Underwater crime scene investigation help

[Gary D.]

We treat every Unattended Death (outside of Hospice) as a homicide until we can determine it isn’t. That covers anything from someone found deceased in bed or anywhere to someone in any accident or water related incident.

What better way for someone to get rid of somebody. It’s easy fast and evidence normally gets destroyed. So we need to take every precaution to protect and preserve that evidence. One can only imagine how many people have been murdered over the years and it was chalked up as an accident or suicide. The amount of water related suicides is going off our charts.

The bottom line is that even in Rescue Mode we need to observe, protect and collect as much evidence as possible. In Recovery Mode take your time and look at a wide area.

Just keep in mind that what looks like a simple vehicle accident off the road and into the water could be one spouse getting rid of the other.

Gary D.

 

[SandlerDiver]

Florida State University has an Underwater Crime Scene Investigation certification program for law enforcement as well as part of criminal justice/criminology degrees. You may want to talk to one of the directors there that can give you great info. I am a grad student there. Do you ever dive as an officer? I am interested in going into law enforcement after graduation and working my way up to investigator, hopefully with a dive team.

 

[etackett]

JT:

Having been through what you are now trying to accomplish, I might recommend a couple of publications available through the on-line bookstore of California Investigative Academy:

Underwater Crime Scene Investigation [/B]- Organizing, Training & Equipping the Dive Team on a Budget provides specific how-to protocols for establishing crime scene boundaries, underwater navigation, search patterns, light salvage, underwater evidence recovery & processing and things along those lines.

The companion Instructor's Guide for the Underwater Crime Scene Course (a PADI Distinctive Specialty course) provides more detailed instructions on actual open water training procedures and how to run various search patterns for different environments.

A Guide to Incorporating as a Non-Profit Organization for Emergency Service Dive Teams provides information not only for setting up and incorporating a dive team, but fundraising efforts, as well.

You'll find these and others at the California Investigative Academy's on-line bookstore.

Hope this helps. If you want additional assistance from someone who's done it under similar circumstances after you've checked out the above, let me know. I'll be happy to share my experiences and whatever other assistance I can provide.

Regards,

ET