Well, last night was my final police academy class, and our final exam, so to speak - processing a crime scene.
The head of our Forensics Unit spoke for an hour to start the class off, with a slide show. He went over step by step, how a scene is secured and processed, accompanied by some pretty gruesome photos of dead bodies. He said that you have to not think of them as people any longer, but 175 lbs. of evidence. It's harsh, but you have to distance yourself from becoming emotional, or you'll never make it in this job.
His presentation was fascinating, from how to take photos and video, how to sketch out the crime scene, fingerprinting techniques, casting shoe impressions and finding out the trajectory of a bullet.
And then came our test.
The class was divided into two groups of 20. I was in Group One. We were to talk amongst ourselves and pick out who would take the photos, take the video, do fingerprints, sketch out the crime scene, and take various measurements. We would have 30 minutes to process the scene and then write up a report and give a presentation. The report needed to include all of the evidence collected, any tests we wanted the lab to run and finally, our theory on what actually happened in the room. Each of the groups would have the same crime scene set up and the test was to see which group was correct on what happened.
Because several folks knew that I'm an artist, I was quickly picked to sketch out the crime scene. Which was totally okay with me, because I was determined to volunteer for a task anyway.
We were taken outside to one of the garages, where the crime scene was set up. Here's what we found:
• Dead body on the floor, face down, blood pool underneath him, a .45 caliber gun next to the body
• Next to the body was an overturned chair, with a large knife taped underneath it
• There was a table with a water bottle, a bong, cocaine in lines, two drug scales, a cocaine press and a bloody, smeared handprint
• On the floor were 10 shell casings - one from a .45, five from a 9mm and four from a .40 caliber
• Also on the floor were drag marks of what also appeared to be cocaine
• On the door at the side of the room was another bloody handprint that wrapped around both sides of the door and some blood spatter on the doorjamb
Everyone immediately got to work, and my pencil started sketching. We couldn't believe how fast 30 minutes went by! But my sketch was detailed and everyone on my team thought it was great.
We then had 15 minutes to get our report in order. We surmised that it was a drug deal gone bad. Based on the ballistic and fingerprint evidence, there were three people - the victim and two others. The victim was the supplier. The two suspects tested the cocaine, found it to be of good quality and decided to kill the supplier instead of paying him. The victim was surprised, but managed to get off one shot, based on the single .45 cartridge and the blood on the door. He injured at least one of the suspects before being killed. The drag marks on the floor were the suspects removing the bricks of cocaine. And because no money was found, the suspects also robbed the victim.
In the end, our group came out slightly ahead because the other team missed a piece of evidence and didn't have as many tests run as we did. GROUP ONE FOR THE WIN! :-)
It was an excellent evening and an excellent end to my classes. I learned SO MUCH. And I can't believe it's over!
Next week - GRADUATION!
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