Photo By Spc. Maurice Galloway | Iraqi police officers document pieces of evidence found in a crime scene using...... read more read more
Subscribe
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRAH, Iraq – What seemed like an open and shut suicide training case quickly revealed itself to be a homicide as members of the Iraqi police used the skills learned during a two-week course taught by the 203rd Military Police Battalion on dissecting a murder scene.
Soldiers from the 203rd MP BN along with Law Enforcement Professionals Donnie Weller and David Diaz held a two-week evidence collection course at the Provincial Joint Coordination Center designed to implement standardized evidence collection procedures for the IP.
In November, the Provincial Reconstruction Team and 17th Fires Brigade Rule of Law Team brought Iraqi Judges and Iraqi Police together for the first time when they arranged a conference at the Palace of Justice. The conference opened the lines of communication between the two.
During the conference, Chief Judge Khaz'al Da'bol Qasim said only by working together would the judges and the police be able to assess the system and implement a strategy.
Earlier this year, the two sides met with the intention of learning what each side required to ensure a better judiciary process. With the help of Law Enforcement Professional Edgar Lacy, assigned to the 17th FiB ROL Team, the judges and police were able to solidify a standard for admissible evidence.
"Everything depends on collecting the right evidence at the crime scenes," said Lacy.
Based off the feedback from the second meeting between the IP and IJ, the 203rd MP's began developing a curriculum.
"Our goal was to not only teach the IP's standardized evidence collection procedures, but to make sure they implemented those techniques in their routine," said Sgt. Brandon Teague, 203rd MP BN, team leader.
The two-week course focused on tagging and documenting evidence, quarantining a crime scene, collecting evidence and collecting witness statements.
"Everyone at the crime scene is a potential suspect, so it's important to make sure you question them thoroughly because they may turn out to be involved," Weller said.
The training led to a final evaluation of a crime scene investigation held at the Iraqi Police Training Center on COB Basrah.
Two identical containerized housing units served as the murder sites, while two Soldiers from the 203rd MP Battalion posed as victims. As the IP broke into two groups and delegated responsibilities, things appeared typical until they began assessing the scene.
"The first thing I did was check the victim to see if he was still alive. After concluding that he was dead, I began piecing together the evidence," said Capt. Mushtak Nuri Abbas, Iraqi police, Crime Scene Investigation team leader.
"At first it looked like a suicide, but things just didn't add up: the placement of the weapon, the handwriting in the suicide note that didn't match the hand writing on other documents, a faint trail leading back into the room and a set of bloody finger prints outside the door," said Nuri Abbas.
Diaz said that they strategically placed 10 critical pieces of evidence throughout each crime scene the IP's had to find to deduce the cause of death.
"The evaluation was a bit harder than we expected. We had to rely on the training we learned in order to solve the scenario. This course was a tremendous help," said Nuri Abbas.
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 04.30.2010 02:58 |
| Story ID: | 48911 |
| Location: | CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRAH, IQ |
| Web Views: | 274 |
| Downloads: | 228 |
This work, C.S.I - Iraq: evidence collection course helps IPs close cases, by SPC Maurice Galloway, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
