CLPEX Chat Board

SPRING POLLEN MAKES IT HARD FOR POLICE TO GET FINGERPRINTS

Heavy pollen across the U.S. Southeast this spring is giving criminals a helping hand.

The yellow dust coating cars and porch furniture also makes it hard for police to collect fingerprints at crime scenes, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

"There was too much pollen on the car to get prints," one officer wrote in a recent report about thieves stealing the tires and rims from a car at an Athens, Georgia apartment complex.

Officers run into this problem each spring, when trees send out their pollen, but, the volume of pollen this year is making it especially tough for officers as they look for fingerprints that could identify a criminal, Kim Coder, a professor of tree biology at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, told the newspaper.

http://news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer ... d45e5.html

Come, now. This sounds like an excuse for a Crime Scene Technician too lazy to do the job right, although I have never been faced with the situation described. Is it really true?

Naaaaaaa----An Urban Myth.

When I started the big thing was you could not get latents off of wet items or off of wood.

I used to see in early reports that latent prints could not be obtained because "the surface was dirty" "the surface was wet" "what they touched was wood" "the only thing touched was paper" and my all time favorite was "no processing was done because the burglary subjects wore gloves"

???How did the officer know they wore gloves?????

After successfully processing items covered with volcanic ash after St. Helens blew her top, pollen is a piece of cake. I was called yesterday about the story from a local station and my reply was that if burglars believed it, so much the better. And I have similar memories, Charlie. I recall endless excuses for not even trying, wet, dirty, too rough, too slick. One even noted no prints could be found because the surface was vertical, and, quote, the powder kept falling off, end quote.

Ouch. That was good. I have to put it in my book "That Brush Don't Fit My Fingers"

I don know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies, Mizz Scarlet---but I do know that a gentle puff of wind from the mouth of the officer or technician will magically make the pollen fly, fly away. Try it. It really works. C'mon! You know you want to...

I don't think they meant that the pollen prevented technicians from finding prints actually on the surface - but it made it less likely for suspects to leave prints in the first place. The substrate was covered with pollen so when the suspect touched the surface the moisture on the friction ridges was absobed by the pollen and not deposited on the substrate. I have encountered this same thing at scenes where there is a heavy layer of dust on surfaces. I could tell the surface was touched because the dust was disturbed, but no ridge structure could be recovered because the dust absorbed the moisture from the friction ridges.

Todd

I failed to read the actual article linked above before I posted my last. I mistakenly thought the article was the same as that linked in this weeks "Detail". The "Find Law" article linked above sure makes it seem as though the techs are lazy. But the Herald Tribune includes an additional quote for a much better explanation of why they have trouble getting prints.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs. ... 05&start=1.


Todd

Radarmoose---You are right.

Pollen covering latent prints VS Pollen creating a barrier to leaving latent prints.

It is amazing what changing a few words can do.

On another thread there is a disscussion of peer review.

Peer Review VS Work reviewed by a peer. Different meanings.

Thanks for pointing out the barrier thing. My faith has been restored.