Detective FAQ's

Detective Hal Wetherup, a Calgary Police Service detective, has answered questions from kids about crime scene investigation in our city.

Detective Wetherup is a GIU detective in District 1. (The Police Service divides the city into different sections and then assigns people to work in those communities. District 1 is in downtown Calgary. Find out what District you live in!)

What Calgary’s Kids Want to Know About Calgary’s Detectives

1. What kind of crimes does a GIU detective work on?
2. Does a GIU detective investigate homicides?
3. Do GIU detectives require any equipment?
4. What would a typical day for a GIU detective look like?
5. What is an M.O.?
6. How long can a typical investigation take?
7. How many crimes would a GIU detective investigate in one month? One year? Would a detective work on more than one case at a time?
8. Do GIU detectives ever have to use lethal force?
9. How many GIU detectives work for the Calgary Police Service?
10. What hours do GIU detectives have to work?
11. Do cases ever go unsolved?
12. What preparation/training do GIU detectives need?
13. Does a GIU detective need experience as a street cop before becoming a detective? Why?

1. What kind of crimes does a GIU detective work on?
GIU detectives investigate all types of crimes. This includes thefts, frauds (people writing worthless cheques or lying to seniors about home renovations, etc.), break and enters into homes or businesses, armed robberies, assaults and other possibly non-criminal incidents such as plane crashes or missing persons.
 
GIU detectives are assigned to handle very serious cases themselves and to use their special investigative skills to assist uniform officers with investigations into lesser crimes.

 
2. Does a GIU detective investigate homicides?
Yes, though most are assigned directly to the Homicide Unit. This Unit will often call upon GIU detectives (many have previously worked in specialized investigative units including Homicide, Robbery and Arson) to assist them with parts of the investigation such as interviewing large numbers of people in an area to locate witnesses to the crime.

Also, when a GIU detective is already investigating a serious assault and the victim later dies from his/her injuries, that same detective will then lead the homicide investigation.

3. Do GIU detectives need any equipment?
In addition to the normal equipment carried by uniform officers (pistol, handcuffs, pepper spray, flashlight), GIU detectives are frequently equipped with unmarked vehicles, voice and video recorders, digital cameras, surveillance gear like night scopes, special kits for the collection of DNA evidence, bolt cutters and tools like ultra-violet lights to use in executing search warrants, and items like paper clothing to give to criminals after detectives seize their clothing as evidence. 

4. What’s a typical day like for a GIU detective?
A GIU detective normally starts his/her workday by checking police computers and other sources for any crimes and arrests that happened while he/she was off-duty. Their boss, a staff sergeant, may also have a new investigation or sometimes a Crime Stoppers Tip to assign to them.

The detective and his/her partner then speak with the other detectives in their unit and decide which investigations require immediate attention to keep the public safe and what other work needs to be done less urgently, such as serving subpoenas for future court cases and interviewing witnesses from less serious active cases to get more evidence.

The detective might attend a “roll-call” or “ parade” of the uniformed officers just starting their own shifts, sharing information on active investigations or on suspects they are looking for and answering the officers’ questions about cases they are handling.

The GIU detective then heads out onto the street, often visiting a crime scene, interviewing victims and witnesses, figuring out what happened and then using police computer systems and street informants to identify who did the crime and where to find them.

Once identified, a criminal is then hunted down by the detective or, if the criminal is hiding, an arrest warrant is issued. If a location is identified where stolen property or drugs are hidden, a search warrant is prepared, sworn before a judge, a search team assembled and the search conducted.

Of course, each GIU detective makes detailed notes of his/her work as they go, ensuring the information is available for any future court case.

At the end of each work day, GIU detectives prepare a report to let their boss and the other detectives know what they did that day and what further investigative work they plan to do in the next day or two.

