Investigator

SECURITY STAFF

Investigator

Access: Security, Crime Labs, Morgue, Qualifications: At least 25 years of age, applicable Criminal Forensics degree or 7 years experience in Criminal Forensics/Investigation. Optionally: Full Cadetship to perform arrests. Employers: Zavodskoi Interstellar, Idris Incorporated, The Private Military Contracting Group Supervisors: Head of Security Duties: Investigate crime scenes, interrogation of witnesses and suspects, record evidence, perform autopsies. Guides: Guide to Security, Corporate Regulations, Guide to Cadavers, Guide to Forensics, the other Guide to Forensics

The Investigator is the expert in all things CSI. Their main job is to investigate crimes through evidence, interviews, and deductive reasoning. Unlike every other person in security, except your boss, you have access to the cutting edge technology and resources to get to the bottom of any case. Just remember, you handle the evidence and the interrogations, the officers handle the arrests and statements. However, like everyone else in security, you must have EVA training.

General Guidelines

As the Investigator, you are afforded machines and equipment for gathering, analyzing, and cataloging evidence whether they be physical or otherwise. Nearly the entire upper floor of security is dedicated to your duties, with the sole exceptions being the briefing room and firing range. Get acquainted with your workspaces. You'll likely be spending more time in the Forensics Lab at the end of the hallway than your own office. Get familiar with the machines and how they operate. Make sure you know how to organize the evidence storage right next door. Last, but certainly not least, don't ignore the power of an interrogation and voice recorder. With these rooms and the equipment within, you can solve any case.

Keep in mind that your access to the rest of security is limited. You are not an officer and thus not expected to conduct arrests or attend to the other duties of security. You are here to investigate, end of story.

Detainment And Use Of Force

This section regarding arrests/detainments is only applicable if your Investigator has completed a 4-week cadetship and that is reflected on the employment and security records. If your Investigator has not completed the cadetship and detains someone, they can be charged with "Illegal Detention, Arrest, or Holding". If the firearm is utilized outside of self-defense (i.e. during an arrest/detainment or in support of other officers who perform such an arrest or detainment), they can also be charged with "Gross Negligence".

You can't arrest crew members because you don't have access to the processing room or brig timers. You are allowed to detain a suspect if you directly witness an infraction and/or encounter a suspect with a pending warrant or arrest order. In any situation you need to call security officers to assist. This doesn't mean you should be joining manhunts to find a suspect - you don't have the tools to safely detain someone on the run and resisting. Basically, if you can't detain the suspect using only your flash and/or charming personality, just stay back and try to get officers on scene.

Your gun is only meant to be used in self-defense. When dealing with armed suspects stay on the periphery and let officers take the heat (and bullets).

Tools of the Trade

• Crime Scene Kit - Your trusty suitcase, which you can use to haul around all of your forensics junk. It comes pre-packed with all the basics.

• Fingerprint Powder & Fingerprint Card - One of your primary tools. Use the powder on doors, weapons, clothes, or generally anything you suspect that has been touched by a criminal. If anyone has touched what you powder, you'll get a fingerprint card. The fingerprint card can also be used on people in case you can't find their record. Hold a blank fingerprint card, aim for the suspect's hands, ensure they have no gloves on, and use the card on them.

• Fiber Collection Kit - One of your primary tools, but secondary to finding prints due to the interchangeability of clothing. Mostly used as supporting evidence in the case of partial prints that incriminate multiple people. Use it on doors, weapons, clothes, anything you suspect that has been touched by a criminal. If anyone has touched what you use it on, you'll get a bag of fibers. You have a special pair of gloves to not accidently incriminate yourself.

• UV Goggles & Luminol - The luminol will cause any blood that has been sprayed away to appear when under UV light. You only have a limited amount of luminol, so use it carefully.

• Reagent Scanner & Syringe - The reagent scanner can be used to determine the chemical make-up of nearly anything. It can be useful to test food, drinks, and even blood using the syringe. The results show what chemicals were found. For precise measurements of each chemical, an advanced reagent scanner can be requested from Science. The syringe is particularly useful to draw blood for testing with the reagent scanner, just make sure you have a vial nearby to store the extra blood.

