Crime Scene Investigation: Secure the Scene, Secure the Item
If the FO hasn’t done so, take control of the scene immediately. Determine the extent to which the scene has, or has not, been protected. Talk to personnel who have knowledge of the original condition. Keep out unauthorized personnel. Record who enters and leaves, even if they are an agency’s superiors. Dick Worthington, a noted forensic instructor, suggests renaming the sign in/sign out form for a crime scene to “subpoena contact form,” to signal that entering a crime scene may make an individual eligible to testify about his or her presence. Now and throughout the processing of the scene, it is impossible to take too many notes. Regarding note taking, it is important to remember the central nature of crime scene notes. These are the documentation of who did what and when, contemporaneous with those activities. The adage from quality assurance, “if it is not written down, it didn’t happen,” is a good guide on what to record. This means that if a supervisor tells a CSI to “process the front bedroom,” the supervisor makes a note of that and the time in his or her notes—as does the employee in his or her own notes. Later, the two sets of notes should correspond, and if a question arises (say, in court), then the activities can be corroborated. Taking contemporaneous notes is crucial to a successful crime scene investigation. Securing the scene is so critically important that we cannot overstate this point. Even the perception of an unsecured scene can show up in court, as it did in the Simpson–Goldman murder trial, where video was used to critique the testimony of a crime scene analyst. Video cameras from television crews, police cruisers, surveil lance systems, not to mention photojournalists, police photographers, and the general public (with their cellphone cameras) can collect images that may portray reality or be used to distort it. What is important is that the photographs, the notes, the docu mentation demonstrate the quality of the work at the scene and that each item was properly collected and secured.
