National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 647 - 591: Expansion

Chapter 647: Chapter 591: Expansion

"It’s still best if we could work out some process and refine the details," said the police officer in charge of publicity, turning to discuss with a few of his colleagues.

Although their task was just to document some materials, which could be meticulously selected upon their return, it’s certain that if no interesting material was captured at the scene, what could possibly be selected afterward?

The case that Jiang Yuan had just handled did indeed broaden the horizons of the publicity officers—not to exaggerate, but work that impresses them must hold tremendous innovative value, and thus, great publicity value.

However, such work should not be filmed too roughly, because even if there might be significant edits required for confidentiality reasons when publicizing, the leaders should not see the edited version when they review it.

While thinking, the publicity officer communicated with his colleagues, and soon they each held their equipment, spread out, and started their investigations and evidence collection.

This officer was not only interested in Jiang Yuan’s crime-solving methods, but they also wanted to interview and record the practices, thoughts, and emotional journeys of the other team members.

The mission of the ministry has never been to nurture countless excellent individuals. Cultivating mature teams, popularizing advanced tactics, and developing practical techniques have always been the key points of their implementation.

Of course, the ultimate goal is still to train high-level investigators. Characters like Jiang Yuan are virtually templates, except that his technical level is so exceptional that even the publicity officers have a hard time keeping up with the pace.

"But, if they really memorize the habitual offenders’ physical characteristics, footprints, fingerprints, etc., of this township, then these habitual offenders’ space to survive in their own territory would truly disappear, right?" the publicity officer mused uncertainly after making a round. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe it; he had just never seen such a thing before.

Cui Xiaohu had never seen it either and now pretended to understand, saying, "Li Huan, what you don’t know is that since this week, Litang Township has hardly had any cases. The frequency of police dispatches has declined, and those who are somewhat ruffian-like and unclean in their dealings have either quietly hidden away in the countryside or have fled far away."

"Isn’t that like a crackdown?" the publicity officer, Li Huan, laughed, amused by Cui Xiaohu.

Cui Xiaohu was quite serious as he said, "Do you know what the difference is?"

"What is it?"

"They can’t escape. Now, the police of Litang Township can simply dispatch a few officers for duty each day. The rest are here to review past cases. For any case that Jiang Yuan sets his eyes on, the culprits should just wait to be arrested. It’s only because we lack manpower and funding that the arrest numbers are not higher."

Li Huan was surprised, "But aren’t there arrests made from out of town?"

"You didn’t look carefully; they are all captured from several cities. They accumulate a bunch of cases now, pick a location with the most fugitives, and then conduct concentrated arrests," Cui Xiaohu paused, then added, "It’s only after coming here that I realized, it’s truly not easy to work at the grassroots level."

Accumulating cases before making arrests sounds simple, but it’s actually not easy.

On one hand, fugitives might continuously run away. If they ’shoot and scoot,’ arriving late could mean that the person has already escaped.

On the other hand, arresting multiple people at once greatly increases the risk on the way back. Normally, two detectives would take care of one fugitive, treating them well on the way home, providing them with more emotional value than they would even give to their own wives. When dealing with a group of fugitives, just imagining it could give you a headache, all relying on the transportation provided by Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad.

It’s also because the cases at the police station are minor and the arrested habitual offenders are mostly petty thieves. Occasionally there’s also a straggler from the Jin Zhang Group, which can offset some of the disadvantages mentioned before.

But to be fair, a disadvantage is still a disadvantage, and this lack of funds and personnel wouldn’t occur in places like Beijing or Shanghai, as their detectives don’t capture fugitives this way.

Of course, from another angle, it is precisly because the cases are minor and criminals have a weak sense of vigilance that this approach is viable.

Having grasped the situation, Li Huan chuckled, "You’re also thinking of asking for funding on behalf of the local police station."

"It would be more useful to give Jiang Yuan and his team some funding. So—you have to shoot well," Cui Xiaohu emphasized, "This is only for a few days. Once this batch of cases is processed, Jiang Yuan and his team will be returning."

"Litang Township is cleaner than a crackdown?" Li Huan blinked.

"A large number of cases were solved with incontrovertible evidence, settling historical debts," Cui Xiaohu offered a new definition, then added, "You’ll understand once you’ve seen it—it’s all solid evidence."

Li Huan, who had been working on the frontlines of publicity for years, didn’t fully believe Cui Xiaohu’s boasting. He wasn’t very familiar with Cui Xiaohu either; although they both worked in the department, they were usually traveling for business, and he had seen all sorts of boastful leaders.

Although he had watched one of Jiang Yuan’s cases just now, he didn’t have any profound understanding of what Cui Xiaohu referred to as ’riding on the face.’

After briefly understanding the situation, Li Huan lifted his camera and stood behind Jiang Yuan again.

Jiang Yuan was still poring over fingerprints.

