Kids play cop for a day, solve mock whodunits

While 15-year-old Terry Lewis gingerly removed a Molotov cocktail from the back of a stolen Chevrolet SUV, Meluck Almutkass lifted three fingerprints from the outside passenger window.

Her gloved hands were careful not to smudge the glass with the magnetic duster and tape.

“We need to find out whose prints these are. Since this is a stolen car, they might belong to the owner,” said the sixth grader. “Maybe she left this print by leaning on the window. Or maybe she just didn’t pay attention to how she shut the door.”

Or maybe they belong to the car thief. This mock car robbery was part of a program developed by the Denver Police Department and Denver Police Museum.

On Thursday, 30 junior scientists, some with braces and others with their baseball caps on backward, were given three true-to-life CSI situations to figure out: a domestic violence incident in an apartment, a bank robbery and a stolen car.

The students used a variety of evidence collection techniques to solve their pretend crimes with the help of Denver crime lab scientists.

“Sometimes, people touch things in weird places. Sometimes the surface isn’t always the easiest to get to,” a real detective said to a kid cop who used his small fingers to maneuver fingerprint tape into the back of a door handle

Organizers hope the program captures hearts and minds at a young age with the knowledge that there are lots of opportunities in police work beyond car chases.

“I wish they had this when I was a kid,” said Mike Hesse, president of the Denver Police Museum. “This day has been a dream for the museum. Educational studies show that when young people go on field trips, they retain the knowledge.”

Hesse, whose dad Ed was a Denver detective, explained the importance of the fledgling program as he watched a gloved student reach into the “stolen” Chevy to collect a Dr. Pepper can to process it for DNA.

“There’s so much misinformation on TV,” he said. “Kids think crimes are solved in an hour.”

Retired Denver police Sgt. Mark Chaffin added: “Some kids think they don’t want to be a cop. But they don’t realize it’s not just about patrolling the streets. This is about introducing them to different careers in law enforcement.”

Lewis, a freshman at Denver Montessori, has wanted to build robots since he was playing with Legos as a toddler. He plans to land a SWAT position somewhere working with bomb-destroying robots.

Ifeomachukwu Ugeh a 16-year-old Rangeview sophomore, who, along with Lewis, is on the Denver Museum’s Teen Advisory Council, said that in 2020 when police were shown on television during race riots, she didn’t want any part of law enforcement, but she changed her mind.

“Because of how the media portrayed police, it made kids think all of them as bad. But the more you learn about how the system actually works, the more you have compassion,” said Ugeh, who hopes to get a Ph.D. at Atlanta’s Emory University.

She said she may go into police work but she’s also considering a career as a prosecutor.

Hesse would like to see a year-round forensic science program for young students. He has his eye on an abandoned building near the Stock Show complex.

Almutkass said she and her mom watch police on the news, and she knows it can be risky.

“It seems like criminals are always out for revenge, and that’s dangerous,” she said. “But lifting fingerprints, that’s not putting your life on the line.”