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.

I don't know if I can do justice to this....but today I had a very unique experience. Running code through the streets of London, in an unmarked car with a little blue light on the roof. Three Flying Squad Inspectors and I headed to a robbery scene. The driver doing the in and out of the London streets, at a very fast pace, on narrow streets, into on-coming traffic, (don't worry lad, they will move out of the way) around lamps, across walkways, through school zones, doing what very much looked like a game of chicken with on-coming London double-decker busses.....the Inspector sitting next to me, with a road map in his hands, barking out directions to the driver !

When the ride was done...I actually shook the hand of Jason, the driver, and congratulated him on a most excellent and talented high-speed drive. His only remark was to smile and say "thank you, so good that you enjoyed that". They are just so damn polite here !

Ok, on to the robbery scene.....

My day has been assigned to Castle Tower Station. The home of the Flying Squad. These are the different police, who actually carry guns and respond to violent gun crimes, other than homicide. Armed robbery, armed kidnapping, etc. However, its not what you may think. All guns are kept in a locker, in a locked and alarmed room. When they know they are going to have to go out and take down say a group of bank robbers, they go downstairs, and each member is issued a Glock 17, 9mm, and a magazine of ammo. The 9mm projectile is removed from the casing, and half of the gunpowder is removed, then the projectile is put back in. They explained it to me this way..."we really dont want to kill anyone, we just want them to stop what they are doing". These guns....have never been fired. Ever. They don't even know if they work ! When they go to the range, they use range guns. I looked over these Glocks, and they are the original Glocks from way back. Metal Glocks. Steel Glocks. If you pull your handgun from your holster, you have to explain in great detail why you did that. No low ready, no combat stance, no pointing your gun at an armed suspect. If he points a gun at you (bank robbers here use shotguns) then, you may pull yours and point it at him. If he shoots, you can return fire. However, if you kill him, your on your own. The option of carrying a gun is yours. So, if for some reason, say his shotgun was not loaded....you most likely will be charged with murder, because you were not actually in danger from an unloaded shotgun. There you go !!

Different culture boys and girls, a different culture.



Guard walks out of the blue van and into the business. Lookout across the street signals his two buddies when the guard comes out of the business with the money bag. They beat the guard and take the cash. One guard, no gun. And this is a pick up from a small casino !!
The girl, is a witness. She saw it go down, and wrote the vehilce license plate on the getaway car down on her arm !! Nice thinking for a 13 year old.
Notice the lack of red tape covering every square inch of bag. Notice the lack of initials, and dates at every corner, notice the nice clear tape closing the top of the bag, and her initials on the two little tabs...and this bag is ready to send in. Oh, and she can just hand it over to someone else to drop off....its considered secure.
Got to spend time at the garage where they process vehicles. This white van had been used in a gang fight, by asian gang members who killed the front passenger and beat up the other gang members who were in the back and on their way to fight the other gangs....they just got ambushed first. Lovely.
Vehicle processing starts here, in a dark room, looking for fingerprints, inside and out.
The little yellow dots on the car, are little stick-on arrows that one guy puts there if he sees a fingerprint after looking the car over with a lamp. Each print is photographed as it is, no processing. Then the print is later processed with powder, or superglue, and each print is photographed again. Then the car is dye stained and put under UV light, and each print is photographed again !! A fingerprint, is recorded on film, 9 times. If there are 100 prints on this car, they end up with 900 photos of just prints....and the fingerprint lifts also. Me thinks just a little over-kill for a stolen car ???
Now this...is a super glue fuming tank ! Pull the car in, close the door, and turn it on. Will turn any car into a useless mass. If they do this to your car, the rule is, the government has to buy you another car. You cannot have this one back. It gets crushed. No wonder taxes are sky high here !
....and a bay for fingerprint dusting....
These are cars that have been involved in crimes, and are waiting to be processed. They may get to one or two a day, depending on how much they find as they go along. This is what they do here, all day, every day, all the time.

This 50 thousand $ car can now go back to the owner. Sorry about the condition old boy, but here is your Mercedes !

Very good day, exciting day, very long day....back at it tomorrow.

Well boys and girls, its the weekend, and I have decided to see what else was close by that would be different. Across the water is this country they call France, and if I remember, my family once started off here, so I figured. why not stop and say hello. Problem is, I don't speak French, and the only ones here who speak English are waiters and bartenders ! Which may or may not be a bad thing. Lets see what they have here, that Key West doesnt offer.
In case you don't know this already, and for future use....when in Paris, do not stand in the middle of the street to take a picture of a landmark, without a lookout ready to pull you to safety. My tip of the day.
I guess someone thought it a good idea to put up this erector set tower thing right in the middle of Paris. Nice I guess, dont know if any of you have seen this thing before. But here it is. The people appear to like it.

Well what can you say.....its really, really big !
Sorry, a little side trip here for those of you who like this sort of thing....this is the place where Lady Diana ended her last car ride.....I wanted to find the grave of Jim Morrison, however, I had to settle for this. Not even close is it ?
Doing my part to keep the big iron thing steady and not fall over. Just being a good American.
Oh, I found the French Army...they were driving around trying to find someone to surrender to.
Well, even I have to admit, this is something. Evening in Paris, with this as a background. Dinner at a sidewalk cafe, a little wine....I don't care who you are, this is nice, very nice.

