SEPTEMBER 2021
Newsletter Table of Content
Departmental Information
Introduction
A word from the County Coroner
Introducing The Divisions
About Us
Statistics
Promotions, Awards and Farewells
Promotions
Awards
Closing Words
Thank you from the Public Relations Team
Departmental Information
Introduction
A word from the County Coroner
Introducing The Divisions
About Us
Statistics
Promotions, Awards and Farewells
Promotions
Awards
Closing Words
Thank you from the Public Relations Team
Introduction
Hello and welcome to our first, of many, newsletters. We'll start off by talking about the Department of Medical Examiners - Coroners and what we do. The Los Santos Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner works hard alongside Law Enforcement Officers to collect evidence when present on the scene of a crime that has led to the death of either a single individual or multiple. We make sure that no tampering of evidence takes place when a corpse is present on scene and treat it with care. Our staff work endless hours to cover the entire county of Los Santos.
Being a public agency and funded by taxpayer money, we value transparency. Only a small fraction of our work happens where the people can truly see, and it is our hope that not only through this new founded newsletter, which we’ll be publishing regularly, but also pushing for an ever improving community engagement, that this picture will steadily change, shedding some light into how our department is structured, what is it that we really do and how do we do it.
Now, throughout this newsletter we'll be talking about what we are as a department, including some of our divisions throughout. We have several divisions making up our department, but each individual is as important as the other. We'll also be showcasing some of our statistics we've encountered through the month.
Hello and welcome to our first, of many, newsletters. We'll start off by talking about the Department of Medical Examiners - Coroners and what we do. The Los Santos Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner works hard alongside Law Enforcement Officers to collect evidence when present on the scene of a crime that has led to the death of either a single individual or multiple. We make sure that no tampering of evidence takes place when a corpse is present on scene and treat it with care. Our staff work endless hours to cover the entire county of Los Santos.
Being a public agency and funded by taxpayer money, we value transparency. Only a small fraction of our work happens where the people can truly see, and it is our hope that not only through this new founded newsletter, which we’ll be publishing regularly, but also pushing for an ever improving community engagement, that this picture will steadily change, shedding some light into how our department is structured, what is it that we really do and how do we do it.
Now, throughout this newsletter we'll be talking about what we are as a department, including some of our divisions throughout. We have several divisions making up our department, but each individual is as important as the other. We'll also be showcasing some of our statistics we've encountered through the month.
Introducing The Divisions
Special Operations Response Team
The Medical Examiner-Coroner Special Operations Response Team (SORT) provides response in the event of any Mass Fatality Incident (MFI) or a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High Explosive (CBRNE) incident. SORT also responds to death investigations that require specialized search or recovery such as a clandestine grave or scattered skeletonized remains. SORT will also respond to any calls where the body is unreachable by and normal means. SORT provides a prompt and sustained response which means staff have to be trained, equipped and ready "24/7." The SORT team is comprised of Medical Examiner-Coroner staff members that work throughout the Department on a daily basis. The team is made up of Investigators, Forensic Attendants, Forensic Technicians, Criminalists, Deputy Medical Examiners and a Forensic Anthropologist along with support/clerical staff. The SORT team is trained up to the highest level of Hazardous Materials response, level-A. SORT’s overall mission is to provide assistance for families who have lost their loved ones.
Training & Recruitment
The recruitment officers interview applicants. We are searching for members that are interested in shaping the future of the deparment. Members respond to future applications, and assess if they are good for our department, or not. If you feel the field work is too much sometimes, relax a little in the office while you interview someone. Do you feel you're up for it? Apply today!
Public Relations
The Public Relations division for the Los Santos County are an up and coming division. They're the backbone for our advertisement. They're the face of the department and work beyond the clock to make sure we're out there! Members of this division are dedicated and committed, they make sure that the department's image is a professional one through out everything they do. They; attend press conferences,
capture the teams in action, attend events related to the public.
