Students process crime scenes - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

Students process crime scenes

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The prints left behind often help investigators track down the suspects. That's what middle and high school students learned Tuesday at Wiregrass Georgia Technical College. The three day camp teaches them the basics of processing a crime scene. Soon the college will even offer an associate's degree in crime scene technology.

Shoe prints suspects leave behind can help police solve crimes. Investigators create molds of them to keep for evidence. Instructor Marshall Armstrong applies spray paint to the print, followed by hairspray, then pours dental stone that hardens creating a mold of the impression.

"You can actually ink this print and print a hard copy of it," said Armstrong. "A lot of investigators will scan it into a computer database and use a comparison with a database of shoe impressions."

The database can help narrow it down and help them track down the suspects. Students learned the basics of prosessing crime scene and television got some of them interested in the camp.

"More or less television, the TV show Bones and what she does, I find it so fascinating," said Brittini Turner, a camp participate.

Pairs of classmates fingerprint one another. They dusted for prints and matched up fingerprints with ones left on bottles.

"Trying to get in the mind of the person who did it and just seeing what they saw and looking for evidence of whatever they left behind, I find that pretty fun," said Turner.

Fun and educational as they learn the processes law officers use on a daily basis. Even if you ask Valdosta Police about the importance of fingerprints, there's a whole section in their crime lab devoted to fingerprinting and they say shoe prints are a piece of the puzzle in solving crimes.

If you're interested in processing crime scenes, next January, Wiregrass Georgia Techical college is offering a crime scene technology program. You can choose betweeen two specializations medical forensics or computer forensics.

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