Evidence Response Training: Fingerprinting
Watch as students in the FBI's Evidence Response Team Basic course learn to find, lift, and preserve fingerprints.
Video Transcript
Thomas Duffy, FBI Evidence Response Team Unit: Latent prints are everywhere, everything you touch, everything you handle you leave behind latent prints just like you see on TV.
What we teach them today is the basics behind latent prints. What is a latent print? And then how to best find it. Because you have to identify it, find it. You have to photograph it. You have to document it and then you have to preserve it.
We find that the students learn best by doing. You can tell them about the theory, you can show them on a powerpoint but until you actually go out there and do it, a lot of it's technique. How you hold the brush, how much powder you put on there, how you use the superglue chambers behind us to properly preserve the prints. And that actually, that small group interaction, that's where a lot of people are going to ask those questions.
How do you hold the brush? How much powder do you use? How to use the superglue chamber?
Theory is one thing, but putting it in practice–you know how far away you hold things and things like that. And this is where you get a lot of the 'oohs' and 'ahhs.' And they finally start putting together, "Okay now I know what Duffy and his instructors were talking about. I'm actually doing it. Now I know to stay away from the superglue chamber when you open it." "Okay, I put the print on there, I can see the superglue, I can see with a flashlight that it pops up."
It's almost childlike when people see that "Aha!" moment that we wait for as instructors. Now it all comes together. They come here with a certain level of expertise but we want to send them back to the field better than we got them.
Video Download
Video Source
Recent Video
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Alex Silverstein
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Justin Brannon
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Lauren Regucci
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent in Charge Sherri Onks
- 03.03.2023 — FBI Pittsburgh joint operation_03032023
- 02.09.2023 — Chinese High-Altitude Balloon Recovery
- 02.06.2023 — Inside The FBI Podcast: For The Love Of Money
- 02.01.2023 — Inside the FBI Podcast: Romance Scams (2021 Rerelease)
- 02.01.2023 — Inside the FBI Podcast: Submitting Tips to the Bureau
- 01.31.2023 — FBI Seattle Discusses Myths of Human Trafficking
- 01.16.2023 — FBI Announces $10,000 Reward for Information Leading to Arrest in Unsolved Murders
- 01.13.2023 — Section Chief Jose Perez on Violent Crime Operations
- 01.12.2023 — Sextortion PSA – Salt Lake City
- 01.10.2023 — Madalina Cojocari Missing Person's Vodcast
- 12.29.2022 — FBI Atlanta: Surveillance in Ebenezer Baptist Church Vandalism Investigation
- 11.22.2022 — FBI Charlotte: Surveillance Video in Crisis Pregnancy Center Arson Investigation (2 of 2)
- 11.21.2022 — B-Roll JCODE Takedown Los Angeles 110122
- 11.18.2022 — FBI Philadelphia: Surveillance Video in Serial Armed Robberies Investigation (September 12, 2022 Robbery)
- 11.18.2022 — FBI Philadelphia: Surveillance Video in Serial Armed Robberies Investigation (October 8, 2022 Robbery)
- 11.15.2022 — FBI Charlotte: Surveillance Video in Crisis Pregnancy Center Arson Investigation (1 of 2)
FBI Weekly Newsletter
Subscribe to our email newsletter for news on the FBI, sent out every week.