Personal Protective Equipment

At the scene of a crime it is important that all agencies that are involved within the investigation wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). PPE must be worn when investigating the scene in order to prevent any contamination at the scene. Therefore any agencies, who are investigating the scene of the crime, may come in to contact with evidence, therefore in order to prevent any damage or contamination to the evidence at the scene PPE is worn. PPE is also worn in order to protect the individuals from the evidence at the scene. In the past, agencies have only had to wear gloves and possibly a mask, however as time has moved on PPE has expanded. Scene of Crime Officers who collect evidence from the scene have to wear a full body suit, in order to prevent any material from their clothing contaminating the scene. They are also to wear goggles to protect their eyes from any sharp items from the scene, gloves to prevent contaminating evidence and the scene from their fingerprints. As well they must wear shoe covers in order to prevent their footprint marks from contaminating the scene and causing damage or contamination to critical evidence. As police officers will not be collecting evidence from the scene they will not have to wear all the PPE required by SOCO’s, yet they must still wear shoe covers if walking around the crime scene and also gloves if handling any evidence.

The O.J. Simpson Case

At the murder scene of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the First Attending Officer to the scene, Robert Riske, did not follow the procedures to wear PPE when at the crime scene. Riske entered the crime scene and Nicole Browns Condo, without wearing and protective equipment in order to prevent contamination to the scene. When Riske entered Nicole Brown’s condo to make a phone call for back up, Riske did not wear any gloves when using the phone, therefore if the suspect had entered Nicole Brown’s house and used the phone, no fingerprint evidence could be taken from this object due to the contamination from Riske. Other police officers who arrived at the scene of the crime also failed to wear PPE, this meant that when officers where handling evidence at the scene, the item was contaminated and less reliable to gather analysis from. Also, due to the lack of PPE worn by police officers, such as shoe covers; this meant that the bloody footprints along the path leading to the bodies of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman was stepped in by many officers. Therefore this made the footprints of the suspect hard to determine from officers footprints who were investigating the scene. This was brought up within the trail, as the reliability of the evidence that was provided within court from the crime scene was question by the O.J. Simpsons defence team.