UNIPATH STAFF
Surrounded by forensic equipment, ominous posters and signs of proper protective gear, members of the Kuwait Police Crime Lab exchanged ideas with the Forensic Exploitation Team-Arifjan (FXT-A) at Camp Arifjan in March 2017. Police officers, chemists and other analysts from the lab toured FXT-A’s facilities to “learn about different disciplines,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ann Sampson, the forensic exploration officer in charge of FXT-A.
The visit with the chemists and police allowed the lab’s scientists and analysts the opportunity to discuss practices and technological differences between the facilities. There was also an impromptu lesson on the facility’s hand-held Raman spectroscopy device, used to observe vibrational, rotational, and other low-frequency modes in chemistry to identify a substance.
“We brought out the different disciplines from their facility,” Sampson said. “They learned about how we work,” including how FXT-A provides forensics intelligence to commanders to facilitate operations in theater.
Early this year, FXT-A toured the Kuwaiti lab — a “world-class facility,” Sampson said. The two facilities shared similarities, but their differences made both visits educational.
“There are some scientific principles that are different,” she said. Then, of course, both groups exist for different reasons. The Kuwaiti lab exists “primarily to support the justice enterprise, and we’re primarily here to support the battlefield operations.” Source: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ann Sampson