The police department is presently on a mission to upgrade its forensic capabilities and following up on that, a team of officers is undergoing a two month training session. With assistance from the republic of Panama Judicial Technical Police, members of the scenes of crime unit of the police department are undergoing training in areas of ocular inspection, fingerprint identification and evidence analysis and processing. We caught up with them as they ran a simulation for the Ministry of Home Affairs' CEO Alan usher.
Alan Usher – CEO Ministry of Home Affairs
"It's an effort that we have taken to upgrade the investigative capability of the police."
Alfonso Noble
"Will this make a difference?"
Alan Usher
"Yes this will make a difference. For quite some time now we have identified some limitations within the police department. Commissioner Zetina specifically has been highlighting the deficiency in terms of scenes of crime capability as well as the fingerprinting. This grouping of people will not be moved. They will stay as scenes of crime technicians for the duration of their service."
Cardinal Lopez - Training Participant
"This information will be used for the purpose of investigation. There will be an investigating person from the police so therefore we would give them the evidence that we would have collected from off the scene itself and this would go to the forensics and this would reinforce the case at court."
Sgt. Eleanor Ramirez – Training Participant
"When we visit a scene: how to approach a scene, how to document evidence, lift evidence and fingerprinting."
The course runs for 2 months and will wrap on October 22nd.