5. What is an M.O.?
Slang for Modus operandi (a Latin phrase roughly meaning “mode of operation”)
We use this word in police work to describe a criminal's patterns and style of committing his/her crimes. Detectives identify a criminal’s M.O. to aid them in identifying a particular criminal’s pattern – allowing them to arrest the criminal or at least prevent further crimes by warning people about the patterns so they can protect themselves better (keep their garage doors closed, lock their bicycles when they leave them outside a store, for example).

6. How long can a typical investigation take?
Depending on how complicated the crime is, how much evidence there is, whether there are witnesses and if a suspect can be located, criminal investigations take anywhere from a few hours to several years to complete. Detectives keep working on a file as long as there are active leads to follow.

7. How many crimes would a GIU detective investigate in one month? One year? Would a detective work on more than one case at a time?
A GIU Detective might investigate one or two very serious major crimes or several dozen lesser crimes in a single month. It depends on how much danger exists to citizen’s lives and then their property ( in that order), that determines how much of a detective’s time and how many detectives are assigned to a single case. Some individual cases have taken all of one or more detective’s time for months and even years.

In one year each GIU detective will usually investigate several hundred crimes.
Yes they do work on more than one case at a time. GIU detectives carry what is called a “case load” made up of all their active investigations and, for the crimes they have already solved, all the work needed to get ready for a trial in court. At any given time, most GIU detectives have a case load of between one to four dozen active investigations.

8. Do GIU detectives ever have to use lethal force?
Like all police officers, using force of any kind, lethal or otherwise, is the very last thing detectives want to do. Should their life or a citizen’s life be in danger, and no lesser type of force can safely remove that danger, then yes, a detective might have to use lethal force.

9. How many GIU detectives work for the Calgary Police Service?
There are usually 48 GIU Detectives in Calgary, with six assigned to each of the City’s eight District Police Offices.

10. What hours do GIU detectives work?
The basic work week for a GIU detective is four 10-hour long work days (a basic 40 hours) but while off-duty they are often called do urgent investigations or to interview suspects that uniform officers have arrested.

 Sometimes, in very serious cases where a criminal is on the loose and is a danger to the public, GIU detectives may work continuously on an investigation for 24, 36 or even 48 hours without rest to identify the criminals responsible, then locate and arrest them before they can commit more crimes.

They also regularly work many of the same evening and weekend shifts as the constable’s on patrol since these detectives are frequently asked to use their expertise and knowledge to teach and assist the uniform officers with their cases.

11. Do cases ever go unsolved?
Unfortunately, though most major crimes are solved, unlike the fantasy of television where all cases are solved, there is a portion of all crimes where there is just not enough evidence to convict the guilty person(s). Often an investigation shows clearly who committed the crime but there is simply not enough available evidence to convict that person in a court of law.  

A detective’s job in each investigation is to ensure all available evidence is legally obtained and collected. That same investigation, though unsolved today, may eventually be solved by using new technology developed in the future. Examples of such groundbreaking technologies are: DNA testing and fingerprint computer systems.

12. What preparation/training do GIU detectives need?
A GIU detective first needs a great deal of experience and detailed knowledge of the law and a wide range of crimes and the community in which they work.

He/she must know how to read people’s body language to know if they are telling the truth or when they are not telling the detective something (just like when your parents or teachers look at you and just seem to know something’s wrong).

Detectives take specialized training in the law, gathering evidence and properly presenting it in court, interviewing, analyzing what people say and how to find people using information from people on the street and computers. Junior detectives also learn a lot by working with more experienced senior detectives as they investigate crimes.

13. Does a GIU detective need experience as a street cop before becoming a detective? Why?
Yes, every detective starts as a street constable, learning their basic policing skills in much the same way students in school learn as they graduate from one grade to another. If, as a constable or “street cop,” they show investigative abilities, they are given more training and even assigned to work for several weeks with a GIU detective to further develop their skills.

The very best of these uniformed street officers who have shown investigative skill are then considered for promotion to the next higher rank of detective and assignment to full-time criminal investigation as a GIU detective.