what are some ways to document a crime scene?

Written Documentation at a Crime Scene

Mike Byrd
Miami-Dade Law Department
Crime Scene Investigations

In an Organized step by step approach Scene Documentation is 1 of the stages in the proper processing of a law-breaking scene. The final results of a properly documented offense scene is the ability of others to accept our finished product to apply in either reconstructing the scene or the concatenation of events in an incident and our court room presentation. In documenting the scene there are actually three functions or methods used to properly document the crime scene. Those methods consist of written notes which will ultimately be used in constructing a final report, law-breaking scene photographs, and a diagram or sketch. Consistency between each of these functions is paramount.

Each method is important in the process of properly documenting the criminal offense scene. The notes and reports should be washed in a chronological order and should include no opinions, no analysis, or no conclusions. Just the facts!!!! The crime scene investigator or show recovery technician should certificate what he/she sees, non what he/she thinks. The final report should tell a descriptive story. A full general description of the crime scene should be given only equally the investigator sees information technology when he/she does the initial walk through of the scene.

Each department or agency has a method which they use for written documentation of the law-breaking scene. At that place investigator/technician should follow his/her departments assigned procedures for written documentation. The importance of sharing information tin can never be over-looked. This article is intended to share ideas in the surface area of uniform documentation as an example of the format that is used by my department. Nosotros use a narrative section of the report divided it into five categories. The categories are summary, scene (including a detailed body description if in a death investigation), processing, evidence collected, and pending.

The summary would basically give the details of how we were initiated into the investigation. For an example: " At the asking of Robbery Detective J. Doe, this writer was requested to respond to assist in processing the scene of an armed robbery involving 4 unknown masked subjects. Det. J. Doe's preliminary investigation revealed that the subjects startled the victim equally she returned home from shopping". For farther details of this investigation refer to Det. J. Doe'south report.. Our summary is brief and does not include a lot of he said, she said information.

In the scene section of the narrative nosotros give a detailed description of the scene as it is seen upon our approach. The scene clarification usually includes anything that is unusual and out of place. Any weather condition or surroundings conditions are also included. Once more this is a clarification of what we run into not what we think. The Evidence observed, its location, status, or anything remarkable about the particular will be included in our scene clarification department. This would too correspond to whatsoever identification markers used to number or label the items of evidence. These remarks would all be consistent with whatsoever numbers, letters, or labels indicated in the photographs, or drawn into a sketch of the scene.

The processing section is for our units to describe what we did, if assistance was needed during the processing stages, who we had assisting, and what functions they did.

The evidence collection section is to organize what evidence we and others profitable were able to recover from the crime scene, where the items were recovered from, and what part of the lab the items were directed to for assay.

The pending section would be for any known tasks that would need to be completed at a later date in the investigation.

Recently I was asked to give an stance on the crime scene portion of a cold case investigation which had occurred more 20 years before. I agreed to take a look at everything to give my interpretation of the crime scene from the work production. So the reports and pictures were ordered from the original files.

When the items came in the postal service the report consisted of a one page, 1 paragraph narrative. The scene photographs consisted of several overall prospective of a wooded surface area. I could be of no assistance to my fellow college. Only the experience best illustrates how of import information technology is to properly use the tools at hand. We are brought in to aid in the starting time stages of an investigation when very limited information is known. We should realize that our piece of work product may need to be viewed extensively by someone years from now for estimation. The written documentation, photographs, and simple sketch need to tell the scene story. Hopefully by sharing this unproblematic organized method it will be of some help to you.

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Nearly the Author

Mike Byrd (1955-2005) joined the Miami-Dade County Police force Department in 1983 and started with the Crime Scene Investigations Agency in 1987. He took an exceptionally active office in the science of forensic offense scene investigations, including development of new techniques, publishing methodology of crime scene procedures, and teaching. Mike adult new techniques for gathering and cataloging crime scene evidence including the lifting of fingerprints, vehicle tire impressions, and footwear impressions.

Mike'southward methods and assay withstood the scrutiny of the criminal justice procedure. He published more than thirty crime scene articles on crime scene bear witness collection and for the International Association for Identification and was awarded The Practiced of the Association Honour in 2002 for his innovative identification methodology and techniques. He taught offense scene investigation procedures and techniques at police departments around the country and took great pride at instructing smaller Florida law departments in the latest techniques in show gathering.

Mike performed the tough detailed oriented forensic work at many major crime scenes and disasters over two-decades. He gathered, processed, and identified the DNA evidence used to convict the Tamiami Strangler for a cord of heinous murders in 1994. His thoughtful gathering of evidence at the Valujet crash allowed families to reach closure for the deaths of loved ones.

Mike Byrd died after a more than than two year battle with multiple myeloma cancer. Annually, the Police Officer Assistance Trust awards the Mike Byrd Crime Scene Investigation Scholarship in his award.

Articles past Mike Byrd

• Applied Basic Concepts...WHAT It TAKES
• Crash
• Developing and Lifting Latent Footwear Impressions
• Disaster Management
• DNA, The Next Generation Technology is Here!
• Duty Description for the Crime Scene Investigator
• Fragile (Sensitive) Fingerprint Recovery from Mylar Surface
• Hazards and a Law-breaking Scene
• If It's There, We'll Detect Information technology!
• Innovative Bear witness Identification Markers at a Crime Scene
• Other Impression Show
• Packaging Firearms
• Proper Tagging and Labeling of Evidence for Later Identification
• Reaching Beyond the Norm
• Ridge Detail at a Criminal offense Scene
• Simple EZ Sketching
• Simple Tire Standards Collection
• The Corpse every bit a Scene
• Written Documentation at a Law-breaking Scene

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Source: https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/document.html

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