12 MS. COLLINS: Before we get started, I have passed
13 around a handout of what you are going to see. We will go
14 through this as quickly or as slowly as you want us to do
15 so.
16 Let me set the stage before we get started. It
17 has been a while since we met before the full committee, but
18 we have had an opportunity to meet with the working group a
19 couple times. So I have made a lot of progress, I think, on
20 some of the early work with the Commission, developing their
21 brochure and that sort of thing.
22 Let me tell you a little bit about what I am going
23 to show you today. Today is a very early stage to this
24 whole process. It is referred to as a prototype. It's not
25 an alpha version; it's not even very close. It is just to
1 give you an idea visually of what this might look like.
2 These are contained as well in your handout.
3 A lot of the information that is in here
4 originally came from development of the DNA brochure. As
5 Chris referred to, there are going to be two CDs. There is
6 going to be a beginning level CD and an advanced level. We
7 chose those words very carefully because of all of the
8 issues with all the different titles that are involved with
9 it.
10 The plan currently for the DNA evidence collection
11 course is there will be four hours total for computer-based
12 training. There will be two modules. The beginning level
13 module will be approximately an hour and a half long,
14 consisting of five lessons. The advanced level module is
15 two and a half hours, and it will consist of five lessons.
16 That is what is projected to be done at this point in terms
17 of the information and the feedback that we got not only
18 from the Commission, but also the DNA working group.
19 This particular technique that we are using is
20 referred to as the instructional systems design methodology,
21 the way that it is set up.
22 The objectives address topical knowledge and
23 skills that would be required by what we would consider a
24 first responder. This would be a first responding law
25 enforcement officer to a crime scene and also the person
1 responsible for collecting, preserving and processing the
2 evidence.
3 The end user, I think it is important to point out
4 here, would be any police officer who would have the
5 responsibility of being the first officer on a crime scene.
6 It could be the same person, but it could be two separate
7 types, depending on the size of the agency that we are
8 referring to.
9 That is basically what we are going to talk about
10 today. Let me take you through the steps very quickly.
11 This is the prototype. After the prototype there
12 is something called story boards. I don't know if any of
13 you have been involved with developing computer-based
14 training. Those story boards are very detailed and
15 literally everything that you visually would see on each
16 separate screen.
17 Those story boards have already been delivered to
18 the DNA working group. They are working on them and are
19 going to be working on them in the weeks ahead. As they get
20 that feedback back to the company that we are using to
21 actually do the instructional design, after that is done,
22 after you have the prototype which I am going to show today,
23 which is the first step, then you have a story board which
24 will give the feedback from the Commission.
25 From that, in essence a script is written. It's
1 just like in a movie. Script is written. We will do
2 videotaping to develop scenarios. We have already been
3 given some scenarios by the working group. That will be the
4 learning base for the students. It is an actual scenario
5 that the person seeing it could walk through.
6 Once that videotaping is done, then we go to the
7 alpha version. That will go back to that working group.
8 After all those revisions and corrections and editing and
9 all that has been done, the final product goes to a beta
10 version.
11 That is just to kind of give you a sense of the
12 process that one goes through in this. So today you are
13 seeing some very preliminary types of things and what we
14 call a prototype.
15 What I would like to do is go through this on the
16 screen. It should match up with the handouts that we have
17 given you.
18 MR. ASPLEN: Folks, if you think that the way she
19 explains it sounds a little complex, it is infinitely more
20 complex than what she is saying for those of us who have
21 been involved in the process.
22 MS. COLLINS: It is very detailed.
23 MR. ASPLEN: Detailed is probably a better way to
24 put it.
25 [CD-ROM demonstration.]
1 VOICE OVER: Upon completion of this lesson you
2 will be able to distinguish between physical and biological
3 evidence, identify the significance of DNA analysis and the
4 limitations thereof.
5 You will become familiar with the use of CODIS.
6 You will be able to identify the responsibilities
7 of a first responding officer, including how to establish a
8 chain of custody of evidence and the procedures to maintain
9 crime scene integrity.
10 You will be able to identify the importance of
11 elimination samples and DNA evidence as they relate to the
12 different types of crimes.
13 Finally, you will be able to identify the sources
14 and locations of DNA evidence.
15 MS. COLLINS: The voices that you hear are some of
16 the staff just to illustrate what it would be. These are
17 not the final voices necessarily. I think some of the
18 colors and things we talked about might be final, but
19 generally this is just to give you an overview, an idea of
20 how this would work. It is still in the infancy stages.
