Marty and I attended the quarterly meeting on Nov 28. The usual holiday warnings were stressed as it is a peak crime season also. The main program was a review of the forensics dept. GPD has one of the best in the area and Dallas as well as federal agencies use the facility .Chemical use and collections are a big issue for safety and Dallas' new building did not have those protections. It was a fascinating program on the mechanics of how to retrieve, preserve , and find evidence as well as how testimony is best given.
For us, we needed to know that the go out for all unattended deaths, including nursing homes based on conditions. Since our dept handles 9500 investigations with 7 people and the standard is 400 pp, they are doing a fantastic job and are understaffed for the 24/7 they work- not to mention sick days, vacation and court appearances.The latter is the reason we do not have them out for small break ins - the time on other cases does not allow to fingerprint thefts from autos etc. Hopefully we can have them as a speaker at our meeting some time in the future.