The Orlando Police Department will be making changes to crime scenes involving bodies of water after an investigation into a recent missing person uncovered mistakes made by OPD.
In February of 2014, the family of Carline Braumarie-Jean reported her missing to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Deputies discovered the woman's body inside of her submerged car in a pond on Hollywood Way, and later learned OPD had received previous information about a submerged vehicle near the location Braumarie-Jean's body was found.
OPD opened a traffic homicide investigation, followed by an internal investigation into the handling of the case.
The internal investigation revealed some errors in OPD's handling of the case that even Chief John Mina expressed concern over, namely that a thorough search of the area was never conducted.
The sector supervisor on-duty the night OPD investigated the call regarding a submerged vehicle has been suspended for only 8 hours for actions originally referred to as carelessness by responding officers.
The incident, and subsequent investigation have prompted OPD to review and change its written policies regarding how cases involving a body of water are handled by responding officers. New changes include requesting the assistance of the Orlando Fire Department's Dive Team, and the Orange County Sheriff's Office Aviation Unit. Both agency leaders have agreed to an enhanced cooperative agreement with regards to handling these types of cases with OPD.