Forensics Expert Examines 20 Crime Scene Investigations from Film & TV | Technique Critique | WIRED

look at the blood spatter bang-bang-bang My name is Matthew Steiner Matt Steiner is a senior crime scene analyst and veteran investigator of over 21 years today we're gonna break down the portrayal of forensic science and TV and movies as we're critiquing these clips understand that their goal is to entertain and they definitely do that the wire trajectory analysis first off the gun safety and this was it was comical and not realistic you wouldn't take a loaded weapon and start waving around at a crime scene initially the original crime scene investigator on the scene should've took note of directionality we do that by looking at the Concordia fracturing of glass to see which direction of force is going off oh so we would have known in this case originally that the bullet was coming from outside to the inside of the kitchen so what they do from that point is they try to figure what would the trajectory line be from that bullet hole through her deceased body which way was that bullet going fuckin'-a lo and behold there is the bullet in the door from that point I think we deviate from reality but we wouldn't just start picking at that hole they could be destroying rifling that's on that bolt and that's what really we're going to sent in a lab to do some sort of analysis compared to a suspects gun NCIS personal protective equipment no rule number two is always wear gloves but when there's this much blood reindeer in the truck so in this scene they actually talk about wearing personal protective equipment Rainier yet no one is wearing any sort of garb what happened everyone is wearing just like a jumpsuit or the regular tire and just gloves basically you would never want to do that apparently that was beyond that our crime-scene technician he's taking photographs he then wipes his brow Danny handles Ebbets basically what he's done he's taken DNA that was on that camera on his brow and put it on to our evidence on the scene and then proceeded to have a whole conversation while holding that evidence right by his face you see the counselor that's a pretty good movie again improper procedure for collection of DNA evidence he could have been wearing a tie back suit a mask you may even want to wear goggles or glasses and multiple layers of gloves rule number two is always wear clothes I would strip out the outer layer of gloves put another layer of gloves on top of it and then proceed to collect evidence I think I found that out boss recovering evidence zodiac initial observations is that the vehicle might have been wiped down which you can see sometimes with oblique lighting and a scene you can see sometimes fingerprints so that's a pretty good observation thank you as we proceed the other side of the vehicle there's a shell casing on the driver's side front floor which wasn't marked or photographed as far as I could tell oh well that's good if things got to be documented in situ or as is as found he just picks it up with a pen where is that pen been beforehand you know was it in your hand was it in your ear was it in your nose it's got DNA from who knows where I don't know where this started unfortunately I've seen this in real life if anything if this is like a PSA of what not to do at a crime scene that's one of those big things you wouldn't want to do at a crime scene an idiot tire impression evidence the flash getaway cars and Mustang Shelby gt500 Shelby's have a rear super-wide tire specific to that model 12 inches with an asymmetrical tread I don't think anyone with just by looking at a tire impression to say it came from a specific vehicle sorry we went do some sort of dental stone casting of that impression recover it send to the lab and then there's database which they can search to say what sort of vehicles it could come from there's something else and there's a pen again being used to collect evidence like that gave me that pen which was improper before he died another thing you wouldn't do is if anything is inside of our impression at our scene we would leave it there we would cast it in place we wouldn't sample it because you could be destroying tread we're inside that impression yeah yeah after he samples with the pen fecal excrement animal I guess I don't know how he would know the difference between human and animal feces which I don't think is realistic no loaded weapon examining a body [Music] so what are we looking at here doc the worst dress tip I've ever seen this stiff and I found it a beat together for five years so show some respect so it's common for TV and movies to present crime-scene investigation in this fashion where we have all these different people doing a million different things all at once inside of a crime scene that means it's working we want that crime scene clear we wouldn't want anyone in there except the people who are doing the investigation in real life not that we would make fun of someone who is dead show some respect but there is a certain gallows humor that goes along with crime scene investigation and death investigation and it's one of the ways to cope with it is to adopt this type of humor I know crime scene analysis as portrayed in boondocks aids you got any theories time he was the only one done right double tap back of the head independence new hit man wants to leave his mark that's a possibility another possibility is they were placed there with Aitchison camped in the scene they