Trace Evidence

The New York Inspector General’s report of investigation of the trace evidence section of the New York state police forensic investigation center began as an inquiry of Garry Veeder’s failure to use state required tests while conducting analysis and falsifying records. As the investigation continued, more issues were discovered stemming from previous employees and management.
Veeder failed to conduct state required tests during fiber analysis and successfully hid it for many years. Poor training prior to obtaining his position was the basis for his reasoning. An individual employee has an ethical responsibility to the company for which they work for, to provide the best work they are capable of in the hopes of furthering the growth of the company. Veeder was trained by Piscitelli, the trace evidence section manager. Veeder’s training was insufficient in matters of this required testing and focused more on how to …show more content…
A formal complaint was also filed against Piscitelli. Management opted to ignore all the information. The technical review process was changed to send most reports to Piscitelli. There was a recommendation to close the section after the retirement of Piscitelli as it left the center with only one analyst for fibers who was ‘qualified’ for analysis. The lack of training would have become evident if management had reviewed the technical training protocols. They could have hired new staff, or re-train the existing staff members in fiber analysis or they could have outsourced the technical review portion of Veeder’s work to another accreditated lab. If the re-training off staff had been chosen, an outside trainer would have been the best option as the result of Veeder’s training would be equivalent to the poor training he had received. The same would apply to any new staff who was