I got extremely upset one night when I arrived to process a rape scene in a hotel room at 2:30 AM and found an unconscious woman in one of the beds. Plano Police Department policy included a requirement for an officer who called out the Crime Scene Unit to remain on the scene until the CSI Technician (civilian) arrived. So here I was, a civilian CSI with an unconscious woman in my scene while the officer had already left – against policy!
I got the shift sergeant on the radio and raised hell. I did NOT want to be the only one there if the drunk woman regained consciousness and became hysterical or combative with me. The officer returned to the scene.
The story was that two women had gone to a bar to pick up guys, then went to a hotel for one-night stands. One of the women was too drunk and passed out before consummating the act and her guy had left, disgusted.
The second couple had gotten into the program when the guy became abusive and the woman called it off. But then the guy got violent, slapped her around, and raped her before leaving. The first woman was in the other bed unconscious the whole time the rape was going on.
The officer explained that he had called an ambulance as soon as he arrived. They had tended to both the rape victim and the drunk. The paramedics had determined that the drunk was in no danger and suggested just leaving her there to sleep it off. They took the rape victim to the ER for exam and rape kit.
I went ahead and processed the hotel room as one would normally handle a rape scene. As for the unconscious drunk in the second bed, I placed a yellow evidence marker next to her head on the pillow to designate her as an item of evidence in the crime scene photographs.
I wrote a memo to the Chief the next morning regarding officers not remaining at the scene after they had called out ID. We were civilians, we were unarmed, and we had no authority to act if things went south after the officer had departed.
I was not worried for myself. After all, I had been an officer for eleven years before going civilian to supervise the ID Unit and do latent prints full time. But I had several young ID Techs straight out of high school on their first job and I knew it could be disastrous if one of them got into some kind of altercation in a situation such as that hotel room that night, or any other call out where a perp might return, or even one where a victim became emotional and disorderly.