- Location
- Gloucestershire
What is it?
SOCOs are the forensic investigators of the police. Also known as Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs), SOCOs are civilian police staff called by their warranted colleagues to the scenes of various crimes to collect and analyse the data found. This can be as simple as dusting for prints and collecting bullet casings, to performing blood spatter analysis to figure out how someone was killed.
For those still confused, think Abi from NCIS or Dexter from … Dexter.
Why should we have it?
Crimes in FiveM, unlike the Arma 3 system, are not automatically reported and logged. There must be witnesses and the police need to investigate. Having a roleplay job for legal civilians who want to be involved in law enforcement, but don’t want to be carrying a gun and getting into gunfights, would allow for crimes to be investigated properly.
It would also encourage criminal elements to be more cautious in their crimes by trying to clean up after themselves: cleaning up their brass after a shooting, using a stolen car to transport the body, or other similar tactics.
How would it work?
The short version is that SOCO will be able to collect evidence from the scene of a crime, and transport it back to a testing lab at the police station for analysis. The type of evidence able to be collected, and the information it gives would vary, but the key ones would be:
Blood – If someone was shot, they would leave blood behind. This blood could be collected and DNA tested to see who it belonged to. This could be used, for example, to find out who was shot by police, but escaped.
Bullets and casings – Bullets found in a victim, or casings found at a scene, can be traced back to a specific gun. If the gun is legally registered, then it can be traced back to the owner. This could allow criminals to get dirty guns to use in crimes, to try and avoid getting something linked back to them. It could also mean that, if a criminal is caught with a dirty gun that has several crimes linked to it, then they might be charged with all of the crimes! Also links with NHS who could get bullets out of a victim and give them to SOCO!
Guns – As touched upon above, criminals using their own gun to commit crime might find they get a warrant out for their arrest! “Cleaning” a gun might become a new process for deregistering a gun, or filing off serial numbers to make it more difficult for SOCO to find out who owns the gun, and encourage clever crimes.
Gunpowder Residue – Suspects’ hands can be tested by SOCO whilst in custody to see if they fired a gun in the last x amount of time.
SOCO Equipment
Police Staff Uniform – Clearly different from Police Officer uniforms, but something to identify that the wearer is in the police in a civilian capacity.
White “Clean” Suit – The classic head-to-toe white coverall that is used at the more serious crime scenes to preserve evidence.
Marked SOCO Van – The staple vehicle used by SOCO to transport staff, equipment, and evidence! Marked with police livery and blue lights to assist with identification and making progress through traffic to crime scenes.
Various SOCO Items – Evidence bags for collecting evidence, DNA swaps for blood/saliva from suspects, etc.
The Technical Part
When a gun is fired, a bullet casing would drop. This casing could be picked up by anyone as an item and dropped somewhere else, but if picked up by a SOCO or Police Officer with an evidence bag then it would turn into an “Evidence Bag with Gun Casing(s)” and pick up all casing in a certain radius around them.
- To prevent server lag, these bullet casings would despawn after 15-20mins to allow time for SOCO to make it to the scene or criminals to clean up after themselves.
Once transported to the “lab” they could be tested. Testing would take a short amount of time and reveal the calibre of bullet, what type of gun was used, and a unique ID for that gun (microstamp), but not the exact gun and if it was registered!
A victim of a gunshot also has a chance of getting a bullet lodged. The NHS, and only the NHS as they have specialist medical training, would be able to remove this bullet during the medical process and passed to SOCO. As with the casings SOCO could test this back at the lab, but get more information: calibre, type of gun, the unique ID from that gun (to match it to the casings), and the serial number of the gun that was used.
Victims of violent acts (gunshots, blades, or even blunt weapons) would leave blood splatter. This could be cleaned by criminals with a bleach item, but would leave “stain” to show that something had been cleaned up. SOCO could use the swab to “collect” the blood and test it back at the lab. Test would show who the blood had come from, possibly even blood type, but nothing else.
Guns themselves, if handed to SOCO for testing, would show the serial number (or if it was removed) and the microstamp to allow for linking to casings and bullets.
I believe this is fairly well balanced. The easiest bits of evidence to collect are blood and casings, but both can be removed by criminals and the information they give when tested is minimal. Bullets are more difficult to collect, and also let NHS get involved with RP other than just reviving people. Guns are the most difficult to obtain, but obviously give the most information.