focus too much on the why the crime happened what is this their crime scene analysis usually deals with the who the what the where oh I forgot about that one when the howl of something but never the walk and it makes me feel like river dancing the Y has to do it motive and there's no way that we can prove why with science heat crime-scene analysis this guy here he's got what appears to be a DoubleTap entry wound to the sternum tattooing around the head wound scorched the bone close-range probably executed in this scene we have our I'm assuming he's a crime scene investigator he makes an assumption that a gunshot entry wound was that close range and if you're willing to the sternum close range we can make those determinations when you fire a gun besides the bullet that comes out of the barrel we have burning an unburned gunpowder what difference does it make that burning gunpowder will go a certain distance we then also have unburned gunpowder that goes a further distance to that and then obviously the bullet goes the furthest is bang bang bang so we'll look at the injuries we'll look at whether there is burning and then we'll look for other things like stippling and that is the operations caused by the unburned gunpowder operating the skin what about them not having a weapon itself you really couldn't say exactly but we could take that weapon in the same ammunition bring it to ballistics and do so test firings at different distances to replicate that pattern to see we get the same diameter of gunshot residue and burning rock-and-roll fingerprint evidence this is kind of overkill it's probably because it looked cool the reason they put the alternate light source in there with fluorescent powder it really could have kept doing just regular black powder probably is what we would have done in the field it's like prescribing brain surgery for headaches out there beyond that the techniques aren't that great because they're using too much powder and then you're using compressed air to blow out to friction Ridge detail we would never do that Jodie Foster told me also right here he calls it a swirl pattern there's no such thing as a swirl pattern there's arches loops and whorls so there's some parts of this that are true but a lot of it is fans what is his mummy doing processing a vehicle the other guy we found a lot of stuff bodily fluid and hair samples we determined that a bunch of old homeless dudes had an orgy in the car so what they get right in the scene is that they're processing indoors they bring into a garage and that's what you want to do in real life yeah and then the top it all off some joker comes along I think he knew you guys were cops because this is what I would call a spite also the attire of our crime-scene technicians is correct oh yeah they're all wearing personal protective equipment Tyvek suits gloves masks dirty Mike and the boys which is funny it's a comedy but they got it right I'm a dear vagina the rest of it is just kind of silly and funny determining you know that it was a spaceship or that you know there was a deer vagina what or homeless guys had an orgy inside the car it's just kind of funny but very unrealistic turned my beautiful prints into a nightmare how to get away with murder detecting latent blood [Music] they didn't find it so in this clip way too many people inside this crime scene all doing random things at once just like we saw with the loaded weapon cliff some people have gloves on some people don't no one is wearing a tie Vic suit or booties and probably the biggest cardinal sin is that we have the suspect inside the scene how much longer you know that's not reality at all what they start pulling out knives out of a knife block and a swab but they swab one side of the blade not the other side of the blade nor do they swab the handle seems like a foolish move the last step was to do luminol testing and that's a chemical we used inside of crime scenes to look for late in blood everyone want to be cleared out of the room at that point is a possibility that luminol is carcinogenic so you'd be wearing a mask as well as Tyvek suit oh you're being paranoid but you know you just start randomly spraying the chemicals and everyone else is around breathing it that's a no-no and maybe he's just being smart also using some sort of UV light with it or some sort of blue light with it luminol you don't need that you don't need any sort of alternate light source you just make the room dark you spray it in combination with hydrogen peroxide and if there's a reaction it will glow I'm gonna run what's called a luminol test so this is where they actually do get it right later on he's called out for diluting the blood by spraying too much luminol the more luminol you spray the more you dilute the blood real life we'd be very careful on how much of the chemical we're gonna add there's other chemicals that will react in glow or chemiluminescent ooh luminol okay all right I get it ballistic and fingerprint analysis the dark night that's Brooke underneath I'm gonna take ballistics off the shouted bullet no thank you recovery technique is pretty good we would try to cut it out of the wall [Music] this is your original scam do it is reengineered there's the thumbprint left when you pushed around in the clip this is completely impossible yeah there's not based on any sort of science and the rifling inside the barrel is gonna create markings on that bullet which would have destroyed a fingerprint that was there anyway