Allie Robinson
Bristol Herald Courier
BRISTOL, Va. — Two Southwest Virginia law enforcement agencies are now equipped with the latest crime-scene investigation techniques, thanks to detectives who both recently completed training at the Virginia Forensic Science Academy.
Bristol, Va., Sgt. Steven Crawford and Washington County, Va., Sheriff’s Detective Scott Clear each graduated from the 82nd session of the academy earlier this month.
“This part of the state is rural and there are small [law enforcement] departments … they’d like to have more people on the same page,” Crawford said, explaining that the training he and Clear underwent taught them to think systematically.
If they are thrown into a situation where they must work with other agencies, those who have gone through the academy will know what to expect from one another, he said.
One other Bristol, Va., detective and two members of the Sheriff’s Office have attended the training before. Crawford and Clear were partnered during the nine-week training session.
The 12 officers involved in the training, which is offered twice a year in Richmond, learned to break down a crime scene and not overlook any evidence, Crawford said, adding that he has now seen fingerprints taken from ”just about everything.” He said they learned what the forensics labs in Richmond and Roanoke — where evidence from this part of the state is sent — can do, and how to get the right type of evidence that can be used in an investigation.
”Experience still rules [how you investigate] but you can look at some scenes — death, for example; every one is different – and now you’ll go and things will fall into place,” he said. ”They equip you to solve more crimes and hopefully not have open cases.”
Clear said the hope is that having better evidence, and a systematic way of collecting and documenting that evidence, will help prosecute more cases in court.
“You make yourself an expert in forensics to hold more weight in court,” he said. “There’s an extensive amount of work that goes into crime-scene investigation. … I don’t want a bad crime scene, but we want … to give the best possible outcome in court, because it could be a detective 10 or 15 years later who can make that murder case or make that rape case.”
But some evidence can’t be boxed up and sent to a lab, Clear said.
If that’s the case, the men said, investigators must be able to take good photos. Crawford said they were handed a camera on the first day and had it with them at all times.
And, he said, the officers were constantly on the go — they’d get a message that instructed them to show up at a certain address at a given time and they’d be thrown into a simulated investigation.
“At each thing they did there was something new I didn’t know,” he said. “What amazed me most is what you can get fingerprints from — things we may have dismissed in the past.”
Both men are now able to train officers and deputies within their own departments, which they said will help streamline the investigative and evidence-handling processes.
“Being from this side of the state, training is further away,” Clear said. “It’s so vital for our area … you make so many contacts and stuff … and [working with Crawford], it’s great we’re going to have that.”
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