They are careful not to contaminate evidence or miss a clue to solve a complicated, but in this case, fictional crime. We are talking about students in the Criminal Justice Program at JATC South in Riverton.
On this episode of the Supercast, hear from some Criminal Justice students who are excelling as crime scene investigators, using their forensics skills to compete at the national level and hopefully one day land a job in law enforcement.
Audio Transcription
[Music]Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are careful not to contaminate evidence or miss a clue to solve a complicated, and in this case, fictional crime. We're talking about students in the Criminal Justice Program at JATC South in Riverton.
On this episode of the Supercast, hear from some criminal justice students who are excelling as crime scene investigators, using their forensic skills to compete at the national level and hopefully, one day land a job in law enforcement.
We're here at JATC South to learn more about the Criminal Justice Program, and we're talking with instructor Brandon Palmer. Brandon, tell us a little bit about this program and the competition we're here to learn more about.
Brandon Palmer:
Sure. The Criminal Justice Program here at the JATC is a concurrent enrollment program, which consists of four courses from the Salt Lake Community College. I combine these four courses so it seems like just one big program, but by the time they're done at the end of the year, they'll have 12 college credits along with their high school credit.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's a lot of credit.
Brandon Palmer:
It is. That's the huge benefit of this class. As we go through the class, I was in law enforcement for quite a while, and I kind of give them the truth about the careers that I was involved in throughout my career as a law enforcement officer. A lot of them come in thinking they want to be in law enforcement, forensics, or whatever. I direct them to get a good, educated idea of what their career is. I do have a lot at the end of the year telling me there's no way I'm going to do that. But I figure that's a win. That's a win.
Anthony Godfrey:
Those who've listened to the podcast before know that I've said it's as important to learn that this is not something you want to do as it is to find out that, hey, this is a career I'd like to pursue. Because this is a great time to explore that. You get some college credit in the process, and then you're not on a path that you find out most of the way through your degree that this might not be for me. But I'm sure you also find some students who really decide, hey, I love this even more than I thought I would.
Brandon Palmer:
They then have a better-educated background to make that decision.
Anthony Godfrey:
Sure. They can kind of chart their path from here to get to their career goal. Tell me about the competition.
Brandon Palmer:
The competition is through SkillsUSA. It's a national CTSO. These ladies just did the state competition. The three here on this side did the Criminal Investigation competition, and they won gold. And then this one here did the Criminal Justice competition, and she also won gold.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's awesome.
Brandon Palmer:
It is. It's great. They worked hard, and then they showed up, and they did what they needed to do. And now they're on their way to Georgia.
Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about the two competitions and what's involved.
Brandon Palmer:
Okay, so the criminal investigation competition, they'll be able to get into more detail than I will. But there's several phases. There is a crime scene where they have to walk in together as a team, work together as a team to get a good idea of kind of what happened. Not so much the focus of who done it, but what exactly happened. Is there a crime related? So they have to look at the evidence that's available there to determine that. And then they split them up, and they each do a certain specialty. So for example, blood spatter analysis, fingerprint analysis, and they'll be able to tell you a lot better than I would on the other side.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. And for the other competition?
Brandon Palmer:
The criminal justice competition, there is not a crime scene, but there is a scenario that they have to walk through from start to beginning, so like a domestic. So they walk into a domestic, may have to handle that domestic, determine if there's a crime, make an arrest, and any digging that they may have to do.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's serious stuff.
Brandon Palmer:
It is.
Anthony Godfrey:
So let's talk to the team a little bit. Introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about what you enjoy from this class.
Quinnley Starr:
I'm Quinnley Starr, and I love the forensic side, but through this competition I've been able to learn. I think I'm not as interested as being hands on in the crime, so that's been very helpful. But I really enjoyed this competition because I was able to figure out exactly what I like about crime scenes, and we were able to all work together, and I learned the stress of a crime scene. Like, these CSI have so much stress on them because if they mess anything up it greatly impacts investigation, and so they have to do everything as perfect as they can.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you're all from Bingham, I understand.
Quinnley Starr:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So you don't like the hands on as much, but what aspects of it do you enjoy?
Quinnley Starr:
So I enjoy trying to figure out what happens. I don't want to spend all my day just packaging evidence, but I enjoy being like, okay, so we know all of this, so what happened? So I think it'd be more interesting to criminal profile who would be doing this. How did it happen?
