WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 29, 2015) -- Special Agent Anthony Johnson said he has his two dream jobs.
He is a crime scene detective with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department and an Army Reserve special agent with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, serving with the 383rd Military Police Detachment based in Lakeland, Florida.
A lot of young people getting out of the Army never really consider how a career in the Reserve can benefit them, both professionally in their own civilian careers and as a way of continuing to serve - with great benefits, including retirement, Johnson said.
The Army Reserve can be a particularly good fit for someone who already works in civilian law enforcement, information technology, the medical or legal field and a number of other occupations, he said. It is especially the case for those with prior service.
Johnson, who served six years in the Marine Corps Reserve as a tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided, or TOW, gunner, walked away from the service after his enlistment was up. Eight years later, an Army Reserve buddy helped nudge him back into the Reserves, this time with the Army, he said.
TRACING HIS PATH
Most people have a story of how they got to where they are now. Johnson said the course he charted in life, began at age 10 during an event he still recalls in vivid detail.
Their family's house in Broward County, Florida, was burglarized and the police were called, he related.
A sheriff's deputy, wearing a white shirt and green uniform pants pulled up in an old box Chevy Caprice, he said. He was carrying what looked like a fishing tackle box or small toolbox, which contained all his crime-scene processing equipment.
Johnson watched in fascination as the deputy dusted for fingerprints despite being a road deputy.
"That was pretty cool," Johnson said he thought to himself. From that day on, he said he knew he wanted to someday become a detective.
In 1998, Johnson joined the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, starting out as a detention officer at the Fort Lauderdale City Jail. In 2000, he was promoted to police officer and worked his way up to be a narcotics detective and now in his current assignment as a crime scene detective.
After about eight years as a police officer, his Army Reserve buddy, a master sergeant, suggested that with his military experience and law enforcement background, he would be a perfect fit for the Army Reserve.
Johnson looked into it and decided to enlist into the Army Reserve as a criminal investigations, or CID, special agent. It was one of the best decisions he'd ever made, he said.
RESERVE BENEFITS
In civilian law enforcement, the job tends to be compartmentalized, Johnson said. For example, there are detectives who specialize in homicide and others who work violent crimes or sex crimes. Johnson pursued a specialty in crime scene investigations.
So if there is a homicide, for example, Johnson's job would be the detection, collection, preservation and documentation of evidence at the scene of the crime.
Of course, they would all work as a team, with Johnson responsible for providing potential leads, which the other detectives could use, he added.
Johnson's new Army CID job opened his window of opportunities considerably.
As an Army CID special agent, "we are not only the investigator, but also the crime-scene subject- matter expert. We do it all," he said.
Army CID helped build his foundation in crime scene investigative techniques. Later when the crime scene detective position at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department became open, Johnson jumped at the opportunity and was number one on the applicant list. He was able to practice his trade by getting on the job training and experience.
In turn, Johnson said his additional civilian forensics training was invaluable to his Army CID unit.
During Reserve training, Johnson was often called to lead classes in forensics using his specialized knowledge. Besides training his fellow Soldiers, he said he also trained military police from partner nations.
INTERESTING CASES
Johnson said he has worked a number of interesting cases on both the civilian and military sides.
In 2013, he was sent to the Sinai Desert in Egypt to investigate a military sexual assault case. He said he had to plan and pack his necessary forensic and evidence collection equipment to fit into a medium suit case-sized Pelican case during his travel from Kuwait.
For the next four weeks, he and a military police investigator interviewed about 50 people traveling between two camps and collected "minimal but important evidence in an office," where the crime allegedly took place.
Although there was not much evidence, the little that they found was significant to the case, he said.
This year, on April 12, Johnson was driving home from drill weekend in Lakeland when he received a call from his police homicide sergeant that a plane had crashed near the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.
A family of four from Suriname had flown to Florida for a vacation and all were killed during the crash.
Johnson coordinated his team of crime scene investigators for the initial response, met with members of the medical examiner's office "and, as a team, formulated a plan to examine the scene," he said, long before the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, members arrived.
His team did a thorough and methodical job of documenting the site and recovering the victims, along with their personal effects, he noted.
Subhas Mungra, Suriname's ambassador to the United States, wrote a letter to the chief medical-legal investigator of Broward County, thanking Johnson and other local government agency members, who were involved with "our heartfelt gratitude … for their speedy investigation of the event."
"I believe my military training in mass casualty and post-blast investigations were beneficial in this case, because I was able to apply many of the investigative and logistical concepts, even in a case like this," Johnson said.
Ironically, Johnson is now working an unrelated skeleton case near the crash scene. He believes the victim could be a homeless man and no foul play is suspected. He added that a civilian forensic anthropologist from a neighboring police agency had contributed a lot of her expertise to this case. "Networking is key in crime scene," Johnson said.
Incidentally, Johnson said he was involved in working another plane crash earlier - this one in 2004.
He and his fellow members of the Fort Lauderdale police dive team were having lunch at the Port Everglades, Coast Guard Station Fort Lauderdale. They were out there during the practice day of an Air and Sea Show event. That is when they heard a call come in over the marine radio that a plane had crashed nearby.
They immediately hopped into their Fort Lauderdale Police boat and raced to the scene with their dive equipment.
Within nine minutes, they arrived at the scene, dove into the ocean and retrieved the body of the pilot and loaded him onto an awaiting Coast Guard rubber inflatable vessel. The pilot was unresponsive and appeared lifeless, Johnson said.
When they brought the body ashore, 14 minutes had elapsed from the time they heard the call. He said because they were already out there, this was a very quick response for an ocean rescue. The pilot was pronounced dead by medical personnel on shore, Johnson said.
SUPPORTIVE EMPLOYER
Like many Reserve Soldiers, Johnson said he is fortunate to have a civilian employer, who is very supportive of his military duties and realizes the value his military service brings to the police department.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department "took care of me from the beginning to end," he said, referring to a 2012 to 2013 Reserve deployment to Kuwait. They made sure his benefits were up to date and even sent care packages to him which, he said, really meant a lot.
Today, Johnson's love affair with detective work continues. Besides his civilian and Army work, he is an adjunct instructor at the local police academy and a frequent guest lecturer at Keiser University in Fort Lauderdale.
Johnson's love of his work does not mean that it is all dramatic and glamorous, as is so often portrayed on crime scene investigation and detective TV shows, he said.
The job can be slow, methodical and tedious. During one particularly hot Florida summer working a homicide crime scene, he said he lost eight pounds in six days.
The reward comes, he said, when that "one piece of trace evidence, DNA or fingerprint connects the suspect to victim to the scene of the crime."
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