let alone the extreme heat that would have burned off most of the fingerprint good luck let's same pattern analysis as portrayed in Dexter the male victim was standing right here and the killer plunged his knife into the shoulder severing the carotid artery and here and assume yep Dexter doing blood stain pattern analysis so over here you have nice clean sprays of blood he gets the description a categorization of the blood same patterns correctly but that's really about it first off those types of patterns you would never do that sort of reconstruction floor you would never do stringing for arterial or gushing or cast-off because there's no way that you could figure out exactly where it came from okay never know as opposed to some sort of impact spatter from a gunshot or for someone that was beaten with a bat so we're looking for a sushi chef looks like just someone just took a bucket of red paint and threw it on one wall and then someone kind of randomly squirted blood on another wall this week a finger painting then cast-off they don't look realistic they're a little more linear than that they sometimes can be curvilinear depending on how you're moving your hand but to say it definitely came from a sharp knife not a sword there's there's not really in a way to say the exact object that it came from yes sushi chef is possible insomnia autopsy clear cause of death was herniation of the brainstem due to into cerebral hemorrhage beaten to death these contusions superficial most of the trauma was to her face in the top of her neck first up what I don't like about the portrayal of this which they do sometimes in these shows is that someone's got to turn on a light not this time yeah we'd want as much light as possible told you it didn't appear that there was an even an autopsy done who's gonna be there was no Y incision on our deceased so to say that the neck injury is superficial how would you even know that without actually looking at it to see how the part of that tissue is damaged or if the hyoid bone was broken or fractured there's no way to know just by doing a visual inspection to see that sort of thing okay buddy gave us nothing at the end you know he's handling the body takes his clothes off and then touch her hair she could be bleeding from the head and now you're taking your bare hand and touching her blood didn't even blink and then maybe later on having a sandwich or whatever so it's kind of ridiculous it's good across the line crime scene assumptions true detective this is gonna happen again this is his vision her body is a paraphilic love map they might not have known her but this idea goes way back with him I get that from one of your books I did I got to thank Woody Harrelson for this he basically says what I'm gonna say anyway you got a chapter in one of those books I'm jumping to conclusions any time we start an investigation with an assumption or we come up with a theory I'm guaranteed an s-curve we always have to be ready to abandon that theory you attach an assumption to a piece of evidence you start to bend the narrative to support it what I like about this clip is that woody houses character kind of stops which I got a problem with Bone Collector collection of evidence we're gonna need those handcuffs immunity well then we can remove them when they get here look in the suitcase there's a small saw I want you to saw her hands off at the wrist line this is not realistic at all we would never destroy the body intentionally like that it's true to recover handcuffs we would somehow get those removes off her hands and she takes a couple seconds to try to remove them they're stuck so the next option is to cut off the victims hands no they're still gonna be blood that's gonna be coming out of the other end of that hand which is gonna completely consume whatever DNA or fingerprints that would be on the handcuffs so not a great option hey why don't you knock it off like I don't need to knock it off forensic anthropology Castle yo this building was set to be demolished that is until the salvage crews stripping the place came across his body buried under concrete no less guy cause of death I tell I do a full exam but he's probably been here since they poured the concrete back in 1978 anything else you can tell us about them he was maybe early thirties and a sharp dresser check out that powder-blue suit in this scene they're able to somehow miraculously perfectly excavate this skeleton fully intact there another concrete no less unlikely what if you were to be breaking up concrete with sledge hammers or jackhammer you would have already damaged it probably crushed a rib cage if not a bunch of the bones I know who the victim is what beyond that to give it a general age estimation I think that is possible he was maybe early thirties your skeleton is going to age in a very predictable manner I'm intrigued so that's what they look for certain growth in and deterioration of bone and a testament to the truly indestructible nature polyester early forensic investigations in cold blood find a shell casings no didn't leave any fingerprints either first off we can note that they're not wearing any sort of personal protective equipment or we wouldn't want to just take powder and just pour it onto a surface and then dust that powder around man would take that powder and put it onto a separate clean surface it's not related to the scene at all do other than that they make an assumption that casings were cleaned up somehow or picked