Anthony Godfrey;
Great.
Alison Andereson:
I'm Alison Anderson, and I really love the hands-on experience that this class gives us. Every week we have a training day where we get to experience new jobs that we could go into and just how they would do it. So one time, every few weeks we do a self-defense class, and our teacher just teaches self-defense, and we get to go over all that. And it's just such a cool experience that we get to learn how everyone, different jobs, would go about doing their jobs. And it's just really cool to have our hands-on experience.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what did you enjoy about the competition?
Alison Anderson:
I love the hands-on experience because it's just so cool to be able to walk into a crime scene and have it be so live like. It's cool to see how it would actually be set up and be able to go through it and be like, this is how it would actually happen were I to become a CSI and see what I would actually have to do in a real-life situation.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you don't mind being boots on the ground, packaging things up, being the first to come in and tell the other police to step aside. You're here from CSI.
Alison Anderson:
Exactly.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, and tell me about your experience.
Lucy Herold:
My name is Lucy Herold, and I really enjoy just learning about what happened. I love doing puzzles and putting things together. Packaging evidence was really fun. Learning how to do that was a blast. This cause really helped us prepare for that, especially with our training days, because we learned a lot about every single part of criminal justice, not just CSI or criminal justice. We learned about law and stuff, which is really helpful. So we know if there was an actual crime committed and things like that. So it was just a blast in general for me.
Anthony Godfrey:
So do you sometimes, I guess I hadn't thought of this, but until you mentioned it, the first thing you're doing is walking in to determine whether it's a crime in the first place. Because if you jump to conclusions, then you can end up down the wrong path. Now all I know about gathering evidence comes from pop culture. So do you ever take a pen out of your pocket and pick up the evidence that way?
Lucy Herold:
No.
Anthony Godfrey:
No, you're all laughing. Okay. All right. Well, I guess "Law and Order" and all the movies I've watched have not prepared me to be successful in a SkillsUSA competition. Tell me, what was the competition like? Tell me some of what was involved in that and some of the things you had to do well in order to earn the gold medal and go on to nationals.
Quinnley Starr:
Okay. So first of all, the first thing we had to do was go through the crime scene. And so we each have a role to play. Like I measure and sketch the crime scene. She photographs it and Lucy looks for all the evidence and marks it. And so we all have our role. So we go through it and we just photograph it, sketch it, find all the evidence and just record everything. And then we have to write a report on it. And then we each have a skill demonstration we have to do. I did presumptive blood testing. So they gave me a tray with a red substance on it and I had to determine if it was blood or not.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Presumptive blood testing. That's a phrase I've never said before. What were some of your roles?
Alison Anderson:
So I photographed the scene. So I just made sure that I got and found every piece of evidence that there was so then we could make sure that we packaged everything and make sure that we didn't miss anything that could be vital to the investigation. It's a super important role because if we have to like recreate the crime scene, then we have to make sure that we have photographs of every single evidence. Then as we're looking at it again, we don't miss anything that could be vital. My individual skill was fingerprinting. So they gave me three mugs and I had to dust the mugs to find fingerprints. And this is also a super important skill because no one has the same fingerprint. So if you get a really good fingerprint from an object like my mug, then you could determine whose fingerprint that was and determine that they were there at the scene. And it's just super important to make sure that you get the right person. And so fingerprints, it's a really good way to find them.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you're preserving the scene through photographs.
Alison Anderson:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now tell me about your role.
Lucy Herold:
So I take notes and I help Allison and Quinnley either measure the crime scene or help her take pictures. And then I also help measure stuff too. And then my personal skill was trace evidence, which were you have to look at it like a piece of clothing item. And you have to see if there's any fibers, hair or any like things on it. Like there are certain lights you can use. You have to package the fibers or hairs and like a paper bindle and then label it correctly. You have to package the evidence correctly too.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you have to pull everything together so that you can then take the time to think it through and puzzle it out and try to get a profile and think it through. Now you were the solo gold medalist. Introduce yourself and tell me about your competition.
Meridian Darger:
My name is Meridian Darger. I just turned 18 a few days ago. I've known that I wanted to go in criminal justice in some shape or form ever since I was really young. And then I found out about this program at my old high school. Well, I go to Riverton, but that's just my home school. All of my classes are through Kings Peak online high school. So I found out about it in my early like sophomore year of high school. I found out about this program and I knew I just needed to go into it because I already know like what my calling is, but I just needed to make sure I can handle it because it's stressful. And my ultimate goal is to become a homicide detective. But you have to become a police officer for so many years to do that. So I was just making sure that I can do that.
