Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Services Agency

Thanks for the questions! You asked, we're here to answer! First Question: What degree is required to work in the Crime Scene Unit? The minimum educational requirement to work at I-MCFSA is a Bachelor's Degree in a science or criminal justice field. However, to work in the Chemistry and Biology Units, there are specific college courses that are required as well. There are a wide variety of majors achieved by our current employees. The vast majority earned a degree in Forensic Science, but others also majored in Criminology/Criminal Justice, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemsitry, Pharmacy and Anthropology. Check out governmentjobs.com for any future job postings we may have.

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Ever watch a crime show and wonder if that’s really how things happen? Or even just been curious about what we do here when you hear us mentioned on the news? Now is your chance to ask us all your questions! We will do our best to answer as many as we can in upcoming social media posts! Comment your questions below or submit them in our story comment box!

*Disclaimer: due to the nature of our work, some questions may not be able to be answered and we cannot comment on any active investigations*

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From our back porch to the work ahead, every sunrise marks a continued dedication to serving justice through science.

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The FET Unit takes postmortem prints of decedents that serve as both elimination prints and to supplement any prints currently on file. This is the last chance to get fingerprints on record. This picture shows a mock up of the 20 cards we take per case. They are hardly ever this neat and tidy in practice because the process involves manipulating the decedent's hands and fingers that are most often stiff and locked with rigor mortis. To be able to get these prints we sometimes have to break the rigor which sounds a lot like a really loud knuckle crack or snap.

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April is National Stress Awareness Month! Here at the lab, we are no strangers to stress between backlogs, court dates, and the distressing nature of a lot of the cases we work on. One of the ways we try to help combat this is by having quarterly visits from Grace the Therapy Dog! Grace works with the Victim Assistance Unit of IMPD and provides support to officers and victims, especially after high-profile, or high-stress events. We love our visits from Grace.

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Our Latent Print Unit is responsible for training all Crime Scene Specialists in latent print processing. There are currently three trainees in this training class. They will learn all the different chemical processes used at I-MCFSA for developing latent prints, as well as how to photograph any latent prints that are visualized. The training culminates with a written test and competency test with mock evidence.

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In honor of Women's History Month, did you know...? In December of 1970, the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners (AFTE) did a newsletter cover story highlighting their one and only female member since its creation, Susan Komar. Fifty years later, AFTE made a social media post highlighting this woman's accomplishments in the field. In this post, they also mentioned that women accounted for "nearly 50%" of their total memberships in 2021. Today, many of these women now hold positions on several of AFTE's committees and its Board of Directors, again highlighting how women have worked tirelessly over these past 5 decades to make meaningful impacts within the Fi****ms and Toolmark Examination community (along with the Forensic Science community as a whole). Here at the I-MCFSA, 5 of our 12 employees in the Fireams Section are women who work diligently in various positions from Fi****ms Technician to the Fi****ms Section Supervisor to provide our city's Criminal Justice System with quality results in Forensic Fi****ms Identification related casework.

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The lab recently had our ANAB Off-Site Surveillance Accreditation Assessment this year. It focused on a subset of requirements related to management and quality assurance (18 of 204 requirements), and there were no nonconformities! We have an external assessment from ANAB each year, and the scope of the assessment varies throughout the 4 year cycle.

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Happy Presidents' Day! George Washington was born on Febraury 22, 1732, and died in 1799. After his death, Americans informally celebrated his birthday and in 1879 it became a recognized federal holiday. Under the Uniform Holidays Act of 1968 the date was changed from his actual birthday to the third Monday in February and became a recognition of all presidents, not just Washington. However, the holiday is actually still offically called "Washington's Birthday", not Presidents' Day; it was never changed. According to the American Presidency Project, Lyndon B. Johnson partly made holidays such as Presidents' Day fall on a monday to create a longer weekend which allowed for people "to travel farther and see more of this beautiful land of ours". We are off today, and we hope you are too! Although we're probably just at home watching The Olympics!

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