Investigators say mixed UTC/CST timestamps and missing GPS complicated reconstruction of officers' routes

Lieutenant Tom Kennedy, the Conway Police investigator who compiled the internal file, told the review hearing that GPS data and timestamp displays complicated reconstructing officers' routes for the April 13 mass shooting response. Kennedy said he received GPS data on a thumb drive and opened it with Google Earth Pro; some exports displayed times in Central Standard Time and others in UTC. "I made no changes to this information received," he testified. "I got it on a thumb drive, I put it in my computer, and I opened the document." He said he could not explain why some outputs showed UTC and others Central time and that he did not convert or manually change timestamps. The investigator narrowed the list of people who could pull and convert data to two department EOC staffers, identifying "Sean Kennedy, the director of EOC, or deputy director Bridal Edwards" as the personnel who could have run the queries. He told the panel he met with those staff and was given additional data. Kennedy also testified some units' GPS data were not available from dispatch. He specifically said GPS tracks were absent for at least one responding unit — Officer Riddle — and that dispatch sometimes simply does not have location data for a particular car because of equipment or modem issues. Kennedy said he requested GPS for all active units for the night and later received a set of datasets covering a selected time window (1936–1956), which he imported into Google Earth Pro. Why it matters: time stamps and zone conversions affect the sequence and timing of events investigators use to assess response times and whether officers used lights and sirens. Counsel for the respondent repeatedly questioned Kennedy about whether files had been manipulated; he consistently denied making changes and said he was unaware of anyone else manipulating the data. The transcript records objection and foundation disputes from opposing counsel over photo exhibits and the origin of dash‑cam stills; at least one objection asked for the foundation of a photograph showing a dash‑cam message that the "trigger that started the current recording is no longer active." Kennedy said he could not identify which unit produced that photograph and that additional foundation might be needed from a different witness. Kennedy acknowledged that some Google Earth exports allow the time zone to be selected at the time of export and that phone‑company records likewise can be exported in different time zones. He said, however, that despite the display differences, the data showed the same event windows and that if times were mismatched, camera and corroborating dash/body cam footage would not have shown the same officers in the same places at those times.