Forensics demand increasing workload
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Forensics demand increasing workload
Athens-Clarke police's crime scene unit growing with cases, staff
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Det. Rebecca Taft of the Crime Scene Unit dusts a bottle of alcohol for fingerprints recently while investigating at a residence on
Caleb Raynor/Staff
Taft investigates inside the home, which was burglarized. The unit takes in 30,000 pieces of evidence a year.
Caleb Raynor/Staff
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Det. Rebecca Taft scoured a vacant house in West Athens that was broken into last week, dusting for fingerprints and searching for other evidence that could lead to an arrest.
There was a time when the decrepit, roach-infested dwelling-turned-crack house on
But more and more often, the Athens-Clarke Police Department sends specially trained technicians like Taft into the field to look for clues to solve crimes - some petty, others major.
"Over the past couple of years, we're taking in more evidence because we respond to most of the crime scenes," said Capt. Clarence Holeman of the Criminal Investigations Division. "The reason we do that is because the collection of evidence pretty much makes or breaks your cases."
Uniformed police officers still dust for fingerprints and collect evidence, but that job has increasingly fallen to the department's Crime Scene Unit.
Now taking in some 30,000 pieces of evidence a year, the CSU this year increased its staff from five to seven. It's added an additional crime-scene technician and created a second evidence-custodian position to handle the storage, retrieval and disposal of items from an overflowing evidence room.
This year the unit's older vans were replaced by two new models its members helped design, and crime-scene technicians each were issued laptop computers and high-resolution digital cameras so they can photograph fingerprints, transmit those images to headquarters and immediately search for matches.
"Our officers are doing a much better job at crime scene collection and are getting the tools they need," said Sgt. Dave Leedahl, CSU supervisor.
Smaller crimes being processed
The CSU used to roll mainly to major crime scenes, especially violent ones, as well as some burglaries. But more burglary scenes are being processed by the unit, as are other property crimes, like vehicle break-ins.
"Some of it's because of a policy change, but mostly it's just being more aggressive in investigating crimes," Leedahl said.
The more forensic evidence prosecutors can produce in court, the more they'll meet jurors' expectations born of television shows like the popular "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," Assistant Police Chief Alan Brown said.
"We're not catering to TV shows, but we do understand that the public demands physical evidence when they sit on the jury, and physical evidence generally is more difficult to dispute than eyewitness or circumstantial evidence," Brown said. "Science doesn't lie."
The equipment that allows police to get the "science" into court is stored in the CSU's vans, which are stocked with virtually everything needed to process a crime scene. They have fingerprint kits, generators and high-powered lighting for nighttime scenes, cameras, alternative light sources - such as ultraviolet lamps to detect blood, semen and other bodily fluids, and chemicals like Luminol, which glows greenish-blue when it comes into contact with blood.
To operate the high-tech gadgets and properly process a crime scene, CSU technicians must receive 300 hours of advanced training in subjects from evidence collection and analysis to providing court testimony, and after that must intern with a certified technician for an additional 40 hours.
TV shows changing expectations
Leedahl agreed that collecting and analyzing more evidence makes for better court cases because of the popularity of "CSI" and other shows.
Though those programs don't always accurately portray what crime scene technicians do, or can do, he said, the shows make jurors question the evidence more.
"They remember what they've seen on television shows and wonder why we did this or didn't do this," the CSU supervisor said.
After a defendant was acquitted of burglary charges last year, Leedahl said, the prosecutor conducted an "exit poll" of jurors to find out how they came to their decision.
"We had a fingerprint and identified it to the suspect, but the jury acquitted him because we didn't do DNA testing," Leedahl said, explaining that the burglar had left blood when he cut himself breaking through a window. "When that happened, I was really upset because for 100 years, fingerprints was the most reliable method of identification until DNA came along."
Police get pat on back for efforts
Their commitment to maintaining a highly trained and well-equipped crime scene unit earned Athens-Clarke police high marks from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The police department "is both a progressive and professional law enforcement organization and the citizens should be proud of the men and women who serve in this fine organization," said Fred Stephens, special agent in charge of the GBI's
Where many local law enforcement agencies call on the GBI for its expertise in certain investigative matters, the GBI has frequently looked to Athens-Clarke police for assistance, and both agencies have worked well together, Stephens said.
"Whenever the need arises, (the Athens-Clarke) CSU has never refused to help," he said. "In a vocation where turf battles can stall investigative momentum, affecting the outcome of an investigation, it is strong relationships like ours and mutual respect that will help solve complex cases," he said.
Athens-Clarke police still rely on the GBI Crime Lab for scientific analysis of such evidence as DNA and bullets, so that ballistics experts can match up slugs to the guns that fired them.
But among the things local CSU members do on their own is blood-splatter analysis, determining bullet trajectories, making plaster casts of footprints and tire tracks, and microscopic analysis and further chemical testing to identify marijuana after field tests return positive results.
"We try to keep our folks trained up to par with the GBI," Brown said.
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