Crime Scene

Written Documentation at a Crime Scene

by Mike Byrd

Miami-Dade Police Department Crime Scene Investigations

In an Organized step by step approach Scene Documentation is one of the stages in the proper processing of a crime scene. The final results of a properly documented crime scene is the ability of others to take our finished product to use in either reconstructing the scene or the chain of events in an incident and our court room presentation. In documenting the scene there are actually 3 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, crime 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 crime scene. The notes and reports should be done in a chronological order and should include no opinions, no analysis, or no conclusions. Just the facts!!!! The crime scene investigator or evidence recovery technician should document what he/she sees, not what he/she thinks. The final report should tell a descriptive story. A general description of the crime scene should be given just as the investigator sees it 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 crime scene. There investigator/technician should follow his/her departments assigned procedures for written documentation. The importance of sharing information can never be over-looked. This article is intended to share ideas in the area of uniform documentation as an example of the format that is used by my department. We use a narrative section of the report divided it into 5 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 request 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 as she returned home from shopping". For further details of this investigation refer to Det. J. Doe's report.. Our summary is brief and does not include a lot of he said, she said information.

In the scene section of the narrative we give a detailed description of the scene as it is seen upon our approach. The scene description usually includes anything that is unusual and out of place. Any weather or environment conditions are also included. Again this is a description of what we see not what we think. The Evidence observed, its location, condition, or anything remarkable about the item will be included

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