May 5, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 3A
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DETECTIVE 101
Understanding the
tools used to solve
a murder
lice Department leads the discussion
with the crew about what this could
mean, introducing Mr. Ghotshot’s
girlfriend “Polly Substance” as a
character in the narrative.
“You want to let the facts drive
the investigation, even if you are hy-
pothesizing who did it,” Knight said.
Knight and Wilbur are members
of the Clatsop County Major Crime
T eam, which investigates homicides,
kidnappings and other serious of-
fenses.
The team is deployed about 12
times a year, Knight said. The ma-
jor crime rate in Clatsop County is
relatively low compared to a metro-
politan area, but the signifi cance of
the work is not lessened by that fact,
he said.
“These types of crimes are hard to
emotionally process,” he said. “You
have to have good stress outlets. But
I love what I do because I get to give
voice to kids or other victims who
otherwise wouldn’t be heard.”
By Brenna Visser
Cannon Beach Gazette
O
n Monday evening, April
26, the City Council cham-
ber in Cannon Beach was a
hotel room.
Strewn about the fl oor were
shell casings, a fake gun and the
crash-dummy body of a fi ctional
“Mr. Ghotshot” punctured with bul-
let wounds. In the room next door,
about 20 people sat in the round to
learn how to process a crime scene .
Lt. Chris Wilbur of the Cannon
Beach Police Department stood be-
fore them to present preliminary in-
formation.
“We have Mr. Ghotshot’s name,
his license plate and where he
lives. How do you start to solve this
crime?” Wilbur asked.
The exercise was a new addition
to Clatsop County’s 10th annual
Citizen Police Academy as a way to
show another aspect of law enforce-
ment work, Cannon Beach Police
Chief Jason Schermerhorn said. In
the third session out of 10, the class
learned how detectives solve a crime
from start to fi nish.
But before anyone could get out
and look at the body, participants
were lectured on what makes up a
large amount of a detective’s job :
paper work. “Do we have probable
cause to enter the hotel room?” one
person asked.
“How does a search warrant
work?”
“Does anyone else who was in
the room with him have a right to
privacy?”
As the class brainstormed ideas
to track down evidence and conduct
interviews, Wilbur said the process
of cataloging every detail and docu-
menting every action is the lesson to
be taken out of the exercise.
“It’s not like TV, where you can
solve a crime in a matter of days.
Sometimes it takes years,” he said.
“Your best friends are your legal
pad, your pen and your recorder. It’s
about talking to people.”
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
Detectives with the Cannon Beach Police Department instruct participants in how to process a crime scene .
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
Participants in a C itizen P olice A cademy in Cannon Beach
sign in with Offi cer James Jordan, right, before entering a
mock crime scene.
A marker is placed next to “evidence” at a
mock crime scene .
Connect with community
Wilbur has been a detective with
Cannon Beach since 2011, and said
while this work isn’t always as
glamorous as it is portrayed on TV,
it’s important to do these types of
workshops to connect with the com-
munity.
“We’re public servants,” he said.
“We want to be a part of our com-
munity and to make the community
a part of us. Educating people about
what we do upholds that idea.”
Back at the crime scene, volun-
teers started cataloging evidence.
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Ashaki Boelter, one of the par-
ticipants, served as the mock crime
scene photographer in the exercise.
He signed up for the class to learn
more about law enforcement in light
of police offi cer-involved shootings
of black men that have recently at-
tracted national media attention.
“This is a hot topic in my com-
munity,” said Boelter, who is black .
“Being fully educated is important.”
What he found was a possible
new career in criminal justice down
the road.
“In this process, I learned most
of law enforcement, at least around
here, are people doing the best of
their ability in respectable posi-
tions,” he said. “I’m looking forward
to learning more.”
As the participants interrogated
Polly Substance about the murder of
her fi ctional boyfriend, Knight told
participants about what he thought
was the heart of police work: cus-
tomer service.
“The customer isn’t always right,
and sometimes we have to arrest
them. But you treat everyone with
respect,” he said. “There are very
few truly bad people out there.”
So who killed Mr. Ghotshot? It
was Polly Substance, the girlfriend.
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drugs? Check. An autopsy that re-
veals he was murdered? Check.
But one item stands out as miss-
ing: the victim’s phone.
Using GPS, the participants dis-
cover the phone has been used in
other parts of the state. Detective
Guy Knight from the Seaside Po-
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