Results tagged “crimescene”

      

We've seen photos of the Station Fire from space and from the ground, but every fire has its starting point. Investigators would love to have photos of the fire as it began, but then it be a case closed. The investigation went from how the fire started to a homicide case once it was determined that arson was the cause. Two firefighters died while fighting the blaze, which has charred around 250 square miles in the Angeles National Forest.

After an LA Times headline like this--"LAPD's fingerprint lab isn't up to the task"--the best response is for the LAPD to start briefing city council members in a public meeting weekly about the fingerprint unit. And that's what the understaffed office is starting to do. It was found last month, via a confidential report obtained by the Times, that the Fingerprint Analysis Unit is woefully understaffed for the amount of work created by crimes and is sometimes too lax with evidence--some has been lost and at least two have been arrested falsely after sloppy work leading to a lawsuit, possibly a class action one. At about the same time this controversy hit the presses, City Controller Laura Chick announced the "disturbing" backlog of 7,000 rape-kits.