CRJS350(5) - Research Paper Example

There was a crowd of onlookers a few meters away from the building and the Department store was still swallowed upin flames. Following his initial investigations, the Battalion fire chief informed me of his initial findings as outlined below. According to the Battalion Chief, there were about one hundred people in the group of onlookers around the building. In addition, he reported that he and his team found three cans of gas containers made out of plastic, all of which he presented me with at the scene.

These cans each had an equal capacity of three gallons and all of them had remnants of a substance that smelled like gasoline. Furthermore, all of the cans had their spouts attached on them, though none of them was still capped. In this regard, one of my investigators took the three cans as evidence for further investigation. The battalion chief related that the fire had three points of origin. One point of origin is upstairs in the rear warehouse section, one in the upstairs ladies’clothing department, and one downstairs in the side entrance of the store where the outdoor and garden section is located.

It is clearly an arson fire. The battalion chief further informed me that his team was able to contain the fire in about 45 minutes, and he released the scene shortly after that. I was aware, from local media sources that this scene was one of the 6,000 stores in the United States, and they are very successful. TheNevanon Discount Department store was two stories high and has a customer elevator in the front of the store and a freight elevator in the rear. I was also aware that this chain of stores has had employee relationship problems—specifically with gender inequality—and recently laid off 18 women for complaining.

Identification and interview of witnesses The actions that can be taken pertaining to the crowd of onlookers that helped identify the offender included interviewing various groups of peopleto get all the necessary background information to establish whether the fire was accidental or incendiary (Munday, 1995). In order to identify and interview the witnesses to the incidents, two actions I took two actions as follows. Firstly, I Contacted the Battalion Chief, identified the first first-in firefighters and responder, as well as documented their observations through interviews.

Secondly, I identified the individual who reported the fire, the owner of the building (manager), the last person in the building just before the incident and one person who witnessed the fire, from the onlookers. I interviewed them and got the information from them about what transpired before, during and after the building caught fire, respectively (Quintiere, 1997). Scene security The two areas that I checked to ensure the scene could be searched safely included the normal entry points and the possible entry points for the potential suspect, as well as other ventilation points, including windows.

This is because, it was necessary to know which points my team and I could use to move in and out of the building without destroying evidence (Hitt, 2000). Secondly, I evaluated the scene for safety hazards like smoke levels and structural collapse. This is because smoke contains carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas, which are very lethal gases and may result into serious respiratory problems, and possibly death, within few minutes after continuous