Members of the investigation

At a crime scene, different members or agencies are called out to the scene of the crime depending on the type of crime that has been committed. Usually a witness has called in the crime and police are first to attend the scene of the crime. Different agencies are called out to the crime scene if their role is needed to assist at the scene however some agencies may not be needed at the crime scene but will be involved within the criminal investigation. For example if there is an injured victim at the scene of the crime, paramedics and an ambulance will be needed. Another example would be a pathologist, they would be working on evidence found at the crime scene, yet they would be working within a laboratory. At the murder scene of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, many different agencies were called to the scene or were involved throughout the investigation, these members involved within the case were:
  • Police
    • Mark Fuhrman (lead detective)
    • Robert Riske (First Attending Officer and detective)
    • Philip Vannetter (lead detective)
    • Tom Lange (detective and lead investigator)
  • Scene of Crime Officers
  • Ambulance and paramedics
  • Forensic Scientists
  • Forensic Investigators
  • Exhibits Officer

During the investigation on the murder of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the communication and work ethic of the members involved within the investigation team was quite poor. Detective Robert Riske was the first attending officer at the scene of the crime, and therefore was the lead detective at the crime scene, giving him the authority over other officers who were called out to the scene. His partner Detective Mark Fuhrman was also present at the crime scene. However when Riske and Fuhrman were relieved from their duties as theirs shift was finished, Detective Phillip Vannetter took over the role of lead detective. However during the hand over, Fuhrman did not inform Vannetter of the notes he had taken about evidence found at the crime scene. Due to this miscommunicated this lead to a bloody fingerprint which was found upon the gate by Fuhrman to not be collected by SOCO's and was thrown away. 

Poor evidence collection was done so by Scene of Crime Officers, SOCO's failed to label all evidence correctly and bag the items separately to prevent cross contamination and also failed to enter all items of evidence found at the crime scene in to the audit trail. As these procedures were not carried out by SOCO's this led to evidence being suspect as 'contaminated' or 'tampered with'.

However forensic scientists and analysts involved within the investigation worked very efficiently to find DNA results from blood collected from the scene. However within the laboratories Simpsons blood from a vial was spilt which grew the suspicion more that Simpsons blood may have cross contaminated with vital evidence that was handled within the same lab by the same analysts who spilt the blood, Collin Yamauchi. Yet the results gained from analyse of the evidence was reported efficiently to police officers to inform them of their findings to aid the on going investigation. 

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