MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - As police investigated the in-custody death of a Southaven man, they dusted the gun for fingerprints.
"The weapon was checked for prints with no prints found," a detective wrote.
The development comes as Jonesboro Police release dozens of pages of its final investigative report into the death of Chavis Carter. Police say Carter shot himself following a traffic stop on July 28th. The Arkansas Medical Examiner later ruled his death a suicide.
A retired detective, not affiliated with the investigation, says the lack of fingerprints is not that alarming.
"There is a lot of reasons why there would not be finger prints." said C.T. Freeman, a retired Southaven Police detective who now teaches forensics and crime scene investigations at the University of Memphis.
"If there is no sweat, there is no fingerprints, that's where finger prints come from, the hand sweating," Freeman said. "The absence of prints does not mean the person did not handle the gun."
Lawyers representing Carter's family have protested the fact police did not conduct gun-residue tests after the shooting.
Freeman says it varies from agency to agency, but the gun residue test is falling out of favor with many departments.
"The idea of gun shot residue test usage is really dropping," he said.
Freeman says the problem is that there are too many things we come into contact with everyday that can trigger a false positive.
"I don't think in 3 to 5 years you will even see it used in the way it is used now," he said.
