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view the kind of people we normally deal with as more monstrous than any fictional monster I’ve read.”
    When detectives arrive at our crime scene they have two immediate concerns: identifying, preserving, and collective evidence; and apprehending the suspect. Since our attacker is still at large, the lead detective will coordinate with the supervising patrol sergeant to begin a search of the area. K-9 dogs would likely be called in, and police departments in surrounding areas would be notified.
    The detectives then do a walk-through during which they try to reconstruct the events leading up to and following the crime. Once they have a good sense of what’s what, they can make decisions on which kinds of evidence are likely to be of use (though often much more is collected than is actually used), and for a while they yield the floor to the crime scene technicians.
    Expert Witness
     
    “Ninety percent of departments do not have a ‘typical’ Crime Scene Unit,” observes Greg Dagnan. “Detectives, investigators or specially trained patrol officers collect evidence at crime scenes. For those agencies that do have specialized units, they usually have enough people that at least 4–5 persons can respond to a major crime scene, while they may go to smaller crime scenes in groups of two. Crime Scene Units are civilian employees who do the collection while investigators are interviewing people, conducting a neighborhood canvas, etc. Some are officers that have transferred into the crime scene department from other divisions within the department. Generally each department must decide how to configure their unit according to crime rates, resources and community perception. I have trained departments that only have one official Crime Scene Investigator, but that person coordinates, and is assisted by, Patrol and Detectives. Bottom line is that each agency does something a little different.”
    San Antonio Homicide Detective Joe McKinney gives this rundown on how detectives manage a case: “Detectives handle incidents (like the attack on the research center guard) as a team, dividing up responsibilities. Later, when one detective gets the report responsibility for the incident, he or she collates all the material generated by the team and puts them together into a document called a Prosecution Guide, which the District Attorney’s Office uses for trial. But when the incident is still fresh, one or two detectives will make the scene, speak with the handling officers and their supervisor, request an evidence technician (the CSU guys) and tell the evidence tech what, specifically, they need. Every crime scene is unique and there is almost always something in particular above and beyond the normal tests and evidentiary protocol a detective wants to get. Then the detectives at the scene will arrange for witnesses to be transported to Headquarters for statements. Detectives at the office will receive and interview witnesses. Suspects will either be arrested and taken to jail or returned to the detective’s office for an interview—again, this depends on the specific arrest, search, and seizure issues surrounding the case.”
    Detective Michael Buben of Lower Makefield, Pennsylvania, comments on the differences in the way big and small town cases are handled: “Larger departments have Violent Crime Squad detective and/or homicide units. In local departments such as ours, any detective working would respond, as well as some off duty detectives called in to assist. Detectives from the District Attorney’s office also are used to assist in such investigations, as well. There are a lot of experienced investigators who can be brought in to handle a major crime.”
    Who responds, and when, depends on a variety of factors. “The normal response time depends on whether detectives are on duty,” says Buben. “In small towns this might not be the case 24/7. If so, they usually respond with—or within minutes of—patrol officers.