Curiosity Project #3 — The Crime Scene

This is a picture of a crime scene that happened about 30 years ago in Central Park, New York City. “One spring day in 1989, the world awoke to news of a crime so soul-witheringly awful that it shocked even those who knew the New York City of that often ghastly era.” The crime was a cruel and heartless act. In fact, the perpetrator wasn’t discovered until years after when the police forcefully accused five teenage boys and the victim didn’t die but she had major health problems after that incident took place.

“In the middle of the night, Ms. Meili, 28, had been found near death in a wooded ravine off a road used by joggers in Central Park. She had been raped and her skull had been fractured in two places. Most of her blood had seeped into the mud from lacerations in her head.” This would be described as an outdoor crime scene, as described in my previous post, the crime took place at night and in an open outside area. They found evidence from the scene but not a lot. Because of the open area the scene could have been contaminated and evidence could get lost.

In my next post I will continue on this investigation and give more details as to what happened next and I recommend watching the Netflix series “When They See Us” so you could get an insight of where I’m coming from. Now let’s educate yourself on who examines a crime scene since I already explained the steps in examining a scene.

Who Examines Crime Scenes

The number and type of professional(s) responsible for investigating a scene and collecting evidence largely depends on the type of crime and the resources of the law enforcement agency. Larger agencies often have dedicated, highly trained crime scene specialists, while smaller agencies may require that first responders or detectives process the scene in addition to their other duties.

In many instances, a case will be investigated by a detective who is responsible for interviewing persons of interest and victims, pursuing leads and piecing together the information that is developed from the materials collected at the scene. The detective works in tandem with a team of crime scene personnel who search the scene and collect the evidence. The crime scene investigation team may consist of crime scene photographers and evidence collection personnel specializing in gathering specific evidence such as latent prints, DNA, trace evidence and the like.

In the United States, there are no national requirements that must be met to serve as a crime scene investigator; however, investigators can achieve four levels of certification through the International Association for Identification (IAI) that demonstrate their proficiency:

• Certified Crime Scene Investigator
• Certified Crime Scene Analyst
• Certified Crime Scene Reconstructionist
• Certified Senior Crime Scene Analyst

Other certifications commonly achieved include the Evidence Photographer Certification from the Evidence Photographers International Council, Inc. and Board Certified Medicolegal Death Investigator of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators (ABMDI).

References

J. Sotomayor. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/arts/television/when-they-see-us-real-story.html.

J. Dwyer(May, 2019). The True Story of How a City in Fear Brutalized the Central Park Five. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/arts/television/when-they-see-us-real-story.html.

Photo retrieved from https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/man-fatally-shot-in-tallaght-suspected-of-two-other-shootings-1.1468967.

Who Examines Crime Scenes. Retrieved from http://www.forensicsciencesimplified.org/csi/how.html.