Special Operations Response Team
The Medical Examiner-Coroner Special Operations Response Team (SORT) provides response in the event of any Mass Fatality Incident (MFI) or a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High Explosive (CBRNE) incident. SORT also responds to death investigations that require specialized search or recovery such as a clandestine grave or scattered skeletonized remains. SORT will also respond to any calls where the body is unreachable by and normal means. SORT provides a prompt and sustained response which means staff have to be trained, equipped and ready "24/7." The SORT team is comprised of Medical Examiner-Coroner staff members that work throughout the Department on a daily basis. The team is made up of Investigators, Forensic Attendants, Forensic Technicians, Criminalists, Deputy Medical Examiners and a Forensic Anthropologist along with support/clerical staff. The SORT team is trained up to the highest level of Hazardous Materials response, level-A. SORT’s overall mission is to provide assistance for families who have lost their loved ones.
Training & Recruitment
The recruitment officers interview applicants. We are searching for members that are interested in shaping the future of the deparment. Members respond to future applications, and assess if they are good for our department, or not. If you feel the field work is too much sometimes, relax a little in the office while you interview someone. Do you feel you're up for it? Apply today!
Public Relations
The Public Relations division for the Los Santos County are an up and coming division. They're the backbone for our advertisement. They're the face of the department and work beyond the clock to make sure we're out there! Members of this division are dedicated and committed, they make sure that the department's image is a professional one through out everything they do. They; attend press conferences,
capture the teams in action, attend events related to the public.
About Us
Frequently Asked Questions!
Why does DMEC exist?
Let’s begin straight to the core of the matter - why is it that our department exists? Why is it justified that taxpayer money funds our agency?
DMEC is a governmental agency that works on forensics. The primary aspect of our job is to determine the victim’s official time of death, cause of death and manner of death. Now, for what those terms mean, as well as their practical purpose;
Time of death comes not from when Fire Metro has proclaimed the victim as officially dead, after all resuscitation attempts have expired, but rather when the body has truly stopped functioning - a matter that becomes particularly relevant in homicide cases. To the untrained eye, a victim that’s been dead for three hours is virtually indistinguishable from a victim that’s died recently. To determine the true time of death is to negate a rushed alibi from a murderer that decides to be seen publicly shortly after the fact.
Cause of death is a medical term for what really killed the victim. Often it’s heard about the cause of death being “gunshot woundsâ€, but that’s not a valid medical term that has no true weight in a court of law; once more, that’s a relevance that comes mostly in homicide cases. That is because we must determine which organ failed on the victim and how did it fail so that we can, with scientific certainty, truly ascertain that the gunshot indeed caused it. Otherwise, an attorney may make the argument that death may have occurred due to a natural illness and, without evidence, the prosecution would not be correctly armed to deny this claim.
Manner of death is a direct conclusion from the cause of death. The medicolegal manners of death are natural, accident, suicide, homicide and undetermined - the latter being used when we cannot ascertain, based on the evidence, the intent that’s happened behind the death.
With all of that being said, our job as a forensics team is one of investigation. We seek to determine what really happened to the victim and to find any potential evidence that the body reveals to us to achieve that end - and if there’s somebody who’s responsible for the victim’s death, then also to find any evidence that will help bring them to justice.
Are we a police force/law enforcement organization?
DMEC is not a law enforcement agency and we are not the police. We do not perform arrests nor do we pursue any avenues of investigation that aren’t to do with the death of another human being. With that said, in that particular field, we do have limited judiciary power in that we can perform our own investigations, whose conclusions have the same weight as law enforcement’s and are also entirely independent from them.
This may seem redundant, but that is precisely the point. The United States is a free country that values democracy and wants to ensure that no single agency has any sort of absolute power; therefore, we as an agency offer a counterbalance as well as a support to the efforts of the detectives from law enforcement. With entirely separate conclusions, we ensure that their investigations remain unbiased - if we achieve the same conclusion despite our independent efforts, it shows scientific precision and further adds to the credibility of the case, and if there is any unfortunate event in which a single officer of the law decides to overstep its bounds, we are there to keep such abuses in check, having the power to make such reports directly to Internal Affairs.
What is a Coroner?
