The unit starts with mug shots. There are two walls at the St. Paul Police Department covered with the arrests for just the first day of the convention.
"We needed to see the pictures, get familiar with their pictures so we could find them in the video," said Sgt. Mike Carter with the St. Paul Police Department.
For anyone in the area, that day it was chaotic. Police were making arrests and writing reports that now need to be backed up so that they'll hold up in court.
"We want to be able to identify them individually. We want to hold them responsible for what they did. If there is evidence, we want to find it," said Carter.
So investigators from Ramsey County and St. Paul will spend the month pouring over thousands of hours of video. They're looking for seconds of action, mostly from St. Paul's camera system and YouTube.
"This individual stands out a lot. He has a definite different walk," said Sgt. Julie Maidment, who looks for the smallest details; like glasses, a name tag or a colored shirt.
It's a process made more difficult with many protesters changing clothes.
"This guy here is putting on a jumpsuit. Given the heat, it doesn't make much sense," said Carter.
In one video, its clear people are blocking a bus, but it's not always easy to find someone breaking the law.
"You can actually start to get a feel for what happened when you weren't there. So it becomes somewhat daunting and haunting all in the same breath," said Maidment.
So far, the St. Paul City Attorney has had to drop more than 40 percent of the cases we've looked at. The protesters says it's because they didn't do anything wrong.
"The truth is a lot of people were arrested unlawfully. There was repression of dissent in the streets of St. Paul," said Bill Drebenstedt of CRASS, the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure.
The city attorney says it doesn't mean police acted inappropriately, it's just that he's required to have a higher standard to prosecute.
That makes the unit even more important to the cases that are left to go to trial.
"It's my job to say if I'm going to accuse somebody of something, to prove it," said Carter.
The unit expects to finish its work by the end of December. They also hope to use the information to give a comprehensive look and answer any overall questions about law enforcement activities during the RNC.
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