1 VOICE OVER: DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the
2 fundamental building block for an individual's entire
3 genetic makeup. It is a component of virtually every cell
4 in the human body. DNA is the same in every cell. For
5 example, the DNA in a man's blood is the same DNA as in his
6 skin cells, semen, and saliva.
7 VOICE OVER: Physical evidence is any tangible
8 object which can connect an offender to a crime scene.
9 Detection of certain types of physical evidence such as
10 biological material are not always visible.
11 DNA testing has expanded the types of useful
12 biological evidence. Virtually all biological evidence
13 found at crime scenes can be subjected to DNA testing.
14 DNA testing has become an established part of
15 criminal justice procedures, and the admissibility of the
16 test results in court have become routine.
17 DNA analysis is similar to fingerprint analysis
18 and how matches are determined: evidence collected from a
19 crime scene as compared to a known sample. If each feature
20 is not identical, the DNA evidence is determined not a match
21 and therefore did not come from the suspect.
22 The following example demonstrates how matches are
23 determined in DNA analysis. In this example the pattern of
24 the evidence specimen matches that of suspect 1.
25 With all the benefits and uses of DNA evidence, a
1 few limitations present challenges for today's law
2 enforcement personnel. For example, identical twins have
3 the same DNA. DNA cannot determine when the suspect was at
4 the crime scene. Additionally, environmental factors can
5 destroy DNA evidence.
6 A useful tool for law enforcement personnel is
7 CODIS, combined DNA index system. CODIS is a national
8 investigative support database developed by the FBI. CODIS
9 uses two indices to generate investigative leads in crimes
10 where biological evidence is recovered from the crime scene.
11 Just as fingerprints found at a crime scene can be
12 run through AFIS, or automated fingerprint identification
13 system, DNA profiles from a crime scene can be entered into
14 CODIS.
15 VOICE OVER: Your mission as the first responder
16 is to identify potential DNA evidence and to preserve that
17 evidence. In addition, other responsibilities include
18 secure witnesses, ensure that all evidence is safeguarded
19 and maintained in its original state, render aid if needed,
20 request crime scene support services, and condense facts
21 into a comprehensive report.
22 VOICE OVER: It's often necessary to take
23 elimination samples to determine if the evidence comes from
24 a suspect or someone else. With this in mind, the officer
25 must think ahead to time of trial and possible defenses
1 while still at the crime scene.
2 The manner in which elimination samples are
3 collected is dependent upon the type of crime. Click on a
4 bulleted line to view evidence collection procedures for
5 each type of crime.
6 MS. COLLINS: Those aren't set up yet, but those
7 will be active. The officer taking the course could click
8 on there. I will show you later a glossary and a notebook.
9 VOICE OVER: A complete record of all activities
10 conducted and visual observations made at the crime scene
11 should be included in all documentation.
12 Procedures for establishing a chain of custody of
13 evidence include a list of all persons who came in contact
14 with the evidence from the time it was recovered at the
15 scene, inventoried, processed and examined to the time the
16 evidence is presented in court.
17 The risk of contamination can be reduced by
18 limiting incidental activity. It is important for all law
19 enforcement personnel at the crime scene to make a conscious
20 effort to refrain from smoking, eating, drinking, littering,
21 or any other actions which could compromise the crime scene.
22 Be aware that personal actions can compromise
23 evidence at a crime scene. Therefore, only move an item if
24 the evidence will be lost or destroyed. Avoid touching
25 anything unnecessarily, adjusting the thermostat or opening
1 doors and windows.
2 Additionally, always use the police radio instead
3 of the telephone when calling for support or backup
4 personnel.
5 Because extremely small samples of DNA can be used
6 as evidence, greater attention to contamination issues is
7 necessary when identifying, collecting and preserving DNA
8 evidence. DNA evidence can be contaminated when DNA from
9 another source gets mixed with the DNA relevant to the case.
10 Here is a list of actions to avoid contamination
11 at the crime scene. These tips will not only help protect
12 crime scene evidence; they may also protect you from
13 biohazards.
14 As a first responding officer, you may be called
15 upon to transport evidence from a crime scene. Direct
16 sunlight and warmer conditions may be harmful to DNA. Avoid
17 storing evidence in places that may get hot, such as a room
18 or police car without air-conditioning. Should you be
19 involved in evidence collection and transportation, such
20 topics will be discussed further in the advanced level
21 training module.
