Mr. Demeanor

Fingerprints dont work the way some of you think. The cost to collect them is time and materials for the evidence tech (thats me). If the prints are identified on an object but look difficult to collect, the item may be sent to a lab to collect and are processed much like triag at a hospital. The murder, rape, etc gets done first and your prints will sit. Your prints didnt get processed because of several reasons.
The lab will never get them done because they dont have time. I have sent in good prints to the Illinois State police crime lab on residential burglary cases and never even got a reply. They would only be able to match them up if they got a good print (very unlikely) and the print matched up to a person who has previously been arrested.
Lets say they actually processed your print. If this print was collected and no match was found, it is garbage. If the offender on your case is caught a month from now by another jurisdiction and they enter his prints, it will not go back and find that they match a print from a previous (your) case.
Now, I always collect a print if I see one that looks good. You would not want me to "dust" your boat. You would never get the powder cleaned up and you would be very pissed that you upholstery is ruined and the lab wont even look at the print you sent.....if you found a worthy print. The powder we use gets on everything and anything with any porosity is ruined. THere are other methods of locating and collecting prints that are used but are more destructive. Superglue is somthing we use a lot.
Furthermore, the lab will want what are called elimination prints if a print is found. They will want a set of prints from you and anyone that could have come in contact with the object. Your family, mechanic, etc.
That being said, your police department is probably understaffed and would likely have to call in a tech and pay him overtime to try and locate a print that probably isnt there.
Now if it were me and I was taking the report. I would look around real well with my flashlight at any good surfaces that had a high degree of retaing a good print from the offender (smooth and flat). If it were there, I would ask you before breaking out the dust and trying to lift it. The only reason I would do this is to make you feel a little better and we just might catch the guy doing the same thing next week. That print might tie him to this case.
One last thing, when somthing like this happens it is likely assigned to a Detective. If the PD is on the ball, they will send out a computer message (we are all tied togethor in areas) that goes to all the other nearby PD's. It would read somthing like this:
Burglary Investigation (its a burglary because they entered a building to commit the crime)
Taken from boat following equipment.....
Apparent latent finger prints and footwear impressions (or whatever they found) on file. Contact Detective Smith etc etc.
Very few police departments have the resources to work on a case like yours. Because of the overload at the state lab, they would need their own lab. I have worked on murder cases and hand delivered dna evidence and had it sit because someone went on vacation. Sorry but thats it. Laptop battery is dying now....hope they catch them.

Mr. Demeanor

Ok, I'm plugged in now. I dont want to give you guys the idea that I am defending bad police work. I just want to explain whats involved and how screwed up things are. The cop should have explained this stuff to you when he was there. Every Cop should be taught the basics of evidence collection and be able to do a preliminary search for prints. Thats not the case in the real world where more calls are usually holding and the guy has to get your report done as quick as possible. Things are getting better though. That damn show CSI has really screwed things up. They can get prints and dna results out of the trunk of their car

Fountainclimber

Mr. Demeanor,

I agree with what you are saying about return on investment but A, I have to do something, and B, lets say I get lucky and somebody hears something and we find my parts on his boat.

Wouldn't't it be helpful if we could match a print taken from a nice smooth valve cover or one of the millions of oil prints all over the fiberglass and compare it to the real person? If not, the only chance there is of ever getting caught is for him to etch "I stole these from" on the parts.


I am not giving up because I have to believe it can be solved.

F

Mr. Demeanor

I agree. Just wanted to explain what is involved as it has come up often lately. That oily print is a real ***** to get. It would take some good photography. If you have visible prints then something should have been done to collect them. Call the PD and ask they come back out if they havnt been touched.

Griff

Whomever told you that it cost $2200 to run prints is full o crap. If the prints are in a local data base, it takes about an hour of labor for a tech to match prints, maybe more, maybe less, depending on the quality of the print.

candyman35

Fountainclimber,
So sorry to hear this. Sounds like someone had a grocery list and your boat fit the bill. The valve covers makes me think it was someone who knows your boat or saw a post here on OSO. It's ashame we have to worry about things like this. We all take such good care of our investments just so some POS can ruin it for us. I hope they catch who ever did this to your boat. If I hear anything I'll let you know.
Dan

Chris288

My dad went outside during lunch and saw some punk with his legs dangling out of his car, he crawled up under the dash to steal the radio and decided to take one wire off at time... he grabbed him by the leggs, ripped him outta the car, bounced his head off the ground, jacked the kid up and called the cops,,, when they got there, they called the kids father and then wanted to know if they wanted to press assault charges on my dad. Amazing.....

P.S. Sorry this happend to your boat,,, F'ing a-hole thieves..

Downtown42

Chris..hopefully your dad pinched his balls good and hard before cops showed.

Chris288

Also,, when I took the hand gun safety course for my pistol permit,,, The officer giving the course said if you wake up in the middle of the night and catch someone burglarizing your home, you cannot shoot the bastard unless he threatens your or your family with deadly force.. whats that old adage,, dead men tell no stories..

Allan4

Another old adage....

I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6....

Start squezing off rounds.