Expert: Jack Toomey - 8/4/2006

Question
What I have in my book is three criminalists (one a supervisor), a detective, an ME, and the several officers to guard the scene. This is a major crime scene, a woman dismembered in a house, and it is just after noon. This is a fake department in a fake big city. Does this sound realistic or does there need to be more criminalists and such?
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Followup To

Question -
This is a big city police department. I know the detectives would not have a hand in the actual processing of the scene. However, they would present, would they not? Overseeing things? Would anyone else be doing the same? How many people present at the scene, in a big city department, would be in the crime processing unit?
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Followup To

Question -
Though I have yet to be published, I write books where either a criminalist or a homicide detective is the main character so I want to get the most accurate information.  While processing a homicide scene, who all would be at the scene and what are their duties?  I am also curious about police ranks and titles.

Answer -
 It would depend on the department.  If this is a big city department then they would have a crime scene processing unit and the detectives would not have a hand in processing the scene.  If it were a small town department with just a few officers they would probably call on the state bureau of investigation (if there is one) or turn the case over to the state police or the county police in which juristiction the crime was committed.  So you see the question is difficult to answer because no two departments operate the same.

The answer would be the same in your second question.  I was on a county department of about one thousand officers which bordered a large eastern city and the rank structure and titles were completely different.  So its not like the army where there is a standard rank and title structure.  It would all depend on the department.  But you would be safe by calling the lowest ranking patrolman a private, then sergeants, lieutenants, captains, assistant chiefs and then the chief of police.

Answer -
  Yes the detectives would be on the scene of any major crime that they would end up investigating.  Again, it might sound like I am blowing you off, but there are no national standards or rules for how many detectives would show up at a homicide scene.  Is it a mystery type crime in at noon or is it a husband killing his wife at 3am?  How many doors need to be knocked on?  How big is the crime scene?  Is it outdoors or in a house?  All of these things come into play when you dispatch detectives to the scene of a homicide.

Answer
    That would be about right except that there is no way that you would have one detective to handle all of that.  You would have a large number of detectives either from homicide or drawn from the various precinct stations.  There a million things to do at the scene of a crime such as you describe and and one detective would not be realistic.