22 The following chart lists examples of sources and
23 possible locations of where DNA evidence can be found at a
24 crime scene.
25 MS. COLLINS: That captures the chart that is
1 found in the brochure. We will have to figure out a way to
2 make that a little bit reader friendly.
3 VOICE OVER: At first glance, the victim's DNA
4 evidence would be found at the tip of the baseball bat.
5 After further analysis, DNA evidence left behind by the
6 perpetrator could be found on the handle of the bat.
7 In this example DNA evidence from both the victim
8 and the perpetrator can be found in the form of sweat, blood
9 or semen.
10 Again, in this example DNA evidence left by the
11 perpetrator or victim could be found in the form of saliva
12 on the cigarette filter.
13 In this picture what appears to be a drinking
14 glass contains valuable DNA evidence. Sweat and saliva from
15 either the victim or the perpetrator may be present.
16 In this lesson we reviewed:
17 The difference between biological and physical
18 evidence.
19 The significance of DNA analysis and the
20 limitations thereof.
21 The purpose and the use of CODIS.
22 The responsibilities of a first responding
23 officer, including how to establish a chain of custody of
24 evidence and the procedures to maintain crime scene
25 integrity.
1 The importance of elimination samples in DNA
2 evidence as they relate to the different types of crime, and
3 the sources and locations of DNA evidence.
4 You have just completed this portion of your
5 training. Click forward to begin the scenario exercise or
6 click the exit button to end this lesson.
7 MS. COLLINS: With this example today the homicide
8 is the hot one. I will go to that. You can see these are
9 the four different areas of topics that we covered.
10 This is the notebook that I made reference to.
11 Here it is giving a warning about downloading files. It
12 opens up a page on which the officers would actually make
13 notes as they go through the scene.
14 MR. ASPLEN: I promised Pam and Kay that I would
15 reiterate and emphasize that this is the beginning stage.
16 For those of you that I saw taking notes here,
17 there and the other place because you saw things that one
18 may characterize as erroneous or not the best way to put
19 things, we are in the process of dealing with all that. We
20 have taken the first set of story boards and internally at
21 OST we are going through those and trying to address some of
22 the initial issues before it gets out to the working group
23 members of which we have more Commissioners than any other
24 working group. So before it gets to you folks who are here,
25 we are trying to deal with some of those issues and there
1 will still be plenty of issues for you folks to deal with
2 when it gets to that stage.
3 If there is anything you saw that you raised an
4 eyebrow about, don't worry about that until such time as it
5 actually gets in front of you, because it has already been
6 changed.
7 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: Joe.
8 DR. DAVIS: In the real life world fire and rescue
9 would have been there, tramped all over the place, turned
10 the body over, slapped pasties on the chest, and left a
11 bunch of trails and moved furniture and stuff like that. I
12 think that is an issue, in view of DNA and the way it is,
13 that needs to be addressed in the future. The training of
14 the fire/rescue people is, I think, a sadly neglected area
15 in this regard. There are some people who are very good at
16 that and there are others who are like a bull in a china
17 shop. So keep that in mind as something for the future.
18 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: Barry.
19 MR. SCHECK: Is the idea here that this CD-ROM
20 would be made available to individual officers who slip it
21 into their computer and then go through it and you could
22 track by reviewing your notebook? How are you anticipating
23 using this with trainees?
24 MS. COLLINS: The ideal would be that this would
25 be provided to the law enforcement officer, the first
1 responder. Either through training through their academy or
2 training through their agency or training on their own they
3 would go through the CD. As far as tracking, there is also
4 a capability to track how they do on their test, how many
5 questions they answered correctly, and that sort of thing.
6 MR. SCHECK: We have these computer-assisted legal
7 education things utilizing these lasers, these DVDs. It's
8 like for teaching evidence. They will show you something in
9 court, and then you will make your objection. They actually
10 have almost a verbal response. The judge will then tell you
11 this is the ruling and this is my reason for the ruling.
12 Since you are at this stage, you might think of
13 that as a kind of way to liven it up. You may want to take
14 a look at some of those, if you haven't already.
15 MR. ASPLEN: In terms of the dissemination of this
16 particular CD, I think we see it more as being distributed
17 to individual departments rather than individual officers.
