Atlantic City police have a new state-of-the-art tool for collecting crime evidence.
By BRIDGET MURPHY
Staff Writer, (609) 272-7257

ATLANTIC CITY — Discerning a single fingerprint in a sea of oily smudges is sometimes the difference between putting a killer away or seeing him walk free.

When you’ve got to make the case, it’s all about the evidence.

Just ask Detective Sgt. Jim Scoppa, who heads the Atlantic City Police Department’s 10-person Forensic Investigations Unit and whose personal motto goes something like this: “I don’t believe it until I can prove it.”

To Scoppa’s delight, the Police Department has a new tool that is expected to make the jobs of forensic detectives easier and more foolproof. You might think of it as the Lexus of crime-fighting vehicles, although it’s really a Ford van.

Bought by the city for $79,447, the new crime-scene van is filled with “luxuries” such as a sink, refrigerator, electrical outlets and exterior floodlights — along with reams of scientific equipment. It makes the old evidence truck look like a jalopy ready for a scrap yard.

The crime van was delivered last Thursday and is parked in a lot at the Clayton G. Graham Public Safety Building, ready to wheel out on its maiden voyage.

Among the van’s equipment is a fingerprint detection tool called the Krimesite Scope. It looks like a cross between binoculars and a camera, and uses ultraviolet light to detect evidence such as fingerprints, blood or semen.

Manufactured by a North Carolina company called Sirchie Finger Print Laboratories, the scope also can record the evidence by snapping photographs.

Police will be able to search a scene quickly for evidence that might be missed by the naked eye. And speedy evidence collection can be vital, as in a recent high-profile case.

City police identified high-rolling federal fugitive Maghfoor Mansoor, after he carjacked a city cabbie last month, by finding his fingerprint on the cab, according to Scoppa.

That evidence launched a manhunt that capped a nationwide search for the accused rapist and killer. Mansoor pulled off two casino robberies before dying in a shootout with authorities in New York City days later.

Other equipment aboard the van runs the gamut. Supplies include basics such as rubber gloves, blood-collection kits, an evidence vacuum, a metal detector and a sketchbook for drawing crime scenes, to more unique tools like a bullet dowel for calculating gunfire trajectories, and a screen police will use to hide casino-jumping suicide victims from public view.

“We help make cases more viable when they go to court,” Scoppa said. “The hardest thing when you go to a scene is to locate the evidence. Now this helps me.”

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