The Sitting Hun
I was a central part of the Visual Forensics team at The Washington Post’s report showing exactly what happened during the critical 41 minutes between when rioters first broke into the Capitol and lawmakers were evacuated on January 6th, 2021. You can see the full story here.
My contributions to the project included mapping the path rioters took inside the capitol, charting lawmaker evacuation routes, locating Ashli Babbitt at time of shooting, interviewing witnesses of the events, creating a database of all collected footage and geolocation data, visualizing the vantage points of collected clips, rendering digital model of Capitol building, animating maps for the documentary, and assisting in creating static graphics of the rioter paths. Because the mapping I was doing alongside my colleague on the investigative team was so central to the project, I ended up taking on a coordination role, helping get the right information and assets to reporters, editors, graphics people, and the video team.
This is possibly the most important project I’ve been involved with in my career, and was certainly the most personally challenging. I had to perform under extreme time pressure with a very high-stakes story. The project has gone on to be viewed by millions, and was even shown during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
To help nail down various breach points in the building, I worked with cartographers on our team to locate tons of footage captured outside the capitol building.
Then, my colleague on the investigative team and I sat down to map key paths of lawmakers and cameramen inside the mob. The result was a detailed map of the events that unfolded inside our nation's Capitol. Finally, my hand drawn notes were converted to publish-ready graphics, and this began with 3D renderings of the building itself.
Diagrams of the interior like the one below were also animated and put into the documentary accompanying the story, with mapped vantage points and footage shown together.
01.16.2021