Sharjah Police urge residents not to clean up crime scenes

SHARJAH // Police are urging residents who witness or are victims of a crime to leave the scene untouched until specialist officers arrive.

The Sharjah Criminal Scene Investigation department said the main obstacle they faced was people cleaning up or moving objects.

“It is vital people ... don’t touch anything until the police arrive, it is without doubt the most important thing that residents can do,” said Col Naji Al Hamadi, director of Sharjah CSI department .

Residents whose cars have been broken into should call the police immediately.

“One woman who had her car broken into took the car for repairs before cleaning it. She waited for two days to report the theft to the police, by which point most of the evidence had been tampered with,” Col Al Hamadi said.

Col Al Hamadi said some residents felt they had to clean up before police arrived, making it difficult for CSI teams to lift fingerprints and collect evidence. Sharjah CSI dealt with 1,920 crime scene investigations last year, including 14 in the central region and 175 in the eastern region.