SOCOs are the forensic investigators of the police. Also known as Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs), SOCOs are civilian police staff called by their warranted colleagues to the scenes of various crimes to collect and analyse the data found. This can be as simple as dusting for prints and collecting bullet casings, to performing blood spatter analysis to figure out how someone was killed.
For those still confused, think Abi from NCIS or Dexter from … Dexter.
Why should we have it?
Crimes in FiveM, unlike the Arma 3 system, are not automatically reported and logged. There must be witnesses and the police need to investigate. Having a roleplay job for legal civilians who want to be involved in law enforcement, but don’t want to be carrying a gun and getting into gunfights, would allow for crimes to be investigated properly.
It would also encourage criminal elements to be more cautious in their crimes by trying to clean up after themselves: cleaning up their brass after a shooting, using a stolen car to transport the body, or other similar tactics.
How would it work?
The short version is that SOCO will be able to collect evidence from the scene of a crime, and transport it back to a testing lab at the police station for analysis. The type of evidence able to be collected, and the information it gives would vary, but the key ones would be:
Blood – If someone was shot, they would leave blood behind. This blood could be collected and DNA tested to see who it belonged to. This could be used, for example, to find out who was shot by police, but escaped.
Bullets and casings – Bullets found in a victim, or casings found at a scene, can be traced back to a specific gun. If the gun is legally registered, then it can be traced back to the owner. This could allow criminals to get dirty guns to use in crimes, to try and avoid getting something linked back to them. It could also mean that, if a criminal is caught with a dirty gun that has several crimes linked to it, then they might be charged with all of the crimes! Also links with NHS who could get bullets out of a victim and give them to SOCO!
Guns – As touched upon above, criminals using their own gun to commit crime might find they get a warrant out for their arrest! “Cleaning” a gun might become a new process for deregistering a gun, or filing off serial numbers to make it more difficult for SOCO to find out who owns the gun, and encourage clever crimes.
Gunpowder Residue – Suspects’ hands can be tested by SOCO whilst in custody to see if they fired a gun in the last x amount of time.
SOCO Equipment
Police Staff Uniform – Clearly different from Police Officer uniforms, but something to identify that the wearer is in the police in a civilian capacity.
White “Clean” Suit – The classic head-to-toe white coverall that is used at the more serious crime scenes to preserve evidence.
Marked SOCO Van – The staple vehicle used by SOCO to transport staff, equipment, and evidence! Marked with police livery and blue lights to assist with identification and making progress through traffic to crime scenes.
Various SOCO Items – Evidence bags for collecting evidence, DNA swaps for blood/saliva from suspects, etc.
The Technical Part
When a gun is fired, a bullet casing would drop. This casing could be picked up by anyone as an item and dropped somewhere else, but if picked up by a SOCO or Police Officer with an evidence bag then it would turn into an “Evidence Bag with Gun Casing(s)” and pick up all casing in a certain radius around them.
- To prevent server lag, these bullet casings would despawn after 15-20mins to allow time for SOCO to make it to the scene or criminals to clean up after themselves.
Once transported to the “lab” they could be tested. Testing would take a short amount of time and reveal the calibre of bullet, what type of gun was used, and a unique ID for that gun (microstamp), but not the exact gun and if it was registered!
A victim of a gunshot also has a chance of getting a bullet lodged. The NHS, and only the NHS as they have specialist medical training, would be able to remove this bullet during the medical process and passed to SOCO. As with the casings SOCO could test this back at the lab, but get more information: calibre, type of gun, the unique ID from that gun (to match it to the casings), and the serial number of the gun that was used.
Victims of violent acts (gunshots, blades, or even blunt weapons) would leave blood splatter. This could be cleaned by criminals with a bleach item, but would leave “stain” to show that something had been cleaned up. SOCO could use the swab to “collect” the blood and test it back at the lab. Test would show who the blood had come from, possibly even blood type, but nothing else.
Guns themselves, if handed to SOCO for testing, would show the serial number (or if it was removed) and the microstamp to allow for linking to casings and bullets.
I believe this is fairly well balanced. The easiest bits of evidence to collect are blood and casings, but both can be removed by criminals and the information they give when tested is minimal. Bullets are more difficult to collect, and also let NHS get involved with RP other than just reviving people. Guns are the most difficult to obtain, but obviously give the most information.
