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PERHAPS the most important room in the City ial] opens on the fourth floor corridor. If you entered it without reading the lettering on the door you might be hard put to identify it. But it’s the hinge on which the weight of the law swings in Long Beach; it's the police laboratory. In 1938, when Ralph Simons began as police technician, he could carry the department around with him. It consisted of a view camera and fingerprint kit. Now the walls are lined with specialized equipment, and two uniformed and gun-carrying iden tification officers, Wallace Dillon and Loren Harvey, assist in mak ing order out of the disorder which accompanies crime. It 35 from disorder that the weight of conviction grows. A careless act of a criminal, and the laboratory lads are there to find it and with equipment to preserve it as evidence in court. BUT EVIDENCE is not al ways conclusive. A couple of dozen progressive states have al lowed the evidence of the intoxi meter test to carry its own weight, but in California a shrewd gambler would offer five-to-eight odds that a drunk driver suspect will or will not be convicted, in spite of the balloon into which he has blown. Chem ical tests will show the alcohol percentage in the suspect's blood, and more than .15 of 1 per cent is evidence of being too drunk to drive. Ralph Simons must appear in court almost every day, to establish himself as an expert chemist and able to verify the findings of the inteximeter. But such are the quirks of the law that often the suspect is re leased for lack of evidence. Fortunately, this does not hold true with most of the laboratory evidence. Fingerprints being what they are, and with the aid of a vacuum cleaner and a spe cial filter, detection boils down to patience and shrewd identifi cation of oddities found at the scene of the crime. A CASE IN POINT was the body of a new-born baby, wrapped in rags and packed in a pasteboard carton. A cheap black cotton blouse and part of a skirt was all the laboratory had to work on. The blouse was sweat stained, a couple of mouse-blonde hairs were found on the skirt, which showed signs of having been let out due to pregnancy. And it was sewed with material from a GI sewing kit. Bits drawn onto the filter from the skirt in cluded bits of red, green and brown wool, portions of pine needles, and quartz with flecks of galena in it. The story of the dead baby was released to the newspapers, and a report came of a woman who had been pregnant but who now had no baby. Identification was simple: in her room was a red, green and brown rug. She had a boyfriend who has served in the armed forces, and she had visited Big Bear with him before the baby was born. Because the child had been stillborn, no charges were filed, but the case was closed. A COMPARISON microscope is used for positive identification of fingerprints, flecks of paint taken from garments of accident victims, to be compared with paint from a suspect vehicle, and bullets, where their distinctive markings show one weapon has fired both a fatal bullet and one test fired in the laboratory. And a camera is mounted over the eyepiece and the evidence is re corded on film. Another micro scope is a $1,500 beauty, a Leitz Dialux Phase Contrast which eliminates the danger of losing a sole specimen by having to stain a slide. The German instrument uses a light cone to give con trast, and can reach a magnifi cation of 1,500 times. A 35mm camera can record the evidence. One often speaks of the weight of evidence. In the police lab oratory this is literally true. Even if it weighs only a millionth of a gram, the laboratory scale with its intricate checks and balances will indicate it. But with such a fraction of matter, the sway of the building must be allowed for (here you may weigh an earthquake!) The weights are of gold, for gold is a dead or inert metal and will not change. Along one wall of the labora tory is the chemical equipment. The identification of a suspected narcotic is made here, perhaps from only a tiny stain from the rubber bulb of a medicine drop per. Here blood stains are iden tified. The identification of hu man blood is not difficult but, contrary to what many assume, blood types are seldom deter mined from such stains. Typing blood depends upon cells cluster ing, and some dyes, including naval blues, prevent such order ing of blood cells. But nothing is left to chance. A control’ is always maintained while identification goes on. Once in court a desperate defense at torney challenged Ralph Simons on blood identification. “Where did you get the so called blood which you compared the exhibit specimen with?” he demanded. “Out of my own arm,” said Simons, and on that the prose cution could well rest its case. Delicate scales weigh bit of evidence as Wallace Dillon works in police lab, Loren Harvey, identification officer, makes careful study of fingerprint . Se 56h Ralph Simons uses Leitz Dialux micro scope for detailed crime clue studies.
Newspaper Details
Independent Press Telegram
Long Beach, California, US
Sun, Jun 17, 1956
Page 164
Full Page
Clipped by
Teresa G.
USA 22 Aug 2026
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