Shelby PD's COP Camp kids at our Crime Scene Van

The Crime Scene Investigator is a specialized position assigned to our Criminal Investigations Division.  With the understanding that a thorough crime scene search and analysis is vitally important to effective law enforcement, Crime Scene Investigators are tasked with recognizing, documenting, and collecting, preserving and transmitting evidence for analysis.    Crime Scene Investigators are further responsible for recreating crime scenes at later times during the judiciary process.  This is done by means of photography, videography, accurate measurements of the scene of crimes upon the arrival of officers and submission of reports that are clear, factual, concise and complete. 

All officers are assigned basic equipment for the processing of crime scenes to include collection of latent fingerprints and basic photography needs.  If further expertise or more specialized equipment is needed at the scene of an incident, the officer contacts Crime Scene Investigators for assistance.  Incidents such as homicides, unattended deaths, robberies, breaking and entering’s, assaults, arsons, sexual assaults, motor vehicle fatalities and industrial accidents could warrant the use of The Crime Scene Investigators expertise or their assigned state-of-the-art equipment.  Crime Scene Investigators are available to respond to incidents and process them objectively, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

The duties of Crime Scene Investigators also encompass the processing of evidence or arranging for the transmission of evidence to either the North Carolina State Crime Lab or a private lab for further testing and thorough documentation of the custody of evidence.  Testing or processing items of evidence could include DNA swabbing, latent fingerprint recovery and analysis, computer or phone download and analysis, tool impressions analysis and ballistics testing. 

With their thorough and diverse knowledge base, Crime Scene Investigators are essential in their support of all units and divisions within our agency.