The normally serene halls of the COA Front Street Crossing were shattered Tuesday evening after a group of newbie gumshoes stumbled upon a grisly sight hiding inside of the building’s storage rooms.

The caped crusader himself, Batman, had been killed — and it was up to seven neophyte crime solvers to bring the dastardly foe who slew the hero to justice.

Using the techniques and skills they had picked up just a few hours earlier, this group of detectives sleuthed through the evidence and witness testimony to uncover the culprit and avenge the fallen dark knight.

While the scenario may sound like something out of a hardboiled noir comic book, attendees of Tuesday’s “DOA at the COA” event learned a handful of techniques that police detectives employ every day  to solve actual crimes.

Thanks a partnership between the Cass County COA and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, ordinary citizens are given hands-on instruction on fingerprinting, footprint casting, blood splatter analysis and other skills through a series crime scene investigation classes. Deputy MaKenzie Kreiner and Amy Anderson, principal of Volinia Outcomes School, began teaming up last year to offer the courses at both Front Street Crossing and the COA’s Lowe Center in Cassopolis.

The classes are intended to give attendees a new perspective on the work that goes into combing through crime scenes. Unlike the fantastic science seen in popular crime procedurals such as “CSI,” actual crime scene analysis is a difficult and tedious process, Kreiner said

“TV ruins police investigations for a lot of people,” Kreiner said. “They are fun to watch, but they give people a false impression of the work that goes into investigating a crime scene.”

For example, while fictional investigators can pull fingerprints off about any type of surface, in the real world, prints can only be reliably pulled off materials such as glass or plastic. Finding fingerprints that are clear enough to identify possible suspects is even more difficult, as attendees learned while trying to grab their own prints off glassware in Tuesday’s class.

The course also introduces attendees to the human-side of crime investigation. In order to solve the Batman case, attendees had to go over testimony from several “suspects” (played by COA staff).

“They [the attendees] see how they have to pay attention to details as well,” Kreiner said. “Any change in a witness’ story could lead them down a different direction.”

Kreiner and Anderson adapted the CSI class from a similar course they taught for years to high school students at Southwestern Michigan College. While they had to condense the amount of material for the course from one week to a single three-hour session, the pair made little adjustment to the lessons.

The courses have had pretty steady attendance since their introduction, with many people seeing them as fun way to spend an evening while learning more about police work, Kreiner said.

“They [adults] enjoy it just as much as the kids do,” Kreiner said.

The COA is offering a second basic CSI course at the Lowe Center, on April 18, as well as an advanced course — which includes lessons on fuming fingerprints, sketching out crime scenes and more — May 23, also at the Lowe Center. Registration is required for both courses, and can be made by calling (269) 445-8110.