up initial occasion could have been a revolver semi-automatic automatic weapon casings gonna be a ejected out of the side of that weapon but a revolver that casings gonna stay inside so that would be the reason why you might not have a shell casing at the scene probably Criminal Minds crime scene analysis chained Bernie and Vinny a dev were here Jane tried to run Vinny I didn't how do you know she's half under her desk which means she tried to hide an enzyme found it one of the worst things you could do as a crime-scene investigator is to lose your objectivity what if she was just sitting at the desk is that the position she died in maybe she crawled to her desk so these three were stabbed and the rest were shot to death they also make an assumption that we have one unknown subject or killer as opposed to two have you considered two killers yes bloody footprints all seem to come from the same pair of shoes it's possible that someone else didn't step in blood right yes or that they both wore the same pair of shoes we see this a lot you would have to recover those shoe wear impressions and analyzing the left which is a quick visual analysis couldn't give you that information evidence at a crime scene Family Guy and now back to Jake and The Fatman Hey look over here on the carpet that's a cigarette butt this is probably evidence yeah can you bring it over to me I can't move it this is a crime scene so what we see in here is the typical chalk outline where the body was its iconic look can you describe it to me but it's a joke no one does that anymore you're destroying evidence you could be adding chalk on top of DNA that could be important or are the trace evidence that could be important you know what forget it Iron Man 3 the use of virtual reality and crime scene analysis 3,000 degrees Celsius any subjects within 12.5 yards were vaporized instantly no bomb parts found in the three mile radius of the Chinese Theater no sir this is something that could happen maybe not to that extent that we see in Iron Man 3 but there is current research in the use of virtual reality and augmented reality to help assist crime scene investigators I'm happy so if we document our scene with the three-dimensional laser scanner the laser scanner is gonna collect millions and millions of points of data and we'd be able to see anything that's in the view of that scanner that at the end we're one with the three-dimensional model we could then take ourselves virtually through VR technology place ourselves in a scene to make observations and those are the observations that we've used for a reconstruction where as evidence what's the context of this evidence what happened and what order did things happen its pageantry going on here lots Theatres minor report predictive crime analysis time horizon 12 minutes what he's doing now we call scrubbing the image looking for clues as to where the murder is gonna happen beyond that the date of the crime all we have to run out of the images that they produce so in this movie we see our precogs our psychics producing images of crimes that haven't happened yet precogs can see a murder four days out now I don't think that that is ever possible but there is cutting-edge research and technology that does help us identify crimes in progress oh this is good one of those technologies is what's called shot spotter that identifies audio from gunshots and specific to gunshots happening at certain areas and giving it a GPS location it's a park Dutch police are using augmented and virtual reality to go back and look at crime scenes in the past to help in their analysis and reconstruction conclusion with the increased popularity of these types of shows the public's perception has been affected by it both in positive and negative ways on the positive side we have more people coming into the field and more attention is being given to forensic science and a negative side things are always shown absolutes the timeline of analysis is not true and not correct techniques and technology that just not even scientifically valid and does not exist now I understand that the goal of this is strictly for entertainment and it does that

Channel: WIRED

Views: 5,833,542

Rating: 4.9310408 out of 5

Keywords: analysis, crime, expert, investigation, science, tv shows, forensics, forensic, investigator, crime scene, technique critique, crime scenes, forensic science, forensic investigation, analyst, crime scene analyst, csi, crime scene investigation, crime scene analysis, crime scene reaction, forensics explained, forensics science, crime scene forensics, crime scene movies, crime scene tv shows, crime scene investigations, wired

Id: YHTz66Jq0Dg

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I love this series, especially the episode with the doctor

[u/Tokentaclops]

The wire analysis was pretty bullshit considering the context of the show.

McNulty 100% does not give a fuck about gun safety.

The Boston Baltimore crime department in the wire is continuously shown to be overworked, underpayed and extremely negligent. The whole point of that scene is to make up for the fact that the forensics department does not have or utilize the time and resources required to do a perfect job on each crimescene. There's so many murders it's not worth the effort.

McNulty and Shieeeeet Bunk aren't forensic specialists, they're just pretty decent detectives trying to make up for what should've been done.

Edit: haha holy shit, don't write comments at 4 am