Processing a Scene

Processing a Scene:

• Arrive to a scene: Upon arriving on the scene, communicate with your fellow officers and dispatch that you are arriving on scene.

• Observe the scene: After you have communicated you arrived, make sure to call out a few details to dispatch so other officers responding know what to expect. Details include but are not limited to, vehicles found on scene, the number of suspects, the number of hostages, the type of weapon seen with the suspects. The secondary officer to arrive on the scene should observe and look around the area to see if there are any vehicles that might potentially be hiding in wait.

• Negotiation: 1 Officer is to be the set negotiator for the scene. This is usually the Primary who had arrived on scene first, or the person who made the first contact. The purpose of the negotiations is to safely get the hostage away from the scene unhurt without escalating the situation.

• Hostage Release: After officers have finished the negotiations with the suspect, have them walk the suspect out to an officer who will be waiting on the side of the building.

• Chase / Hostage Care: After the hostage has been released and the suspects have gotten into their vehicle, the officer that stayed behind is to take care of the hostage. This will include taking a bag off their head, cutting any zip ties, giving them any food, drink, or bandages. Make sure to search the hostage for any illegal items in case the suspects planted something on them. Get the hostages report of what happened. This is to include where the suspect was taken from, if they were hurt by the suspects, if the suspects said anything that could give away their identity. Also get any details from when they were taken, as that could help with the investigation.

• Evidence: Process the scene and look for any evidence that can be used to help with the processing of the suspect. This includes, but is not limited to: Fingerprints, Bullet Casings, and other DNA found at the scene. Place these in an evidence bag and bring them back to the station to process.

• Reset: After you are done processing a scene, use that command /PD “Bank, Store Robbery, etc….”. This will reset the scene for the next group that comes.