Ok, the obligatory European police photo sets...
French Motor Police.
French horse Police...(taken for Janeth)
I'll give you a hint....they made a movie about a bell-ringer with a big hump on his back here...
I found this little art gallery here in Paris, called Du Louvre ?
Spectacular ! If I could say it in French, I would have !
No picture taking in Du Louvre....you must be clandestine...
No picture taking in Du Louvre, you must be fast....


No picture taking in the......damn, I can see the Du Louvre security people talking on their radios and walking my way at a fast clip. Time to depart now and blend in with the Japanese tourists...bye, see you back in London.

Ok, it was bound to happen. Lost in London.
Allow me to start at the beginning. Morning walk to the rail (no car pick up today) Rail to Wimbledon, Wimbledon to Waterloo Underground, Waterloo to (no kidding) Elephant & Castle.
Out on the street. Let me explain, there are no street signs. London is old, sometimes, they have up high on buildings the name of the street, from back in the horse and carrage days, but not always. Ask little old mum sitting on a bench, she points me in a direction, sort of that way.
Dodge cabs, double-decker busses, scooters, coopers, bikes, and lots of running people to make it over to where she said I should be. Something wrong here, find another little old mum walking her dog. The first little old mum had it wrong, you need to go sort of that other way. Great, I'm already late. Find two uniform officers walking the beat....very good....very bad, they do not speak English. Not American English, not British English, they speak sort of East Indies English. Their best help, go that way, you will see it. How nice.
After a walk the distance of near the entire British Empire, I find Amelia Street. This is good. I was told to find the blue gate. I found a red gate. (see 2 photos down) Ring bell and nice lady answers, tells me I am at wrong door, go around to the front. Go to front, and speak to the nice lady in person...who turns out to be a man. Tell him who I am here to see. He does not know that man. Finally get in contact with my host, and he wants me to meet him at the blue gate ??
Best directions of the day...."go behind the Pub at the corner, the blue gate is there". Sure enough, don't know how I missed that one !

You can't tell it from the photo, but Walworth Police Station in the heart of Homicide and Serious Crimes. This is where the big brains work, and I mean that. These are very serious and talented people here. I have been looking for the answer to "how do they do that" and I found it here. Top forensic folks. Floors and floors of assorted labs. Photo labs, video labs, chemical processing labs, fingerprint labs, hair, fiber, glass, footwear, DNA, firearms. Got to speak with persons from all the areas, and view their work. It would take me pages to explain this day and cover all I did and learned here. I could spend a month in this one place, and still not learn everything I wanted to know about it.
We did share information. I actually introduced something they did not know about on fingerprinting cartridge casings, and they showed me some lighting and photography techniques I, did not know about. It was a great day for all of us. We ended up staying late, and going over case scene photos and discussing Crime Scene tricks and secrets. It was great !!

I found the mountain top....and met, ...them.



Public entrance, Walworth Police Station, Amelia Street, London

Back door to the Police lot. Very old area of London, and very different meld of cultures. English language mixed with a number of other languages and shouting. I was told that during the day it was fine....night, was a different story. At lunch, had to explain to the person behind the counter how to build a ham sandwich. Well, I assume it was ham. I'm learning that sometimes it better not to ask and just go with it.

Clock has finally caught up with me, and now at a regular sleep schedule. May not sound like much to you reading this, however wide awake at 3 AM does put a damper on your afternoon.

All is well, and am doing fine.

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.

Day 1 Scotland Yard

Just so you have an idea. Up early, train station is about a half a mile away. Take train for two stops, exit train, get on to the London Underground, get off Underground two or three stops later and get off...get on another Underground in different direction....ride to St. James, and end at the Scotland Yard, or The Metropolitan Police if you would rather. Forget driving, no way. Even the locals dont drive in.
This is my host David Tadd, Head of the Forensics Unit, Serious Crimes, and the man responsible for this training. The Yard had a photographer come down and take a series of photographs that I will bring back with me. This is just one that he took with my camera so I could send it.
I spent all day here today and met with the heads of the burglary and homicide divisions, as well as the Yard historian, fingerprint sections of burglary, homicide, and the very cool...anti-terrorist unit. With 200 homicides a year, not including suicides, natural, industrial, they appear to have the system down well. Most obvious, is that they have the resources available to handle such a load. Teams respond to homicides (photographer, fingerprinting, evidence processing, collection, packaging) and a Scene of the Crime Manager. Way too much to mention here, but thats just a start of the players involved.
Everyone was most pleasant and made me feel very much at home. Long lunch with the department heads of fingerprints, burglary, homicide, and David, discussing the different and not so different issues and practices of our departments. We are not that much different at all. Their biggest complaint ? Uniform officers messing the crime scene up before the investigators arrive. No kidding.
One thing that was a little odd, but could get used to, the 5 of us had gin and tonics with lunch, and killed a bottle of a nice white wine....then went back to work. J.R, what do you think ?

I'll talk more about the Yard later. First day was teriffic. No doubt.

These things are parked all around the block where Scotland Yard is located. Two uniformed officers, one armed with a machine gun were walking the beat by the main entrance. Thats something you just dont see every day.

Note the pull down windshield cage to protect the glass from thrown rocks and bottles during riots.
Its been a very long day, near midnight, and I need to be at the Yard by 8:15 tomorrow.
Will update again tomorrow after my next adventure.