18 Lest I give the budgeting folks at NIJ a coronary, that's
19 the way we see it. We will also consider the possibility of
20 making this available through the Internet, through JUSTNET,
21 or something like that. It shouldn't be a problem.
22 It is also anticipated that it not only be used
23 for credit purposes in individual departments, but quite
24 frankly, if some well-meaning police officer wants to find
25 it on a Web site and go through it regardless of whether or
1 not they are going to get credit for it, great. At the same
2 time, if an academy wants to take this little CD and use
3 this as their block of time for this particular issue and
4 use these standards, great. Good for them.
5 MR. SCHECK: I guess what I am really saying is
6 that what I've really been doing for 22 years is teaching
7 law and clinics and these kinds of things. I think you
8 really should try to make up your mind as to how you see
9 this ultimately in terms of delivery.
10 In other words, will an individual officer or
11 detective take this CD alone back to his or her home or on
12 the job and put it on the computer screen and go through it
13 as an individual exercise with some lectures later or
14 follow-up or discussion of it and with something within the
15 program that represents a scoring system or a product that
16 can be reviewed?
17 As opposed to something that is going to be shown
18 to 50 or 60 people, it might be useful to think through that
19 proposition. You have to have a very good idea of how it is
20 to be delivered and evaluated.
21 I think there are people that can help here, that
22 have given this kind of thing a lot of thought in related
23 fields. Particularly with the expense of these videos. I
24 realize this is not cheap.
25 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: Superintendent Hillard.
1 MR. HILLARD: Barry, I know what you are talking
2 about, but look at Chicago and look at New York, New York
3 with over 40,000 sworn police officer and Chicago with
4 13,500. In order for us to educate an 8-hour core block of
5 instruction would take us close to two and a half years with
6 the scheduling and with the matrix.
7 What I would hope to do is start out with the
8 academy and then from the academy go to those five detective
9 areas or five patrol areas. I agree with what you say.
10 Individually it would be nice, but I don't think right now
11 those resources are there for us. So I would begin with the
12 academy and then move into the patrol areas and the
13 detective areas.
14 MR. SCHECK: What I am saying is when you do that
15 either at the academy or at the various different stages,
16 you could actually just distribute a CD to people where they
17 do their homework before they come into the class and then
18 use it for a follow-up.
19 Whatever the model is, all I am suggesting is for
20 your department you would want to not just give a disk, but
21 you would want to give teacher's notes, saying this is how
22 you would give it and these are the kinds of lectures that
23 would be done. I think a tremendous amount of thought to
24 the pedagogy of this would be of great assistance.
25 MS. BASHINSKI: I think we talked about this. It
1 could be used in a variety of different settings, from roll
2 call training all the way through. In a smaller department
3 it may well be that you only have one or two people that you
4 are putting through that. I guess you need a plethora of
5 ways in which it would be presented in order to make it
6 useful across the whole country.
7 MR. SCHECK: Yes. I would talk to the chief and
8 say, how would you do this? Would you do it first at the
9 academy? Would you do it next year? How is that done? How
10 many hours do you really get the people? What's feasible?
11 What access do they have? I would give that a lot of
12 thought in order to make sure that this really works.
13 MS. SCARBOROUGH: As part of this project there is
14 an evaluation component at the end of it where we will be
15 comparing the instruction using the CD-ROM and then a
16 platform-based instruction at the training academy in our
17 state to see if there are any differences in the way the
18 officers perform. In order to be able to do the
19 platform-based instruction, it will have to be developed in
20 the traditional way so it will be available to individuals
21 or academies or training institutes as well. So it will be
22 in different types of media.
23 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: Any other comments or
24 questions?
25 MR. ASPLEN: I should have mentioned this before.
1 We have had requests for over 45,000 copies of the pamphlet
2 that the Commission put out, and that is before we even did
3 the mass mailings to all of the departments. That is just
4 based on people hearing about it, seeing it, getting it over
5 the Internet, et cetera. Over 45,000 copies have been
6 distributed.
7 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: So there is a need.
8 MR. ASPLEN: Yes.
9 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: I think it is very
10 interesting and good work. I like the graphics and color.
11 Thank you. We look forward to the next version.
12 MR. ASPLEN: Drs. Scarborough and Collins have
13 another meeting that they have to attend.
14 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: That brings us up to
15 Dr. Crow, working group chair, on the Research and
16 Development Working Group report. There is a hefty draft
17 here.

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