I'm back !!
My day two, at Kingston Police Station this time. The start of day 2 was much better from the beginning. Today, they sent a car round to pick me up in the morning, and brought me home at the end of day. Can't tell you how nice it was not to have to ride the Underground.
Met with Johathan Richard the head of the Scenes of the Crimes Unit in this part of London. Very nice man. Went over their practices and procedures, then assigned me to a Scene Manager, John. John and I went out and met with one of his Scene of the Crime Officers, Rob, who was working a burglary to an amusement park. They had 9 juveniles in custody for this burglary and needed to tie them to the crime. Rob is a young man probably in his early 20's and to his credit, very capable. Did his scene work not much different than we would. Photograph, dusted for prints, paint samples off of the wood door point of entry, and looked for blood, hair, fibers, blood. The differences are: they use only clear lifts, no white, no black backing, they use silver powder only, no black or any others, film camera only. Digital is only used for homicides, Rapes, and other serious crimes, and only by the photography unit....not CSI units. Not that they dont want to use digital, its about the $$. Sound familiar ?

Lunch at the local Pub....fish-n-chips, and a Guinness. What else would I have in London. They are just so amazed we don't have 3-4 beers at lunch.

Spent the rest of the day with Abbas Sheikh, Operations Manager, Forensic Services Command Unit. Very British gentleman. Very British. A tour of the processing lab there. Again, similar processing, ninhydrin, glue, DFO, ...

Good old classic Metro Police light sign.
Well you have to admit, they are color friendly cars.
Hard to explain, but the uniform officers who ride double in these cars, are not really cops, at least as we understand cops. No guns, they don't do traffic, they kind of ride around and do lots of public relations, and if something bad happens, they either do the best they can, or call in lots of support. There are these "special teams" kind of stationed around waiting for something like a bar fight or riot to happen, and they arrive to sort things out. Very odd, very different.
Doing my part in making London a safer place for everyone, except that I still want to drive on the wrong side of the road, and shifting with the left hand is no small task. In the end it was best that someone else drive and I very much agreed.

Tomorrow I'm off to a different station, and the main crime lab for serious crimes. Homicides, Robbery, and Sexual Crimes.