Steve O’Dell has been in the news more than any other employee of the Phoenix Police Department Crime Lab in recent years. What’s different about him, is that those articles have been reporting something positive. Mr. O’Dell is credited with modernizing the crime scene processing capabilities of the lab, and more impressively, guiding the section into being one of few ISO accredited crime scene units in the country.
But when Mr. O’Dell wanted to help share his expertise in the fledgling democracy of Iraq, the City of Phoenix Police Department denied his request for a leave of absence. Now Mr. O’Dell is reported as being surprised. I wish he had contacted me, or talked to me about it one of the many times I’ve seen him around the Phoenix Crime Lab over the years since I left employment there. I could have warned him that the City doesn’t have a good track record with employees that achieve too high a level of notoriety. For whatever reason, unlike other large law enforcement organizations such as the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, when a laboratory employee reaches a level of fame or popularity at the national level or above, they tend to get pushed out of the lab. I know of three such people over the last 10 years.
A forensic-science expert who changed the way Phoenix police collect and process crime-scene evidence has left his job to help set up a crime lab in Iraq, but not before leaving his mark on local crime-investigation techniques.
Steve O’Dell, 33, was the first section supervisor to push for accreditation of Phoenix crime-scene-response specialists, shifting the focus to increased training and away from the “bagging and tagging” mentality of the past. He encouraged more training on blood-scan analysis, evidence processing and other tasks key to successful criminal prosecution.
The results for the Phoenix crime lab have been impressive: It completed 40,357 requests for scientific analysis in 2009, including those for DNA, fingerprints and toxicology.
That marked a 35 percent increase in work from the previous year, when the lab completed 29,884 requests.
Phoenix police Lt. Kelleigh Evans said forensic backlogs are shrinking thanks largely to O’Dell’s leadership. All but one employee of the city’s crime-scene-response unit have met benchmarks to complete every report on cases older than 28 days.
Because of the “critical role” O’Dell’s position plays within the unit and the department, his request for a six-month leave of absence from Phoenix police was denied, Phoenix Assistant Police Chief Kevin Robinson said.
Rather than waiting for O’Dell’s return, Robinson said it would behoove Phoenix to replace him as soon as possible.
“You only need to turn on a TV these days and see how integral crime labs are to law enforcement,” Robinson said. “If he just goes away … that work isn’t taken care of, it’s not handled at the level it needs to be handled.”
Evans said O’Dell will be difficult to replace. The Vermont native was one of six certified crime-scene investigators in Arizona, bringing years of experience as a crime-lab consultant and auditor to his role as a supervisor over Phoenix crime-scene techs.
“He is that mentor, that example, that leader for them to fall back on,” Evans said. “If you have someone in a supervisory position who doesn’t have that expertise, I’m not sure where your employees go to.”
O’Dell traveled to Iraq last week to join a team of international forensic experts in the country’s Kurdish northern region as part of a U.S. government contract to establish a crime lab for police in Irbil.
His charge is to train Iraqi forensic experts on DNA testing. Using many of the same techniques he used to train Phoenix’s 38 crime-scene specialists, he hopes to help Iraqi experts streamline investigations.
O’Dell said he didn’t believe his request for time off would be denied by the department.
He said he would have turned down the Iraq assignment had he known taking it would mean losing his Phoenix police job.
O’Dell joins other experts from Canada and the United Kingdom in training Iraqis on new equipment provided by the U.S. Department of Defense.
He is working with a team compiled by Ideal Innovations, a private company contracted to teach biometrics technology to Iraqi law enforcers.
The Irbil lab is envisioned as one of four regional crime labs for Iraqi police, who continue to come under attack by militants.
Last month, bombers destroyed a police crime lab northwest of Baghdad.
“What we’re trying to do is build an infrastructure so they can do their own work,” O’Dell said Monday in a phone interview from Irbil. “They basically have these new $200,000 instruments, but no one to run them.”
Regardless, I wish Steve the best in Iraq. Not only a professionally successful venture, but a safe return to the U.S., and luck in finding a means of employment when he returns.
The real tragedy now is that I doubt I will ever have the criminals who are leaving beer cans and Taco Bell wrappers in my front yard brought to justice.
Originally posted on AZCentral.com
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