Crime, Evidence, and the Law

Crime, Evidence, and the Law

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Special Agent Doug Seccombe of the Chicago FBI office overviews the FBI’s Evidence Response Team’s mission, training, and field work, including their use of special forensic equipment and expertise. The talk also highlights training requirements that ensure a high level of competence during the collection of evidence that can be introduced in courts throughout the U.S. and the world. Seccombe also describes special training sites, such as the Body Farm, and FBI investigations, such as the terrorist downing of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.

Special Agent Douglas Seccombe is senior team leader of the Evidence Response Team, FBI Chicago. He has 21 years of experience that includes fugitive investigations, white collar crime investigations, street gang investigations, two tours of Iraq as an agent embedded with Joint Special Operations Command, and 18 years as a member of the Chicago FBI ERT. As part of the ERT, Seccombe was involved in the investigation of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya in 1998, the crash of United Flight 93 in 2001, the exhumation and autopsy of civil rights martyr Emmett Till in 2005, and the recovery of disinterred human remains at Burr Oak Cemetery in 2009. The Chicago ERT is tasked over 100 times per year with Federal cases and assisting state and local law enforcement when requested.

Recorded Thursday, November 8, 2012 at Hughes Auditorium, Northwestern University Chicago Campus.