Human Decontamination - Collection of Personal Belongings For Evidence

Collection of Personal Belongings For Evidence

Dofficers (Decontamination officers in the "doffing" or disrobing area) are often police or military personnel, ready to handle potentially unruly persons who refuse to cooperate with first responders.

For example, the U.S. ARMY SOLDIER AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMICAL COMMAND suggests that:

"The entire incident is a crime scene requiring the collection of criminal evidence and suspicious victim belongings. The preservation of a proper chain of custody must be maintained for all evidence. ... patients could be suspects and their belongings may be evidence. ... Direct patients through a detailed decontamination process and deal with potentially unruly patients. ... Enforce order when persons become uncooperative when asked to remove clothing and relinquish personal items.".

Paul Rega, M.D., FACEP, and Kelly Burkholder-Allen also note, in "The ABCs of Bioterrorism" an additional advantage in decontaminating everyone found at the scene of an incident, because this will help the authorities in searching through everyone's clothes to find suspicious items:

"Removal of clothing in the decon procedure has the additional advantage of detecting weapons or a secondary device on a victim or "pseudo-victim".

Chris Seiple, in "Another Perspective on the Domestic Role of the Military in Consequence Management" suggests that the evidence gathering process of identifying contaminated people and their belongings should also include the process of video surveillance:

The identification of contaminated victims and their personal effects... Victims are also videotaped as they proceed through the decontamination line.

Video Surveillance... Videotaped documentation could later be used in the evidence processes;

Although there are the obvious privacy concerns in surveillance, one can also argue that due to the high risk nature of terrorism, such surveillance is warranted, as it is in other high risk areas like bathing complexes where surveillance is often used because of the risk of drowning. In these cases the importance of safety may often be thought to outweigh privacy concerns.