{"id":25174,"date":"2017-11-26T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=25174"},"modified":"2017-11-25T08:56:10","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T14:56:10","slug":"apsu-montgomery-county-sheriffs-office-partner-to-create-mock-crime-scene-for-criminal-justice-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2017\/11\/26\/apsu-montgomery-county-sheriffs-office-partner-to-create-mock-crime-scene-for-criminal-justice-students\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU, Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office partner to create mock crime scene for criminal justice students"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Huddled with a group of Austin Peay State University criminal justice students, Mark Wojnarek finally asked the question they had all spent the better part of a half hour trying to solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we looking at the scene of a crime,\u201d Wojnarek, a senior investigator sergeant with the Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office, asked. \u201cSome crime scenes can be staged, so are we looking at a murder, or are we looking at a suicide?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Montgomery<\/a>

Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office helps Austin Peay create a mock crime scene for students.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Students in Assistant Professor Dr. George Frogg\u00e9\u2019s criminal investigation course spent an afternoon at the University\u2019s Morgan University Center Ballroom, pouring over a simulation of a possible crime scene after officers reported to what \u2014 on the surface \u00ad\u2014 appeared to be a person who took their life with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.<\/p>\n

Like at a real crime scene, each student had a role to play, as some took photographs, while others marked evidence and searched for clues as to what had taken place. At each step, Wojnarek was available to answer questions or offer insight to how he approaches real crime scenes.<\/p>\n

The mock investigation was coordinated by the University\u2019s Department of Criminal Justice and Frogg\u00e9, himself a former Nashville police officer, who worked with the Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office to create a lifelike simulation of what crime scene investigators encounter in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done similar (mock crime scenes) at a previous university, and it was always a very beneficial experience for my students,\u201d Frogg\u00e9 said. \u201cSome of them will go into (crime scene investigation), so these kinds of simulations will at least give them a grasp of the basics when they\u2019re really called to a crime scene as professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frogg\u00e9 said the idea for the simulation was born out of Wojnarek\u2019s pre-existing relationship with the University. An alumnus of APSU with a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and psychology, the 18-year law enforcement officer had been working toward a master\u2019s in strategic leadership and was looking for opportunities to use his experience to help the department\u2019s students.<\/p>\n

Wjonarek\u2019s experience directing a special victims unit that handles, among other crimes, homicide or death investigations \u2014 and his willingness to help APSU students, Frogg\u00e9 said, has been invaluable as students can take their lessons and begin to apply them to both simulated and \u2014 eventually \u2014 real world crime scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go over the kinds of things that you will see and do at a crime scene in our lectures, so to have Mark come to campus and offer his insight was a chance for our students to see that what they\u2019re learning really is relevant,\u201d Frogg\u00e9 said. \u201cYou could really begin to see their eyes light up when they realized that they had been given the tools they\u2019ll need to approach these situations in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

With television programs like the \u201cCSI\u201d series igniting interest in the field among students, Frogg\u00e9 said these kinds of simulations are important as more people begin to consider crime scene investigation as a career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a trend among larger police departments to hire civilian crime scene investigators instead of sworn officers, and even here on campus, there\u2019s been a lot of interest in the field at our AP Day events,\u201d Frogg\u00e9 said. \u201cA lot of my students love to solve puzzles, so to them, they see crime scenes as an opportunity to solve one big puzzle, and it\u2019s important we give them an understanding of the basics.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Austin Peay\u2019s Department of Criminal Justice, visit www.apsu.edu\/criminal-justice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Huddled with a group of Austin Peay State University criminal justice students, Mark Wojnarek finally asked the question they had all spent the better part of a half hour trying to solve. \u201cAre we looking at the scene of a crime,\u201d Wojnarek, a senior investigator sergeant with the Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,31283,5594,7207,262,825,31282,31281,20181,278],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-6y2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25175,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25174\/revisions\/25175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}