Knox & Associates Forensic Consulting

Crime Scene Reconstruction

2010-05-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Crime scene reconstruction is the ordered, logical approach to determining what occurred during the commission of a crime. The crime scene is a static representation of a dynamic event, which means that the crime scene has four dimensions: width, depth, height and time. What we see at the crime scene is the cumulative result of everything that took place during the commission of the crime. It is up to the skilled crime scene reconstructionist to carefully analyze the evidence and determine the answer to the six fundamental questions:

What happened?
Where did it happen?
Who was involved?
When did it happen?
How did it happen?
Why did it happen?

The process has been described as being like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without having access to the boxtop: you don't know what the picture is supposed to look like. In fact, you probably don't have all of the pieces, either.

The job of the forensic consultant is to find the pieces and to put them together in a fashion that allows enough of the picture to be visible that the details of the picture become apparent. I don't need, for example, all of the pieces of the puzzle to know that the picture I'm looking at is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If I see enough of the picture, I will know what it is, but I may not be able to see every details about it.

At Knox & Associates, we make it our business to put the pieces together so that the picture becomes aparent. It is not enough to say it; anyone can do that. To bring truth to light, you have to prove it. You have to show that the picture is what you say it is. That's what we do at Knox & Associates Forensic Consulting.

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2010-04-24T19:57:00.001-07:00

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Police-Involved Shooting Cases

2009-10-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

All too often, the truth behind police-involved shooting incidents gets clouded by public perception and biased media accounts. It is human nature to be skeptical of authority, and to many people law enforcement exemplifies what they fear most about authority. But the truth is that police shootings are almost always the result of a split-second decision made by a police officer who, in an instant, perceives that his or her life is in danger.

At Knox & Associates, we strive to show the jury exactly what really happened in the few seconds during which a shooting takes place. We paint the picture. Where were the officers standing? What could they see? Why did they perceive a threat? Why did they fire so many shots? All of these questions have answers, and it is our job to find those answers and to present them in court.

The truth gets even cloudier when so-called experts--many of whom have limited, if any, knowledge of the dynamics of police-involved shooting incidents--are willing to make claims that are clothed in Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s. To reconstruct a police-involved shooting requires two things: crime scene reconstruction experience and practical police training. Anyone who lacks either one of those traits lacks the ability to truly understand how to put the pieces back together.

At Knox & Associates, we can put the pieces back together. We can show the jury what really happened. We bring truth to light.

Physical Evidence Never Lies

2008-09-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Historically, accident and criminal investigations have been centered around the least reliable evidence available: the statements made by witnesses. While all evidence obtained in the course of an investigation is important and useful, one need only a brief experience with the task of investigating any type of accident or criminal act to learn that every witness will tell a different story. Oftentimes the differences are minor, but in some cases the discrepancies between witnesses' stories can be vast.

Things get even more interesting when physical evidence is added to the mix. What years of documenting and analyzing physical evidence will teach you is that when there are five witnesses to a crime or accident, there will be six sides to the story: the five witness accounts and the story that the physical evidence will tell.

While physical evidence never lies, poor analysis of physical evidence can be misleading. So what qualifies a person to analyze physical evidence? Two things: education and experience.

The problem with finding an expert in, for example, traffic accident reconstruction is that few people have both the practical experience and the proper education. Most traffic accident reconstructionists come from one of two common backgrounds: years of engineering education or years of practical police experience. Each background has it benefits. Engineers understand the mechanics of traffic crashes in ways that most police officers never will, but police officers gain an unprecedented amount of hands-on experience actually going to traffic crash scenes. While the engineer may be very adept at the science of traffic crashes, he may never have been to an actual crash scene. The police officer, on the other hand, may be very familiar with the traffic accident scene, but his lack of scientific education may lead him to misapply scientific principles and thus come to erroneous conclusions.

If you search deep enough, however, you will find that there are a few of us out there that have both the education and the experience. This is the level of expertise you will find at Knox & Associates.