Specialist Departments

Roles and Responsibilities of Specialist Departments in Criminal Investigations

Within serious investigations such as murder investigations and other investigations where the lives of people are at risk specialist departments such as the major crime squad will often become involved. Examples of roles and responsibilities of Specialist units and departments within criminal investigations include: Developing an investigation plan, due to the specialist nature of these departments they are better suited for developing an appropriate investigation plan to move the investigation into a major crime forward. The specialist departments involved in a criminal investigation will usually take over from the police detectives and will be in charge until the investigation is concluded. During the time of an investigation the specialist departments will attempt to gain as much information about a crime as possible to allow them to identify suspects or persons of interest in a case. In conjunction with the detectives, in the majority of cases members of specialist departments will carry out the following stages of the investigation; the investigation plan, setting up an incident room, investigating leads, researching and analysing intelligence systems, gathering and analysing facts, identifying patterns and links, process of elimination and ethical considerations.

Role of Specialist Departments in the OJ Simpson Case

The Specialist Department involved in the OJ Simpson case was the Homicide Special Section of the LAPD’s Robbery/Homicide Division. Two detectives, Tom Lange and Phil Vannatter from the specialist department were assigned as the lead detectives on the case. These detectives were responsible for getting in touch with Nicole’s parents to inform them of their daughter’s death and also responsible for contacting the coroner (pathologist) to attend the murder scene and examine the bodies. Both Lange and Vannatter discussed the investigation plan with other detectives at the murder scene and decided that OJ needed to be informed of his ex-wife’s death, they then decided that they would travel to the home of OJ to inform him. Tom Lange seeing the gathering members of the media and public decided that he would place a blanket from inside the house over the body of Nicole to prevent pictures from being taken of the body, this however contaminated any evidence on her body and led to all of this evidence being thrown out in court. After Fuhrman had identified blood at Simpson’s home Vannatter and Lange were responsible for assessing whether the home of Simpson should be classed as a further crime scene. Both Vannatter and Lange were also tasked with supervising the collection of evidence by the criminalists (SOCO’s) and they had to document all the evidence at both of the crime scenes. Later on within the case these officers interviewed OJ Simpson and identified him as the prime suspect.

Role of Specialist Departments in other Investigations

Specialist Departments will usually only be involved in major crimes. These crimes include major fraud crimes, murder or terrorist attacks. For example to major crime squad are likely to be involved in murders or major drug crimes. The bomb squad are likely to be involved in crimes involving explosions such as a terrorist attack. Specialist departments will be required as part of a criminal investigation when more specialist investigation methods and work is required. When involved specialist departments will take the lead in an investigation and will be involved in organising the investigation, investigating leads and interviewing suspects.