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TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE

Featured Conference Speaker – Rod Englert
Chief Deputy (Retired) Rod Englert, a 44-year veteran of law enforcement, retired as Commander of the Operations Division, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Portland, Oregon in 1995. He began his career with the Downey, California Police Department after graduating from the Los Angeles Police Academy. In 1969, Chief Deputy Englert moved to Portland, Oregon and joined the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. A large portion of his career has been associated with working major crimes, narcotics and homicide cases. His area of expertise is in homicide crime scene reconstruction and blood spatter interpretation. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Police Administration from UCLA and has done post-graduate work in psychology. He was the President of the 159th session of the FBI National Academy. Chief Deputy Englert has conducted more than 550 lectures and training seminars on managing criminal investigations, solving unresolved homicides, blood spatter interpretation and crime scene reconstruction to law enforcement personnel and district attorneys in 35 states, as well as in Canada, Russia, France, South America and England. He has consulted in more than 375 homicides in the United States and Canada, and qualified as a court expert on homicide in 26 states. He is a member of the International Homicide Investigator’s Association; Chairman of the Board (2002-2003) of the Association of Crime Scene Reconstructionists; a fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Scientists; and Past-President of the International Association of Blood Pattern Analysts.

Workshop: Bloodstain Evidence in Homicide Investigation
Blood at crime scenes, on the victim, on the suspect, on witnesses (persons or clothing) can be considered significant physical evidence. It must be treated as important when documenting, collecting and preserving. Although the documentation and collection occurs at the scene, the primary identification occurs at the laboratory, if these samples furnish information as to whom and how many people were bleeding at the scene. Bloodstain pattern analysis from a crime scene may provide investigative leads as well as supportive or non-supportive evidence for victim, witness and/or witness statements. When using a bloodstain pattern analysis to assist in reconstructing a crime scene, it is critical that complete and accurate documentation of the blood take place. Interpretation of bloodstain patterns can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of a homicide case. Re-evaluation of bloodstains in old and unresolved cases may provide enough evidence to reconsider whether or not to prosecute. Bloodstain patterns lend themselves to geometric interpretation whereby it is often possible to predict their origin and mechanism of production. Extensive research has been conducted in this field, and educational programs are available to those who wish to obtain formal education in bloodstain pattern interpretation. However, basic information and elementary rules may be followed by any scene investigator, even though he/she may not have reviewed the literature references nor attended a formal course of instruction in this somewhat specialized subject. Topics in this workshop include, surface texture, directionality, blood drop shape, blood spatter patterns, angle of impact, bloodstain lifts, patterns on clothing, use of luminal and bloodstain terminology. Mr. Englert will use actual crime scene documentation and photographs to discuss the blood evidence from notorious murder cases. Using actual crime scene and other photographs, he illustrates both the blood evidence possibilities, as well as the misconceptions about blood evidence.