Scientists in the police service

Guest of the section: Dr. Elazar Zadok, Head of the Department of Criminal Identification at the Israel Police "Our job is to assist in investigations of any kind, from breaking into an apartment or stealing a car to serious crimes such as murder, rape, or armed robbery"

Dr. Elazar Zadok. Management of analytical laboratories
Dr. Elazar Zadok, head of the forensics department at the Israel Police, first donned his police uniform, at the rank of sub-commissioned officer, at the age of 49. Until then, his career had been spent in various management positions of multidisciplinary analytical laboratories in the army, academia and industry. He took up his post in the police in October 1999, and by the time the current intifada broke out, he had completed a "normal" year of service.

The forensic department is part of the police's investigation department, and it includes 180 skilled police officers, most of whom are university graduates and engineers who have specialized in various fields and work in the police's central laboratories at the national headquarters in Jerusalem, as well as 200 identification technicians who are scattered throughout the country and work under the professional guidance of the department.

Dr. Zadok: "Our job is to assist in investigations of any kind, from breaking into an apartment or stealing a car to serious crimes such as murder, rape, or armed robbery. Our goal is to identify the criminals through various scientific and technological means. In the current security situation, the police have a high national importance, and are assigned many additional duties that are not related to criminal offenses. For example, the forensic department is responsible, among other things, for the physical identification of the victims of the attacks, which is carried out by our identification technicians in collaboration with the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir. The department also has an important intelligence role in identifying the explosive used by the terrorists in this or that attack. Identifying the explosive material can help to tie up the pieces and lead the intelligence agents to this or that explosives laboratory, about which there is already information. If there is a car bomb at the site of the attack, our job is to determine its identity, check if it is fake or stolen, find out where it came from and more. We also have a ballistics laboratory that is able to establish a connection between weapons and a shooting incident: using the backpacks found at the scene of the attack, we can map the types of all the weapons that were used in a certain incident, and then check the connection between the various attacks.

"From our point of view, the scene of any terrorist attack is no different from the scene where another criminal event took place. In both cases, for the purpose of decoding, we use the same means of identification, and the same experts. Another department in the police that is tasked with the most responsible work during this period is the sabotage department of the police, which identifies the type of charge and how it is used, checks the existence of additional charges, and develops the theory of defense against the use of charges."

To provide the scientific evidence as to the identity of the criminal, the forensics department uses means that are at the forefront of technology today, such as profiling, DNA alongside older and more well-known means such as fingerprints, which were already used at the beginning of the last century. For example, the identity of the recently caught southern pedophile was definitively determined through genetic testing.

The Israeli police have been using genetic tests to identify suspects routinely since the early 90s. A bill is currently on the Knesset table that would allow the police to establish a database of information on

DNA profiles of criminals, similar to the existing database of fingerprints. Dr. Zadok: "Such a database could help not only in deciphering but also in preventing crimes: quick identification of a criminal after one crime may prevent a long series of additional crimes that could have occurred if the criminal had remained free. However, the database of DNA profiles will only include data that can be used for identification purposes only, and not for other purposes, such as tracking hereditary diseases and more."

The forensic department is also responsible for operating the polygraph systems of the Israel Police ("authentication machines"), for comparing handwriting (essential for identifying fake certificates and passports), and for identifying and characterizing counterfeit banknotes. The forensics department's analytical laboratory deals with drug testing, and all drug seizure cases in Israel go through it, starting with the individual user and ending with the most recent seizure of about a million ecstasy pills in a shipment that arrived from abroad.

Dr. Zadok received a bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry from Tel Aviv University, as an associate professor. He did his military service within the technological unit of the Intelligence Corps. When he was released from the IDF, he looked for a suitable framework for doctoral studies. He knew his mentor, Prof. Yehuda Mazor, in the army (Prof. Mazor served as a consultant to the unit in which Zadok served). Following Mazur, Zadok also came to the Weizmann Institute of Science. "I started my doctoral studies at the institute in 1979, and spent four years here. Those were some of the best years of my life. I studied in the organic chemistry department in the Ziv building. Throughout this period I felt that I was doing the right thing in the right place. The high scientific level, the international atmosphere, the pleasant and quiet environment, allowed me to delve into the topics that interested me."

After Dr. Zadok finished his doctoral thesis, he considered going abroad and doing post-doctoral research. But then exactly

Received an offer from the IDF to return to the technology unit of the Intelligence Corps where he served, and to establish a new section that would deal with chemistry

Analytical. In those days, this field was in its infancy in the unit, and Dr. Zadok started working in this field from scratch. With the help of a team of 10 people that included university graduates, paramedics, engineers and technicians, he established an integrative laboratory that included an electron microscope, gas and liquid chromatography devices, infrared devices, fluorescence devices and more. "This was the first laboratory of its kind that made it possible to look at one given problem from many angles," he recalls.

When the time came for his sabbatical year in 1987, he decided to spend it in the laboratory of Prof. George Ola, from the University of Southern California, who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. There he was engaged in attempts to prepare organic polymers that would also be electrical conductors. Dr. Zadok: "At that time I was already out of academic work, but the topic interested me. Prof. Yehuda Mazor from the Weizmann Institute helped me get in touch with Prof. Ola, and that's how I was invited to him. It was wonderful to return to a place that reminds me of the institute in its scientific and relaxed atmosphere."

When Dr. Zadok returned from the sabbatical year in the USA, he moved to the position of head of the materials area in the Intelligence Corps. In this framework, which develops means to obtain intelligence information, a team in which Dr. Zadok was a member won the Israel Security Prize in 1994, the year in which his second sabbatical arrived. This time he joined the company "Brom Compounds", where he worked in the research department. At the end of the sabbatical, he retired from the IDF and remained with the company. Five more years later he joined the Israel Police in his current position.

Dr. Zadok is married to Nechama, who has a master's degree in the science teaching department at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and has three sons: Avi, who has a master's degree in physics and is about to study for a doctorate, Adir, a communications and political science student, and Nir, a high school student.