• Police Tape - When you arrive at a crime scene you should use this to tape off every possible entryway and prevent contamination of potential evidence. Throw out anyone who cuts the tape. Try not to completely block off a main hallway, unless it's absolutely necessary, and don't take too long to not hold up the Janitor.

• Camera - Useful to carry around with you. Considering you are not equipped with the offensive and defensive tools that an Officer has, you take an incriminating picture if the opportunity presents itself and then swiftly run the hell away. It is also very useful for cataloging crime scenes, evidence, and more.

• Recorder - Useful in case you need to perform an interview, or turn it on in secret and try to goad someone into incriminating themself with their own words.

• Box of Swab Kits - When there's a blood trail on the floor, and no body in sight, whap the blood with one of these to take a DNA sample. You can also swab bloody weapons, bloody clothes, or people mouths.

• Box of Evidence Bags - Anything that could be potential evidence needs to be bagged, or else the evidence may get contaminated!

• Labeler - Slap labels on those nameless evidence bags unless you want to forget which bloody weapon was from what crime scene in relevance to what investigation. You can harass cargo for some empty boxes, label them accordingly and stash anything relevant in there. It is also very useful for labelling the evidence storage lockers.

Building a Case

The most important tenets in investigating crimes - sometimes called the legal burden of proof, or going beyond reasonable doubt - is to ascertain the following:

• Motive - This is often the most difficult thing to determine, as it usually cannot be proven by material evidence, and is crucial to proper sentencing. Motive is the difference between an assault charge and attempted murder - vandalism to sabotage - and sedition to mutiny. In order to properly charge someone with capital crimes such as murder or terrorist acts, you must be able to prove intent. Often, the only way to ascertain motive is to convince them to tell you, however, use your better judgement. A suspect that fires on someone with a .357 revolver has pretty clear intentions, despite what they might suggest.

• Means - Typically, forensics can uncover this. The means to which the crime was carried out is the bare-bones facts; the details. Usually, this is in the form of a narrative, explaining, in active practice, exactly how the crime was carried out. How someone broke into an area, through what means someone was assaulted. It is here that you must prove what it is exactly that they did.

• Presence/Confirmed Involvement - Again, typically forensics can typically uncover this, although witnesses may also be able to provide supporting statements. Confirming presence or involvement simply means to be able to place a suspect at the area when the crime happened. Finding a suspect's fingerprints all over a murder scene, the AI reporting someone breaking into an area, or an officer or other witness providing testimony are all indicators that your suspect was present at the crime. This usually lays the foundation of your investigation and will give you your preliminary list of suspects - additionally, it is the easiest to prove, especially with forensics or photographic evidence.

Sometimes, however, there's going to be a witness but no evidence. You can interview witnesses in your office, and use their statements (which you can record with your trusty tape recorder) to obtain a warrant to have officers search or detain suspicious individuals.

Proper Proceedings

Have your printed dossiers with you or on file at all times - these dossiers act as the evidence against the criminal. Typically, a dossier - or case files, as they are sometimes called - consists of the following:

• Fingerprint and fiber analysis reports, printed from the high powered-electron microscope
• DNA analysis reports, printed from the DNA analyzer
• Copies of the medical/security records of any suspects with matching fingerprints/DNA pertaining to your case
• Photos of the crime scene, or of any incriminating action
• Interrogation recording transcripts, of either witnesses or suspects
• Signed confessions from suspects
• Any forensics-related paperwork, such as autopsy reports, body-scan print outs, bloodwork forms, etc. (Most of these can be found from the paperwork database at any request console, under the security archives.)
• A thorough case report summarizing your findings and evidence is an invaluable centerpiece to any case dossier.

After producing your dossier you will want to hand it to the Head of Security or equivalent, and then after properly labeling it, archiving it in the evidence locker filing cabinet.

You've found a Crime Scene/Body, Now What?

