What is Forensics: The Mr. R Special

Here at Pottsgrove, our options when it comes to the sciences that are available to us are plentiful. We have chemistry, biology, anatomy, and so many more. However, some of us may not understand what these classes are and what they entail. So we here at The Falcon had the wonderful opportunity to interview our resident Forensics teacher, Mr. Rusiewicz, in order to better understand this class.                                                                                          


What has your class been working on currently?

“We are working on the crime scene investigation lab, where we are sketching the crime scene where you measure the crime scene we get the exact measurements, and then we scale it down to fit on a paper so that when these documents would be taken to a trial, they have the exact measurements and location of all the pieces of a evidence at a crime scene.”

What goes into creating a staged crime scene?

“Lots and lots and lots of planning. I usually spend about a week thinking up all the details. So we’re talking realistically a couple hours a day after school coming up with different ideas and scenarios and then the actual set up of the lab takes me about 6 hours after school so a couple days I spend 3 hours each day trying to set up the lab and getting every piece of evidence where its supposed to be and also having a story that makes sense and can be solved. That’s the hardest part is that you have to leave evidence behind to make it so kids can solve the crime like a game of clue.”

Has there ever been a time where you made a crime scene too hard?

“Yeah my, probably, first or second year it was tough because I didn’t do it, you guys this year this year we did it on the ground and we had a lot of space to do the measurements, my first year I did them on the the lab tables here, and because they aren’t perfectly square the kids had a real hard time measuring the crime scenes.”

What has been your favorite crime scene you’ve ever staged?

“This one, for sure this one, Last year’s was cool. I had 4 different crime scenes last year, but they were a lot smaller. This one was more involved in terms of the story and also it was bigger. We have two large crime scenes that are 12 ft by 12 ft so there’s plenty of space but I think the solution and crime this year was my favorite.”

Is it ever hard to come up with new material for these staged crime scenes?

“Ehh- there’s always crimes.”

Do you have any future plans for the class that you would like to share?

“There’s tons of plans for the class. Every year I make up new crime scenes just referring to this, but every year we do all types of labs. It’s a really hands-on class so you need to want to be involved. If it doesn’t interest you then it is going to be boring but I don’t know how you could find some of this stuff boring, its real life crime solving. So if somebody is not taking the class and (their thinking about it) (is considering taking the class) if you at all are interested in crime, police investigation, mysteries, then take the class.”

Is there anything you would like to share with the student body?

“Know your rights. Know legally what you are able to do out there in the real world to protect yourself at all times.”