The cars parked on the street out the front of my fiancee’s house are getting “egged” on a regular basis. It happened again last night, and I have retrieved some large chunks of broken eggshell from the road.
Is there any way I can try to lift a fingerprint from one of these shell segments?
Eggshells are likely too porous.
More than that, I don’t know that any law enforcement agency will take prints for an egging. The ones in my area definitely won’t, unless something about the egging rises to the level of felony vandalism. Usually, here, egging isn’t even a crime (just a prank) because no permanent damage is done.
Not to say that law enforcement won’t do anything, but…
Yes, you could call the police and have them do it. If you do it yourself, you run a greater risk of failing to do it properly, but even if you successfully lift a print, a court might not admit it as evidence (or it might be admitted, but then more vigorously attacked by the prosecution for a variety of reasons).
Well, the OP did say that it was happening on a regular basis. Depending on the jurisdiction and the apparent motivation of the eggers, this might introduce additional, possibly felonious crimes such as harassment or hate crimes.
I should add, we have suspicions on who it might be, and it will certainly be possible to “covertly” gain fingerprints from these suspected individuals.
Just need something to compare them too.
If your intentions are to confront them directly with the evidence, that’s fine. If your intentions are to involve the police, then you really ought to have them do the evidence-gathering.
Why not do a stake out? Hide in the cars at night and catch them. Might involve a couple boring nights, but hell, it will be worth it in the end! How many cars are getting egged? If it’s like 6 different cars or more, you need to get with the other owners and organize something.
Each of you take a different night to hide in your car at night. You’ll catch them the very next time they do it.
Yes. Probably a CSI team can.
Webcam tied to motion sensor all connected to a wireless laptop. No need to hide in a vehicle.
When the motion sensor detects something, the camera(s) turn on to record the event. A the same time the laptop generates a sound waking you up so you can ensure the camera catches everything.
The most sensitive techniques can almost certainly get fingerprints off of eggshells, meaning the culprits should use readily obtainable latex or nitrile gloves. However the most advanced techniques are not widely used as it requires special equipment and training. I would imagine that eggshells might be subject to old fashioned dusting. The best techniques can get prints off just about any solid surface.