ABSTRACT
The focus in land investigations is on witnesses. Witnesses are as important to the underwater investigation team as they are to any investigative effort. All information gathered from witnesses or dry-land investigators is geared to provide information that will assist in the recovery of physical evidence. Witnesses differ in perspective and may color that information as a result of interviews with first responding officers and any dry-land investigators who may have been present. In most instances of police diving, the life of the victim is not in question. Bad weather and surface conditions should be considered before anyone is ordered into the water. Many jurisdictions treat waterways as an anomaly to the investigative process and believe that there is nothing to process in an underwater crime scene. People using lakes and rivers as repositories for bodies, weapons, or contraband have to get to those places and have to leave those places.