First, cordon off the area with the supplied police tape to ensure the crime scene isn't further contaminated by passerby's. Rest assured that many of the crew will try to involve themselves if the crime scene is in a public area. Some may even disregard the presence of your tape and walk right through a crime-scene, so if it's in a populated area try calling for an Officer to assist you in keeping the crime-scene from interference. Remember to wear your gloves so you don't contaminate evidence yourself.

Once the crime scene is properly taped off and free of loitering assistants, you can begin getting to work. Start by getting pictures of the location of the body, and any other suspicious items. Then, use your swab kit to sample blood if any is present at the scene. Then, begin collecting evidence and putting it in bags with your gloves on. Use your judgement as to what constitutes evidence or not. Bloodied knife? Evidence. Bag of chips? Probably not evidence if it was discarded in a main hallway, definitely evidence if found in a place it has no regular business being.

Make sure to lift the crime scene as soon as possible, so that crew can once again use the part of the ship.

Take the blood samples to the DNA Analyzer to get them checked for DNA. Remember to close the lid after a sample is loaded, and open it again after ejecting it so you can get your next sample in. The analyzer can process one sample at a time, and will take a minute or so to produce its analysis. Once you have your results, you can compare your DNA strings to those stored in the medical records (which you can access in your office). If your victim has been disfigured or is otherwise impossible to identify, this is also your chance to put a proper ID on them.

Next, it's time to search for fibers and prints. You lift both of these from evidence using the Fiber Collection Kit and Fingerprint Powder respectively, and analyze them by putting them in your Electron Microscope. If you're lucky, the culprit might've handled valuable evidence (such as the murder weapon) without gloves, but if not you might always have a few fibers to go off on. Remember that for fibers, you need to transfer them to a microscope slide before before you can put them under your microscope (thankfully, each slide is reusable).

At this point, you more often than not have enough evidence to get security to bring it at least one major suspect, if not arrest them outright. Make sure to communicate your findings over the security radio, so security can be on the lookout for suspects and send them to you for interrogation.

Performing Autopsies

If the body isn't in your custody, fear not! Medical may have mistakenly taken the corpse. Ensure to politely ask them for the whereabouts of the victim and ensure you remind them that you have first priority for the processing of victims of crimes or workplace accidents. If your character is unable to perform autopsies, you can still contact other qualified people to help the investigation or perform it together.

To perform an autopsy, you're going to need a scalpel, autopsy scanner, a mask, and a pair of gloves. Make sure to put on the mask and gloves before you begin, to avoid contaminating the body.

Then, use a health analyzer to find out damage areas on the victim, and use the scalpel on every affected zone once. Make sure to scan every zone with the autopsy scanner, and get a printout when you're done. Voila, you have a list of every injury on the body, complete with precise time and responsible weapon. Make sure to communicate your findings with security over the security radio and file the required paperwork.

Lastly, one additional thing you can do if you can't find any evidence pointing to a cause of death on the body is to perform a reagents test. To do this, grab a syringe, get a blood sample from the body, and put it through the mass-spectrometer found in the forensics lab. The mass-spectrometer should give you an accurate reading of any chemicals that were present in the victim's body at the time of death. (Note: this can also be used on living victims if you believe they've been drugged.)

Sidetasks

Technically, the above represents the entirety of your job. Despite this, you will rarely be called upon to investigate a crime, since the victim is usually able to cry out for help and the perpetrator is quickly identified. Luckily, there are some other things that you can do instead:

• Be a general assistant to Security - the warden may occasionally need prisoners escorted to medbay, or for spare jumpsuits to be retrieved for demoted personnel.
• Use the camera terminal in your office or the lobby to scan the ship on blue alert. Look around for any crimes, then report it over the Security channel or head over there yourself. It's probably not a good idea to announce it over the general radio, or the criminal in question will usually realize that you're onto them and get away.
• Update the security records. This is meant to be the Warden's job, but you'll be hard pressed to see him actually doing that.

Traitoring

You are the investigative force aboard the ship. You can falsify evidence, mishandle evidence, and cover up your tracks for whatever devious plan you enact. Just keep in mind that security has a direct link to you, and being too suspicious over the radio may lead to the rest of security to suspect you for being a criminal.