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Re: Arson Dog
Posted by:
J L Mazerat (IP Logged)
Date: February 08, 2017 04:51PM
I like your idea. Investigator should not use all tools available. Maybe we need to go back to determine the Origin by the area of most damaged and negative corpus to determine the cause.
I'm sure sometime in the future there will be something better than a dog to assist the investigator in identifying locations where it would be best to clean a sample to be sent to the laboratory for analysis. It's my understanding that some are predicting that technicians will be operating portable GC's in the field and based on the results will be submitting samples to the laboratory for confirmation. Is that not what we're doing with the dogs.
There are extremes on both ends of this discussion. I personally believe the illumination of any tool that we can use when evaluating a fire scene is detrimental. If we're looking for the truth and apply the standard recommend it in 921 no tool should be eliminated.
I agree with the poster important that the objectivity has vanished the moment we put limitations on conducting an investigation.
Jim Mazerat
Forensic Investigations Group