Preliminary and Follow-up Investigations

The preliminary and follow-up investigations are the second stage of the investigation process that the police must follow when investigating a crime. The preliminary investigation is the step that the police have to take once the initial response to the reported crime has been made, during the preliminary investigation the police have to see if that the evidence that has been found is sufficient enough to tie someone to the crime scene. This stage is extremely important because if their is enough evidence to tie a person to the scene of the crime then they can be detained which gives the police more time to find evidence and maybe tie it to the suspect, it also allows gives the police a good insight into who may be suspected of the crime if they had not already been detained.

The follow-up investigation comes very soon after the preliminary investigation. In the follow up investigation the police must use the evidence they found in the preliminary investigation to try and tie one (or more) suspects to the scene of the crime. The stage can also be used to talk to different suspects and witnesses to gain more background knowledge on the crime that has occurred which will help with the arrest of the criminal who committed the crime.

OJ Simpson:

In the OJ Simpson case where he allegedly killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman the preliminary investigation did not go the way that it should of and that was down to it not being planned out properly, the procedures that are meant to be followed when investigating a crime scene (such as PPE, common approach path, marking pieces of evidence, etc.) were not followed out as they should of done. Robert Riske was the first attending officer at the scene shortly followed by another officer called Miguel Terrazas, it was their job to assess the scene so that when the SOCO team arrived to collected the evidence they could direct them around the scene. It was also their job to question witnesses to see what they knew about the crime that took place but it was later revealed that all the officers asked the neighbors was how they found the scene. As neither of the agents placed crime scene tape around the perimeter of the scene it was very easy for the media to enter the crime scene to take pictures of the crime that had took place, as the officers knew that they would not want the case in the papers this early (as this comes in a later stage in the investigation) they tried to cover up the evidence using towels that where found in Nicole's house to stop the evidence and the bodies being photographed, this basically destroyed a lot of the evidence at the scene as the towels had contaminated it.

As the SOCO team arrived at the scene they did not get briefed by the two officers there as they were still trying to deal with the media, there was also no path made by the officers so that the SOCO team could make their way through the scene without walking over the evidence , this led to them collecting evidence that had already been contaminated by officers Riske and Terrazas. The SOCO team was also not wearing the correct personal protection equipment (PPE) such as shoe protectors, face protectors and leaving the hoods down on their suits. By not wearing shoe protectors they contaminated the evidence as they were not set a specific path to the evidence, this meant that as they where trying to make their way around the scene they where walking all over evidence that could not be easily seen (such as footprints made by the killer), they also were not wearing face protectors which meant if they coughed or sneezed by a piece of evidence they could contaminate it, hoods were not worn which could also lead to pieces of hair falling onto bodies which could also contaminate them. They also collected the evidence in a way that could cause contamination or loss of evidence, for example, many pieces of evidence were doubled up in bags which resulted in the two pieces of evidence contaminating each other, this meant the pieces could not be used in court as evidence. There were also many pieces of evidence that were not correctly tagged which resulted in evidence being lost or misplaced.

As the preliminary investigation went very badly and resulted in most of the evidence found being lost or contaminated it was very hard for the police to do a follow up investigation. From the evidence found they saw OJ Simpson as the number one suspect for the crime due to the recent arguments that had been publicized by the media about OJ and Nicole. The police then decided to search OJ's house where they found a one glove that was exactly the same as the one found at the crime scene.