Anthony Godfrey:
And what do you think after taking the class and being in the competition?
Meridian Darger:
Yes, yes. I love it. It's just, I just know like that's my calling out there. And sometimes I think about like, oh maybe I should do something else. This is going to be stressful. But then I think like there's probably a victim or a victim family out there that's going to need my help to bring them closure. Just help people.
Anthony Godfrey:
I love that you have felt that before being in the class and that this has confirmed it.
Meridian Darger:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the competition that you were involved in.
Meridian Darger:
So my competition, I had several scenarios that I was just working on on my own. So we would take turns because there was 12 other people competing. We would just take turns going into different rooms and we couldn't talk about it after. So I did like a witness interview report to an armed robbery. I did take fingerprints off a bottle as well. I did a domestic dispute call that I went and responded to and ended in an arrest. And then I also did a, it was a traffic stop, but it turned out to be that the person that was driving had a warrant out for their arrest. So I had to take care of that during the crime scene. So it was a bit higher stakes, but it was like really stressful for me, but it was really fun.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now, how do you prepare for the next level of competition? You've qualified for national competition. Tell me when that is and what you're doing to get ready for that.
Meridian Darger:
Okay. So I took first place in regionals and state. So I think both of them will be kind of similar to the nationals one. I'm just preparing with them. We're going to be working together like once a week leading up and it's going to be June 24th and it's going to be in Atlanta, Georgia. So we're traveling together because we are in school, but they're still going to be competing in their Crime Scene Investigation while I compete in my Criminal Justice Competition.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's really exciting. So you knew this is what you wanted to do. The class has confirmed it and your path is that you want to be a detective.
Meridian Darger:
Yeah, that's my ultimate goal, but I still want to experience like being a police officer, doing smaller state crimes, just trying out different things because I just love what this does for people, what this does for victims, what that does for families, how it protects people. So I just want to experience it for areas, but yeah, my ultimate goal is homicide detective.
Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, we'll analyze a crime scene with the students of the criminal justice program at JATC South.
Break:
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Quinnley Starr:
With going to nationals, it's pretty expensive so we're trying to raise money for it so we have a GoFundMe. If anyone is willing to donate or can, it would help tremendously.
Alison Anderson:
On the GoFundMe, it's under Criminal Justice Nationals Competition. If you go to GoFundMe and you search that up and donate even like $5, it'll be so helpful.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now I understand that I said blood splatter and that is not the correct term. Tell me.
Quinnley Starr:
It's blood spatter.
Anthony Godfrey:
Spatter.
Anthony Godfrey:
I think it's because when I like to buy vinyl, it's a splatter pattern when it's like kind of the, okay nevermind. So paint splatters, blood spatters.
Quinnley Starr:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Alison Anderson:
Any CSI will correct you if you say splatter.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Lucy Herold:
When we were at state, we got shirts that said it's not splatter, it's splatter.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Alright.
Brandon Palmer:
Splatter is the sound the spatter makes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So it's splattered and left a spatter. Alright. I've learned a lot today. Alright, Meridian, we're going to walk into this scene. You haven't seen it yet?
Meridian Darger:
No.
Anthony Godfrey:
Talk me through your thought process and what you see and how you determine whether CSI needs to come in.
Meridian Darger:
Okay. Yeah. Before entering like any building, if I was just getting called here, dispatched here, I would get information from dispatch about the type of scenario that's happening. So if it's something that's more high stakes like a domestic call or violent or potential with a weapon, I would immediately call for a backup before I even entered the facility.
Anthony Godfrey:
Can I be your backup?
Meridian Darger:
Yes, you can be my backup.
Anthony Godfrey:
Can I point around the room and then yell clear?
Meridian Darger:
That's only in your show. It's your pop culture.
Anthony Godfrey:
I still want to do it.
Meridian Darger:
Okay. If you're clearing a building and there's a person with a gun, you'll look around. We've done that in the past before.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. I'll just be your backup. Here we go. Open the door. Let's see what we've got.
