The Criminal Investigations Unit provides investigative services, primarily on cases that involve more extensive follow-up and require either specialized training or more resources than other units within the Department have available.  The detectives are able to dedicate specific and focused time to interviewing multiple suspects, witnesses and victims.  They are also able tot ravel farther outside the city limits, enabling them to catch up with witnesses and suspects in a variety of locations.

The Detective Unit also assists local area law enforcement agencies as members of the Marion County Homicide and Assault Response Team (HART), Child Abuse Review Team (CART), and the Threat Assessment Team (TAT).

• HART investigates homicides, major assaults, and officer-involved shootings in Marion County, and is comprised of of law enforcement agencies in Marion County as well as OSP and the state’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
• CART is an intra-agency, multidisciplinary team that deals primarily with sex offenses against children.  The major participants are DHS Child Welfare, Liberty House, the District Attorney’s Office and various law enforcement agencies.
• TAT monitors and manages ongoing situations involving continuing domestic abuse, threats against public officials, and stalking.  These cases are generally worked through social services agencies and the court system, but it is sometimes necessary for the team to step in.  Participants include the Salem-Keizer Public Schools, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Salem Police Department, Keizer Police Department, Victim’s Assistance, Willamette Education Services District, Marion County Courts, Marion County Parole and Probation, Oregon State Police, and the Marion County District Attorney’s Office.

2008 was a very busy year for the investigators in the Detectives Unit.  The unit was assigned 238 new cases in 2008.  There were 220 cases cleared – 166 by arrest, 10 by warrant request, 15 were unfounded, and 29 were cleared by exceptional means (victim refused to cooperate, the DA refused to prosecute in the interest of justice, or charges were dealt away by the DA in plea negotiations, etc.) The other cases were inactivated, meaning that they were investigated to the point where there were no other viable leads were left to investigate.

Detectives share the responsibility of being on-call, meaning that they will get called back to work outside of their normally scheduled shift to assist with investigations.  Detectives were called out 42 times during 2008, which does not take into account the number of days detectives had to stay later than the end of the regularly scheduled shift.

But numbers only paint one part of the picture.  A significant amount of time has been spent by several detectives while working on our agency’s only unsolved homicide case from 2004.  Numerous investigative hours have been spent on that case during 2008, and investigative efforts on that case included travel for three detectives to Arizona to conduct further interviews.

The types of cases investigated in 2008 included officer-involved shootings, homicides, sex offenses, child abuse investigations, fraud, burglary, stolen vehicles, and other various crimes.  Investigators also spent a significant amount of time investigating a couple of strings of criminal mischief cases.  While such cases wouldn’t ordinarily be investigated by detectives, these incidents were assigned for follow-up on account of the total number of victims and the amount of the damage inflicted by the suspects.

Perhaps the most notable case from 2008 is a case that actually occurred in the neighboring city of Woodburn, in which two police officers were killed and a third was critically injured.  Keizer Police Detectives provided extensive investigative support during the investigation that ensued, as did other members of the Keizer Police Department from other units.