The St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office aims to make crime response more efficient with the addition of a mobile crime scene unit, a transportation van turned crime scene analysis hub that helps investigators save time getting equipment to parish crime scenes.
Investigating and processing crime scenes involves many tools.
Markers, flags and spray paint to denote evidence. Booties and hazmat suits to prevent contamination. Fingerprint powder; casting material for collecting impressions of footprints and tire treads; and containers and bags of various types to store evidence.
Then there are bigger items, such as portable lights and privacy partitions.
The range of equipment is necessary because you may not know what you’ll need at a scene until you need it, said Lt. Sloane Turner, Criminal Investigations Division supervisor for the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office.
In 2022, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office refurbished a jail transportation van turned department fleet vehicle into a mobile crime scene unit, a single stop for the department’s crime scene needs.
The van was outfitted with shelves and storage and is now housed at the agency’s Public Safety Complex at the intersection of Main and Cypress Island highways. Stocked inside are the tools and equipment listed above, plus more, as the department makes additions as new needs arise, Turner said.
Detectives keep certain essentials stocked in their units, but before the mobile crime scene unit was instituted the larger items, such as a metal detector or magnets to dredge a body of water for a discarded weapon, were divided across detectives’ units or kept at one of the sheriff’s office’s various facilities, adult detectives supervisor Sgt. Vicky LaGrange said.
If a tool was needed and the person keeping it wasn’t on scene, either that person would need to be diverted from other work to deliver it or the investigators would have to lose manpower at the scene to send someone to collect it, they said .
Having the mobile unit is a time saver.
“It’s a big improvement because it’s time. Time is of the essence,” Turner said. “If we have to backtrack and start calling someone who is not on scene to bring this and that, then I have to wait on them. Now it’s all in one vehicle. We can use that time to process the scene and collect evidence.”
Being efficient and making the most of the time is important for an agency covering a split parish, they said.
St. Martin Parish is divided into upper and lower St. Martin, cleaved in two by Iberia Parish. Getting to a crime scene in lower St. Martin might take upwards of an hour; if a key piece of equipment is forgotten, it’s a two-hour round trip to retrieve it. That time could delay an investigation, Turner said.
“We have rules we have to follow. When we get a search warrant for a property, once you leave that property you relinquish that and you’d have to get another search warrant. If we need the metal detector and it’s not there and we have to come back, we’d have to get another search warrant,” Turner said.
Beyond the major cases, such as homicides, whether the mobile crime scene unit is needed often depends on the volume of evidence to be processed and the crime’s location, LaGrange said. With a considerable amount of rural areas in the parish, such tools as the portable lights are often a need, they said.
When the van is needed, whichever detective is most conveniently located will pick up the van en route to the crime scene. Once the scene is clear, the supervisor in charge of the scene will take stock of what supplies were used and ensure the van is restocked, they said.
When out in the field, the van can also double as a mobile office or workspace, shielding computers or other sensitive tools and evidence from the elements as investigators conduct early analysis work, LaGrange said.
“You have more room in case you need to do something,” she said.