CHRISTINE KARALLUS
Staatsanwälte, Kriminalisten und Detektive
My phone was ringing again. 3:45 a.m. It seems, unfortunately, that most crime scenes are discovered at night. The caller, Larry Bersch, a Costa Mesa detective, wanted my presence at the scene of a homicide. […] As I drove into the parking lot, I saw two uniformed officers shining their flashlights into one of the many parked vehicles in the lot. They turned, realized who I was when they saw the badge in my hand, and pointed in the direction of a narrow walkway leading toward the apartment complex. I walked down the path between two garages that each opened to a common driveway. Someone was taking photos, lighting the entire scene momentarily with the flash. […] Detective Gary Thompson was writing or drawing something in his notepad as R.C. Johnson, a sheriff’s crime scene investigator, took the photos. I was close enough when the next flash went off to see a pool of red liquid that turned out to be blood.”1
Mit dieser Beschreibung einer polizeilichen Spurensicherung, bei der es sich nicht, wie man annehmen könnte, um eine Kriminalgeschichte handelt, beginnt Larry Ragle, einer der bekanntesten amerikanischen Kriminalisten, seine Erläuterungen zu den grundlegenden Maßnahmen der Spurensuche und -sicherung am Tatort. In der Fachsprache spricht man vom “ersten Angriff” und versteht darunter all die unaufschiebbaren polizeilichen Maßnahmen, die auf die Ermittlung von Anhaltspunkten zielen mittels derer die Tat rekonstruiert und bewiesen oder, wie es in einem kriminalistischen Handbuch heißt, der “Tatverdächtige überführt oder der Unschuldige entlastet…
