Last day at Scotland Yard

Well, my time is up here in London, and I have had my last working day at Scotland Yard.
My day was spent at the Lewisham Police Station, Homicide Team. My host was Cas Sutherland, Crime Scene Manager. He greeted me with the information that last night, there had been a shooting with shotgun to the face, and he had thought of calling me during the night to respond, but did not want to disturb me so late. So kind of him.

Aside from the forensic part, my real interest here with the Metropolitan Police, was how the Yard works homicide scenes and the follow-up investigation to its conclusion. From my day one here and my daily visits and access to everyone and every step of the Yard's procedures, the picture has become pretty clear, that its all about the dedication of the people. That sounds a little too simple, and no great surprise, however, it really isn't all that obvious, until you can actually see the whole package in action. Spending time with the system every day in a progression that lead to the homicide unit, everything becomes clear that in the end, they just do it different. Thier system works well. Really, thats it. Henry Ford would be proud of the assembly line style of criminal investigation that Scotland Yard uses, and with outstanding success.

Last night I got a telephone call from David Tadd, who was on holiday at his other home in Spain. David is the one who organized my daily schedule here, and he wanted to talk about my two weeks, and get some of my feelings on the program he set up for me. That phone call is an example of how all of this works. Organized, sequencial, and followed up on.

It's going to take me a while to explain all of this when I get back to the PD, and to my fellow Detective Division and Evidence Technician partners, and I hope I can do it justice.

I know I'm returning a better investigator than I may have been two weeks ago.