Shadowing a Forensic Unit Supervisor Harley Middleton 11/3/14 Career Skills Bell 2 Ms. Gulliford

Introduction  Virginia Beach Police Department  Person interviewed: Dan Clanton of the VBPD Forensic Unit

Dan Clanton  Lifestyle: Not at home very often, doesn’t get to see his family much.  Enjoys his job very much, even though he works hours a week  Daily tasks: Supervise about 24 people, corresponding with other agents, drafting lab evidence, review case work, and testify cases with evidence in court.

Job environment and Rewards/Satisfactions  Clean, brand new, spacious building (the old SPCA property)  Salary: $32,000 - $80,000+  Fringe Benefits: Salary, health benefits, retirement, legal benefits, employee/assistant, The Wellness Program.  There have been no significant raises since 2000.

Things I did  Took a tour throughout the building  Went into the Fingerprint Analysis room, the “Fun Room”, the chemical room, the evidence room, the Bomb Squad equipment room, the garage, Dan Clanton’s office, Ben Gonse’s office.  Also the Canine building where I met Chewy and Dax, the helicopter runway where I watched a helicopter take off and saw all the different undercover vans and trucks that are used.

Traits and physical attributes needed  Patience  Communication  Organization  Coping Skills  Sympathy for the victim and/or their family  No physical attributes are really needed.

Insights and Opinions from Dan  Advice for students interested in this career:  Keep your criminal record clear  0 drug use  Get into a good college  A degree in science  Record in Community Service  Definitely do an internship

Observations/ Reflections  Very big, spacious building  Tiring job  Need to be willing to put in the work and focus on what you need to do  Fun job/ putting together the puzzle  You have to be ready for anything  Might have some very unusual cases

Job Outlook  Technology: DNA tech. changing, mobile devices, computers, ways of collecting evidence  In the future, there might be physical attributes and strengths that are needed.

Education/Certification required  A min. of 5-7 years in forensics and must obtain a driver’s license.  An internship isn’t mandatory but is strongly advised.

Best/Worst things about this career  Best: Solving the case, catching the bad guy, putting together the puzzle, collecting evidence, and working with all the strange cases  Worst: Time away from family, late nights, 3 am wake up calls

Things I learned  Technology is very hard to keep up with  In the canine building, once a dog is retired, the trainers normally keep them.  They use actual human blood in the “Fun Room”

What Surprised Me  You have to study about 100 different fingerprints and decide which one belongs to the criminal.  It takes a long time for this.  There are more people in the Hit and Run office than there are in the Bomb Squad office.  They don’t have/need mechanics working in the garage when they are trying to collect evidence from vehicles

Summary  Very Informative  More interesting than I imagined  Lot more effort needs to be put into this job than I thought

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