Meridian Darger:
So I would enter the building if they like let me in. So immediately there is a, immediately there is a body. But if I'm coming into a scenario, the first thing I do is to secure it because I know there's someone there. They could be bleeding out. They could be hurt. But I'm no good to them, if somebody shoots me from behind the bush or something like that. So I have to go through and I immediately clear the scene before. And then I would, I would probably also call for medical to come while I'm searching and then let them know that they can't enter until I let them know it's clear. So medical would come, they would, and I could also clear him to see if he is deceased and let's say he is deceased.
Anthony Godfrey:
And describe what you see here. He looks pretty deceased.
Meridian Darger:
So in the middle of the floor, he's laying down with his knees kind of buckled up. He's got immediate blood stain, a little blood pool by his head. There's a pot that has been knocked over and he is wearing gloves, like basic gardening stuff and there's also dirt near his face. So that's what I see.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what do we do next?
Meridian Darger:
So after that, I would just, if there's nobody here, I would just, I would be calling for–
Anthony Godfrey:
Clear, clear. There's nobody here.
Meridian Darger:
It's been clear. I would be calling for the CSI to come and then I would also have kept in mind a path I would have taken through this whole entire building and let them know how they're supposed to walk in. Like stay against back walls, stay against corners so you don't step on any evidence.
Anthony Godfrey:
And now CSI is on the scene.
Meridian Darger:
And now CSI, come on.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay CSI, you're here. Tell us about what you do from the start of this crime scene.
Quinnley Starr:
Okay, so the first thing we do is put on personal protective equipment. So we got shoe covers, gloves, goggles, face masks and masks. And then we each get our individual equipment out. For example, I get out my sketching equipment.
Alison Anderson:
I get out the camera so I can take photos of everything.
Lucy Herold:
And then I get out evidence markers and a notepad.
Anthony Godfrey:
Come around, take a look and tell me what you think happened.
Lucy Herold:
So we did find some red substance on the bottom of his shoe. We know that whoever's red substance that is was walking away.
Alison Anderson:
We can determine that by looking at the tails. So it goes because the tails are facing away from the body, we can determine that whoever or like wherever the blood was coming from, they were walking away from the body.
Lucy Herold:
Because the tails were pointing the direction they were leaving to.
Anthony Godfrey:
I did not notice the tails until you pointed them out. All right.
Alison Anderson:
We also noticed that on this corner, there is a red substance and it’s dripping down it.
Anthony Godfrey:
So that's the corner of a cart.
Alison Anderson:
So it looks like the head could have hit it.
Anthony Godfrey:
He bled out. That's the term, right? Bled out?
Brandon Palmer:
Possibly. There'd have to be a lot more blood than that, obviously.
Anthony Godfrey:
I just wanted to say the phrase bled out. You know? I just wanted to say that.
Brandon Palmer:
Also, it could have been a broken neck. So we determined that this may be connected to this, right? And then how did it get caused? But then you also see some more blood and that tells you what?
Alison Anderson:
That someone was walking away from the body.
Brandon Palmer:
You would obviously test the blood, but by looking at it, it would be hard for him to make that blood trail, right? So where did this blood come from?
Lucy Herold:
Possibly from someone else who might have been at the scene.
Brandon Palmer:
Then how was it caused?
Alison Anderson:
It was dripping from something and then the movement shows like walking.
Brandon Palmer:
Okay. That's great. So now you know it's walking out, right? But where did the blood come from? And this is where it takes discipline. So you're focused in this little area and then you branch out a little bit. Is there anything more? Right? So where is the first drop of blood possibly?
Lucy Herold:
The first drop of blood is right next to the pot.
Brandon Palmer:
Okay. So is there anything in the vicinity that could have caused it?
Lucy Herold:
Maybe if they picked up the pot and they cut themselves from it, it's a possibility.
Quinnley Starr:
Oh yeah. We can see a red substance is dripping down the bottom of the plastic pot.
Lucy Herold:
Yeah. So someone must have cut themselves on it. It's kind of hard for the deceased to make that blood trail walking away from it. So there is indication that there was a second person at the crime scene when this individual could have passed.
Brandon Palmer:
So we're going to try to find this person.
Anthony Godfrey:
You know what? We're going to leave the crime as a cliffhanger for those listening. But it is interesting how many assumptions I made and how many drops of blood I stepped in before I really started to pay attention to what could have happened and the evidence around. So bravo. Congratulations on the keyed skills you've developed in analyzing a potential crime scene. This is awesome.
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.
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