do detectives use flashlights to check crime scenes when they could just as easily turn on a light first?

Question

on television, detectives use flashlights when they could just as easily turn on a light first to check out a room. Is this a television thing to make it seem more suspenseful or is it done in real life.

Answer 1

Besides officer safety, using a flashlight to search and examine a crime scene serves several legitimate investigative purposes. I have been a cop for 11 years - 3 1/2 of those years have been as a detective - and can give some real life examples.

(1) OBLIQUE LIGHTING - Sometimes light applied from different angles makes something more visible. Here is an example you can try at home. Go outside at night and step in the dirt. You will leave behind a shoe print. Take a bright flashlight and shine it down on that footprint from straight above. You will see that the detail of the footprint is washed out by the bright light. Now, take the same light down to almost ground level and shine it along the ground over the footprint. You will see how the ridges and details in the footprint become much more visible. This technique works with fingerprints too!

(2) FOCUSED FIELD OF VIEW - Searching an otherwise dark area is often helpful in finding small items as it allows you to focus on the small area illuminated by the flashlight rather than to focus on a much large, more widely illuminated area. Here's another way to illustrate this principle. When you look at a whole page in a "Where's Waldo" book, Waldo is hard to find. Now take a toilet paper roller and look at the same page through the tube like a telescope. Move the tube around the page. You will see that, once Waldo falls into your field of view, he will stand out much more plainly due to the much smaller "focused" field of view.

Using a flashlight rather than touching the switches, walls, etc., also ensures that any fingerprints, DNA evidence, etc., that may be present in the area you might touch will not be disturbed.

Answer 2

No, this is actually something important. As a cop or detective you don't always know what you're walking into - even the bad guys know that it's instinct to flip the light switch when you walk into a dark room. They hope the cops will fall for it and flip the switch to set off an explosion. It's easily done, and any cop worth his salt will rely on his own light first. It's a good question though!

Answer 3

Light switches and Lamps are the Lat thing people Clean after a Murder Scene, and In the rush they usually don't do it right if they do it at all. Also If Light bulbs are hot enough it may damage the evidence specially Fingerprints.

Answer 4

Well, I'm not a donut eating cop so I can't say if they do that or not. But, put something tiny on a table and look at it with the room light, then turn off the light and shine a flashlight horizontially across the object.

Even a tiny object will cast a long shadow and be easy to spot. Don't ask How I know these things.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Cant disturb the crime scene, it is done in "real life" sometimes a light switch isnt always a light switch.

Answer 7

Light switches cause a small spark, but enough to blow a big hole in the floor. Also, consider night blindness. Turn the lights on and you are blind long enough to get your a.. shot off.

Answer 8

when there is no lights. flash lights really do help a lot, don't you think so?

Answer 9

fingerprints on switch maybe lost

Answer 10

for exanple they could leave finger prints in the ligth switch.