Blood is flying in all directions this week at the Lawrence Police Department’s west-side station.

Tom Bevel, a Norman, Okla.-based expert in interpreting crime-scene blood evidence, is in town to give a five-day continuing-education class to 16 investigators from across Kansas and from as far away as Salt Lake City.

Tuesday’s activities included an experiment that involved firing a gun through a blood-soaked sponge to examine what kinds of patterns the blood left on a cloth.

Depending on the way the blood soaks into the cloth, Bevel said, it can reveal details about how the blood got there – whether through a spatter or through coming into contact with a bloody object.

Agencies with officers participating in the training include the Mission Police Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Lawrence Police Department, which has two crime-scene detectives in the class.

Lawrence Police spokesman Sgt. Dan Ward said the class was one example of the training the department tried to offer to other police agencies in the region. The department also hosts a yearly homicide-investigation school and a course on interviewing techniques.

Lawrence Police Det. Jim Martin prepares to fire a gun through a blood-soaked sponge during a seminar. Law enforcement personnel from across Kansas and the U.S. are taking part in the five-day seminar in Lawrence to hone their skills at interpreting blood evidence at crime scenes. Martin attended the seminar Tuesday at the Lawrence Police Department Investigations and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway.

All, he said, are opportunities to showcase Lawrence and the department. “We do strive to be a Midwest trainer for law enforcement,” he said.

The class is being offered at the LPD Investigations and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway.

All the participants in this week’s class have taken previous courses on blood-spatter interpretation, Bevel said, but “hopefully they will have learned some additional tools beyond what they already have.”