By Jacqueline Carpenter From RCIPS

The RCIPS is pleased to announce that SOCO Trainee Brittney Parchman has been promoted to a Scenes of Crime Officer, effective 1 March 2016.

Ms. Parchman, age 26, born and raised in the Cayman Islands, says she knew when she was about 14 that she wanted to pursue a career in forensic science.

“It was (the TV show) CSI that first got me interested in it, it’s true” she admits, chuckling, “but when I started studying forensic science in University, I realized that the work is nothing like what you see on TV. But I still loved it.”

Ms. Parchman attended UCCI and then transferred to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, from which she graduated with a degree in Forensic Science with a minor in Chemistry in 2012. One summer during college she interned with the RCIPS; after graduating, she returned to Cayman and was taken on as a trainee in the RCIPS Scenes of Crime Office in 2014.

“Forensic science is a broad area,” she explains, “while crime scene investigation is quite specific. I was definitely not ready to do this job right out of school; I needed additional training within this area.” She has spent the last sixteen months shadowing other SOCO officers, learning their techniques, honing her photography skills, and gradually gaining enough experience to handle cases independently. Throughout her training, she says, “my fellow SOCO colleagues have been very encouraging and willing to assist whenever I needed them.”

The RCIPS also provided for Ms. Parchman’s participation in a 5-day course on crime scene investigation at the CSI Academy of Florida in Gainesville last May.

Ms. Parchman’s hands-on training and regular mentoring by colleagues has paid dividends. The quality of her work was recently commended by the court in an assault case, in which the scene photographs and albums she produced helped secure a conviction.

“I am delighted that we have been able to provide both the opportunity and the mentoring for a young woman like Ms. Parchman to gain the skills and experience needed for her professional development,” said David Baines, Commissioner of Police, “I know we will be hearing more good things about her work in the future.”

Asked how she feels having achieved what must have seemed like a distant goal back in 2012, when she was an RCIPS Intern, Ms. Parchman says that her experience has only confirmed what she knew then. “I definitely chose the right career for me,” she says.