They're the ones called on to handle some of Tennessee's most high profile cases, and now college students have been seeing if they have what it takes to be a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent.
When walking onto the scene of a crime, TBI agents don't always know what to expect. Now 19 college students have been learning that first hand this week in the Criminal Justice Academy.
"At TBI, we're always looking for the best and the brightest," said Susan Niland, TBI communications officer.
The best and brightest meant people like Xavier Kynard, a senior at Tennessee Tech University.
"We went in, went around the crime scene. First thing we do before we step on scene is check the scene. We take pictures," said Kynard.
There were three forensic teams and three homicide scenes.
Kynard said he believed his team was dealing with an argument that took a turn for the worst.
"The male is dead, so we're going to go with the female shot him in a certain position inside the building and took off," said Kynard.
This was the third year for the week-long program, and students have been taking what they learned in the classroom and putting it to use in the field.
"We've done all of our measurements, we've taken all of our pictures, all of our videos, we've done our sketches, our notes," said Katarina Hill, a student at Pellissippi State Community College.
It was an unfortunate situation for a "victim" that was found dead under a trailer. Hill and her team were trying to determine what caused their victim to bleed out.
"We believe it was a stabbing. We found a knife and many wounds on our victim's clothing," said Hill.
It was an invaluable experience students were just grateful to be a part of.
"This is something we can take with us forever, so this is a great opportunity for us to learn how they do things as well as get us to a point where we know where we need to be coming out of college," said Kynard.
The students will make a presentation of their findings right before graduation on Friday. So far, the TBI has hired two agents who started out in the Criminal Justice Academy.
