Crime lab office: Don’t contaminate crime scenes

THE Regional Crime Laboratory Office (RCLO 11) urged the public, in the event of crime incidents, to preserve the crime scene as to not contaminate the evidences.

RCLO 11 regional director Police Superintendent Georby Manuel said during a press forum that the preservation of the crime scene is one of the challenges that they have been confronted with, as the first responders or the people in the area tend to mess up the placement of evidences due to lack of knowledge on crime scene preservation.

He said they have been conducting several orientations in the communities to equip them with enough information on how to preserve the crime scene where evidences are present. The crime scene investigation is the most critical stage where collection of forensic evidences will be conducted.

“In fact sa mga barangay nga pumupunta kami, (we tell them that) by protecting the crime scene, you have already done your part,” Manuel said.

He emphasized that the mere touching of the evidences, where fingerprints will be left by people who were there, could already affect the whole investigation process.

“Once ang isang ebidensya doon ma-dislocate, kahit anong sophisticated na machine natin at na-contaminate ang crime scene, ang ebidensya hindi pa rin magiging effective ang findings natin,” he added.

Thus, they encourage the cooperation of the public and those barangay security officials or tanod to observe restrain when responding to any crime incident. Since they are within the community, residents will call them first and the police are only secondary responders.

“If these people knows what they are doing to protect those evidence is a very a great help to

our laboratory examination,” he said.

“Laboratory examinations emanates from the crime scene itself, kaya nga nagpapasalamat po ako dito sa Davao kayo sa Media community ay malaki ang tulong to disseminate,” he added.

Meanwhile, Manuel clarified to the public that their office is not called Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO). It is only part of their functions in the crime laboratory. JCR