The Coroners are one of the branches from DMEC and probably the most known to the public, as they are the ones that are sent to the scenes and bring the bodies to the morgue. Bringing bodies, however, isn’t the entirety of their function; it is, in fact, a very small fraction of it. Strictly speaking, the Coroners are a forensic division, the technicians of the department that are tasked with the proper documentation of the process.
What does that mean? A death scene has numerous aspects to it, evidence for what really happened. Blood trails, the position of the body, the appearance of the wounds before any further deterioration, all of those matter - in fact, everything matters, as we can’t know what’s relevant before actually examining the evidence. It’s the Coroner’s job to properly document all of those things through photographs, speaking to the officers or EMTs at the scene, and, upon arrival of the body to the morgue, the filing of the report with all of the evidence attached.
What is a Medical Examiner?
The investigative branch of DMEC. The Medical Examiners are responsible for analyzing the evidence retrieved and documented by the Coroners, making an analysis to determine what is it that the evidence says, what does it mean and how does it fit into the scene. This is first done through an analysis of the body itself, which happens in stages.
First comes the preliminary analysis through a partial autopsy. This is a visual analysis that the medical examiner will determine what the wounds look like and, through the help of X-Ray images, what seems to be likely, logical conclusions of the three first conditions - time of death, cause of death and manner of death. Through photographs of the scene taken by the Coroners, they will also determine whether there was any potential tampering of the evidence, as well as reconstruct what the evidence says about how the scene played out. The latter becomes particularly relevant in homicide cases as the continued assault of a victim can easily escalate an impromptu involuntary manslaughter to second degree murder by the intent to make sure the victim is dead.
Second comes the full autopsy. This is the actual autopsy in which the body is fully examined internally, to confirm or deny the conclusions taken in the first step, and to see with scientific precision which organs were affected and how did that happen. The entire process is documented, typically with an audio recorder that is later transcribed, and included in the full report.
The third step is the laboratorial work. These are tests that will conclude whether the victim was under any medication or alcohol, which are added evidence that can be used in a court of law if such becomes necessary, as well as examination of any physical evidence found in the body, including but not limited to the last meal, bullets or any strange marks found upon the body that require a deeper analysis.
Depending on the circumstances of the case, a Medical Examiner may elect to open an investigation about a particular death to determine whether there was foul play or negligence from any of the parties involved.
Statistics
Promotions and Awards
With September coming to a close, we our honored to announce our promotions throughout the department.
Promotions
Civilian > Probationary Medical Examiner
Robert Hill
William Deed
Jiri Hora
Eloisa Venturi
William Deed
Jiri Hora
Eloisa Venturi
Probationary Medical Examiner > Medical Examiner
Suyanne Radaelli
Probationary Coroner > Deputy Coroner
Dax Griffiths
Vincent Franchetti
Emma Hall
Tassia Lowe
Rebecca Allen
Max Griffiths
Ranisha Sarmiento
Itsuki Aoyama
Diana Campbell
Vincent Franchetti
Emma Hall
Tassia Lowe
Rebecca Allen
Max Griffiths
Ranisha Sarmiento
Itsuki Aoyama
Diana Campbell
Deputy Coroner > Deputy Coroner (I)
Cylus Hughes
Edward Fielding
Nicholas Schwarz
Ralph Risberg
James Flores
Oliver Turner
Edward Fielding
Nicholas Schwarz
Ralph Risberg
James Flores
Oliver Turner
Deputy Coroner (I) > Deputy Coroner (II)
Emily Buchanan
Dawn Ashford
Henry Nolan
Felix Williams
Yazeed Mohammed
Mariniki Tsoumani
Dawn Ashford
Henry Nolan
Felix Williams
Yazeed Mohammed
Mariniki Tsoumani
Supervising Deputy Coroner > Assistant Chief Deputy Coroner
Dante Rosenberg
Awards
Deputy Coroner Of The Month
Wayne Villers
Medical Examiner Of The Month
Dr. Suyanne Radaelli
Supervisor Of The Month
Agrien Vandroy
Closing Words
This is the first of many newsletters for us here at the Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, we hope everyone in the city that reads this has more knowledge of what we do for the community than what they knew before. From the members of the Public Relations division, we wish everyone to have a good day and enjoy what you're passionate about!