The fingerprints he was looking for involved only minor cases, and any that were somewhat "serious" had been handed over.

Of course, this was the police’s definition. For ordinary victims, any item qualifying for a case filing was significant and hard to part with. And if injured, it was even worse.

Second-degree light injuries were pains most people would not experience in their lifetimes.

Most evidence for minor cases was also fairly well established.

Nowadays, inspired by the spirit of Shandong, young people are keen on becoming "men of spirit" from Shandong, willing to spend time passing exams to become government employees. The quality of young police officers is rapidly surpassing that of their British and American counterparts. The police officers from the local stations and the detectives from the criminal investigation squads, almost all of them come from a few police academies both within the province and beyond.

The methods taught for evidence processing at these similar institutions are also quite alike.

However, the number of qualified forensic personnel is insufficient and not strong enough.

Level 1 forensic personnel are found everywhere in each county bureau, and some veteran detectives might reach Level 1 competency just by looking at fingerprints or such things.

But as for Level 2 competency, most county and even city bureau detectives fall short.

For Jiang Yuan, however, processing such evidence was too easy.

Li Huan simply watched as Jiang Yuan flipped through pages, then suddenly stopped.

Next, he saw Jiang Yuan pull out all the photos of the case and start reading through them again.

Feeling that he couldn’t wait any longer, as waiting would once again result in merely watching blankly, Li Huan took advantage of the moment Jiang Yuan paused and asked in a quiet voice, "Have we found similar fingerprints again?"

"Oh, this...it’s not..." Jiang Yuan’s reply was unexpectedly.

Li Huan, "Then what are we looking at..."

"Well, look at this window, the marks from where it was pried open, and here’s another mark from prying open a window. Are they practically identical?" Jiang Yuan asked Li Huan.

Li Huan scrutinized them carefully for a moment and said, "It seems like they might be?"

"Yes, the characteristics are actually quite obvious. The culprit used a crowbar, and the edge of his crowbar is missing a small piece... We can do a comparison later on, but it seems there should be no issue with this case," Jiang Yuan said. With Level 6 Tool Trace Identification, he didn’t need it all the time, but when he did, he was almost invariably on point.

Seeing that Jiang Yuan didn’t seem to be pretending, Li Huan called someone over to take pictures, while asking, "So, does that mean we’ve solved the case?"

"Correct."

"That was too easy," Li Huan couldn’t help exclaiming.

Cui Xiaohu hurried over and said, "It wasn’t easy. Jiang Yuan has been persistent for a long time, only after becoming thoroughly familiar with the entire Litang Township were such results and efficiency possible."

"Is that so?" Li Huan looked at Jiang Yuan, feeling this might be worth discussing.

Cui Xiaohu eagerly encouraged Jiang Yuan to share his experience.

After considering, Jiang Yuan said, "Actually, solving these minor cases at the police station is roughly as difficult as the major cases in the traditional sense. They might be a bit simpler, but not by much. However, our recent work revealed one characteristic of the station’s cases: a high frequency of repeat offenders."

Li Huan nodded in agreement. Places like Litang Township were unknown to outsiders, and it was unlikely that transients would even pass through.

As for petty thievery, its repetitive nature is inherent. If the thief is a professional, their ’working hours’ naturally won’t be short.

Jiang Yuan continued, "After summarizing our experience, we found that solving stand-alone criminal cases is most difficult with the least reward, offering the lowest cost-performance ratio. On the other hand, for a series of cases, if you can find the same or similar modus operandi, tools, or identical footprints or fingerprints, the cases become easier to solve."

"That’s a great approach, sort of like the intuition of a veteran detective. You seem to know the cases in your jurisdiction inside out."

"Exactly, especially if we’re familiar with previous cases, it’s even more helpful. It’s just that it requires a high initial investment," Jiang Yuan said, smiling. "As for the investment in Litang Township, we’ve already made it, so these past few days we’ve been seizing the moment to harvest our efforts, trying to filter out as many solvable cases as possible to prevent any waste."

"On behalf of the residents of Litang Township, I thank you," Li Huan immediately waved the banner of representation.

"It’s our duty, and moreover, we’re planning to extend and propagate this method to other places, like Ningtai County. It could be applied using a similar tactic," Jiang Yuan had really thought this through. Previously, while screening cases in Ningtai County, he prioritized major cases such as homicides and robberies. How to face minor cases had actually become a challenge.

This visit to Litang Township had once again increased Jiang Yuan’s efficiency.

Without any delay, Jiang Yuan plunged into a new round of case filtering. Just like he said, it was time to pick the fruits of labor, and not solving cases now would be a waste.

Li Huan had the camera crew record a few more shots before leaving the conference room.

Following him, Cui Xiaohu asked with a smile, "What do you think? Our Captain Jiang is quite unique, isn’t he? Any thoughts?"

Li Huan nodded, saying, "The thieves from Litang Township have really hit rock bottom in their luck."