Extra Mentorship Blog

Above is the back of the Pomona Police Station where the police vehicles are stored. Also in the back there is an outside forensic lab.

The first day of mentorship was so eventful I thought I might write an extra blog post about it. Today I learned about what my mentor does and how it varies city to city. In Pomona where there are only three crime scene investigators my mentor was telling me how you really have to know a little about everything. This is because my mentor processes a crime scene from start to finish without any assistance unless she can get an approval to allow one of her partners to come. In any case my mentor and her partners still have to know how to do everything and that's what she likes about her job. This is different from Ontario or L.A. where they have about 10+ crime scene investigators. Working for a department like this is completely different because instead of having to do everything you will usually specialize in one area and that's all you do for each crime scene. For example say I am a CSI over in L.A. and I specialize in fingerprinting. What I would do is come to a crime scene fingerprint and that's it.  I would then past the rest of the work onto the next CSI to do their specialized area. I also learned that as a CSI there are several things you must be able to do. This includes photography, processing evidence, photoshop, and so on. You also get subpoenas from an attorney where you are required to make copies of files of evidence. It is very limited who gets to handle evidence so you need to keep track of everything including the DR#, the date, the person requesting the piece of evidence, what time you check out the piece of evidence and for how long you have it. My mentor also does a lot of community outreach programs such as teaching at seminars conferences, classes and the Police Explorers Program. My mentor then told me about how The City of Pomona is broken up into six beats and each beat will usually have 1-2 officers patrolling it, depending on how bad the beat is. She then told me about how they have one bloodhound used for missing people, and drug detection. Also three other K-9s used for apprehension. We then ended the day with a trip to Arroyo Elementary School where I saw her and several Police Officers work the Police Explorers Program. 

Above is one of the Police Officers directing the anxious children.