Mission Statement

Provide the residents of Charlotte County with forensic science service that meets agreed quality standards.

Develop the range, cost-effectiveness and quality of these services to meet our goals and requirements.

Provide educational presentations to fellow law enforcement officers as well as civilian entities within the community that will benefit from the work performed by the Crime Lab.

Responsibilities

Collect, analyze and maintain care, custody and control of evidence and official laboratory business records.

Provide scientific and technical information for ongoing investigations.

Provide technical assistance at crime scenes.

Provide expert testimony in Courts of Law.

Stay abreast of newest technologies and scientific innovations to provide the quality of our service.

General Information

The CCSO Crime Lab has 4 permanent employees and falls under the Major Crime Unit of the CCSO. The staffing consists of 3 Crime Lab Technicians and MD who supervises the Crime Lab and its employees.

The Crime Lab responds to all Major Crime Scenes such as Homicides, Suspicious deaths, Robberies, Sex Crimes etc., and are subject to call 24 Hr. a day 7 days a week.

During call out Crime Scene Technicians are responsible for properly processing the crime scene, which includes but not limited to Videotaping, taking digital and 35mm photographs, fingerprinting, crime scene sketching, and collection of all physical evidence including trace evidence.

During normal business hours, which are 7:00 am to 05:00 pm Monday through Friday

Crime Scene Technicians are responsible for the completion of Lab Service requests from CCSO Officers, attorneys and other outside agencies.

In our duty we are using very sophisticated equipment:

• AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) for instant access to the statewide criminal fingerprint database.
• ALS (Alternative Light Source) CRIMESCOPE CS-16 which can be used for Detection and collection of trace evidence and body fluids, and also for chemical Enhancement of certain latent prints
• Optical bridge comparison microscope for hair and fiber comparison.
• Polarizing microscope
• Equipment for regular and microphotography.
• We are using a computer program for matching tire prints. The program keeps more than 14,000 tire print designs in its memory bank.

In addition I would like to say that we are maintaining a massive database of fingerprints and palm prints, which will be used to compare latent prints from any crime scene to a particular suspect.