Securing the Crime Scene

As a role of the First Attending Officer at a crime scene, it is their responsibility to make sure that the scene is cordoned off. The crime scene in cornered off using crime scene tap, upon the tape it will state ‘Crime Scene – Do not enter’ or ‘Police line do not cross’ depending on the type of scene they are securing. This is to ensure that the no contamination from the public, media or anyone who is unauthorised to be at the scene enters. Therefore it is important to cordon off the scene so that there is only one point of entry to the scene to make sure that no one enters or leaves the scene without recording it. When cordoning off the scene, the officer doing so much ensure that they are cordoning off a wide area surrounding the crime scene to make sure that no evidence is over looked.
To prevent unauthorised personnel from entering the crime scene and officer will stand at the entrance to the crime scene with an entry log form. The officer in charge of the entry log will ask for specific information of the individual entering the crime scene as long as authorisation is given to let the individual in. A record is kept off all the individuals that enter and exit the crime scene in case any of the individuals need to be contacted regarding the investigation.
In order to protect the crime scene from the weather conditions, in some cases a tent will be placed above the crime scene, this is to ensure that the whole area surrounding the crime scene is covered, thus protecting the evidence. Also this will limit the media and press from capturing any footage of the crime scene or any neighbours or the public from overlooking.



The O.J. Simpson Case

At the crime scene murder investigation, of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, Robert Riske was the First Attending Officer at the scene; therefore it should have been his responsibility to corner of the crime scene. However, when Riske and Fuhrman entered Nicole Brown’s condo, to use her phone to call for back up, Sargent Martin Coon, and Officers Edward McGowan and Richard Walker arrived at the scene within minutes. It was Coon, McGowan and Walker who secured the scene by using crime scene tape. Yet they only cornered off the crime scene at the gate which led to the footpath to the entrance of Nicole Brown’s condo. As the whole area of the crime scene was not secured, this meant that potentially crucial evidence was missed and therefore compromised by contamination or lost.



9 comments:

  1. They first responding officer did not look for any victim or look out for suspects. Second the first responding officer contaminated the scene and phone. The only secured a small part of the scene, instead of the whole entire home/area.

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  2. The first responding officer didn't secure the scene which was his responsible the other officer shouldn't be the one to secure it because they wasn't the first to arrive at the scene.They also didn't secure the entire area they only secure a small potion, which mean that evidences can still be outside the scene that is secure and the evidence might get contaminated.

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  3. The first officer didn't secure the scene and didn't search it either.

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  4. first officer was respomsible for it but since he missed his collegues should have reminded him to do it properly nnext and properly do it them selfs to

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  5. The first officer did not look for any evidence there was no suspect found. The first officer had to secure the area not the second officer because they were the first to arrive.They need to check everything they only checked the small area not the entire house or the outside.

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  6. he should have secured the crime scene but failed to do so

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  7. The should have blocked off the crime scene more than just one strip of police tape.

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  8. The first officer didn't secure the crime scene when he first got there

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