707-263-5491, or via its Web site at http://www.lakeportpolice.org/ or Facebook page.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Lakeport Police sergeant uses art skills to solve cases
- Elizabeth Larson
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