Opinion
A crime scene investigation team in Vernon County
Saturday, December 13, 2014
In the law enforcement world, like anywhere, we see many changes in the methods used, the equipment available, and the people who serve.
When most people think of a detective, there is often a wide range of views on what they think that job entails. Some of those ideas depend on the type of contact people have had with a detective. For people who mainly see detectives on television, they think of someone who wears a suit and is always the first one on scene during a foot pursuit, during a shootout, or when a door is kicked in.
In reality, investigators are given reports taken from patrol officers and follow up on the case after it has been reported. Most of their job requires a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a lot of talking with various people. An investigator looks at all the facts in a case, including the patrol officer's report, statements from victims and witnesses, and the evidence that has been collected.
When all these facts come together, the investigator creates a theory based on those facts and takes the appropriate action. This may include referring a case to another agency or filing a probable cause statement with the prosecuting attorney.
In this part of the country investigating the physical evidence is also considered a part of the detective's job. This, however, is a completely different part of investigations and one that should be more job specific. Lack of resources and agency size is the main contributing factor to combining criminal investigations with crime scene investigations.
Like other areas of law enforcement, deputies must learn to multi task and perform more than one job. In a large agency there may be a full-time Tactical Response Team, a full-time evidence officer, a full-time D.W.I. enforcement officer, and the list goes on and on. With technology advancing in the crime scene investigations world, it is becoming clearer that there needs to be more training and more of a focus on investigating the actual crime scene separately from the general investigation. This has especially been obvious with the amount of death investigations we have responded to this year.
It is for this reason we have decided to form a Crime Scene Investigation Team that will consist of three certified crime scene investigators who will investigate the physical evidence as a separate part of the investigation. This team will be selected from some officers not assigned to regular investigations so the investigation may continue even while the crime scene is being processed. Here are a few reasons why this is needed and will improve the quality of investigations being done.
When a major crime takes place (such as a homicide) the first few hours are critical because this is when most of the facts in a case will be found. The more time that goes by, the more difficult it will become and the less evidence and facts will be obtained. Working the crime scene itself is a major undertaking. There, evidence must be identified, photos must be taken, fingerprints, DNA, blood splatter analyses, and a sketch including measurements of the evidence must be completed as well. This can take hours and in some cases even days to complete.
And if the detectives are the ones working the crime scene, then who is talking to the witnesses, suspects, or victims during this time? Who is checking people's alibies, writing the reports and putting all the facts into one big picture? If this is not being done simultaneously valuable time is being lost! With the start of the New Year, we will be sending more deputies through crime scene school and creating a team that will train on a regular basis just for these types of events.
Michael Korda, editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, has said, "One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals." We may have to multi-task and perform more than one job duty, but we will set our goals high. Just because we are a small agency does not mean we cannot be the best.