CUMBERLAND — All fingers pointed to Morgan Cook.

And it wasn’t because the 11-year-old did anything wrong.

Instead, Cook’s peers looked to him to be team leader, the sergeant in charge of the prepared crime scene his team of eight was set to investigate.

Cook, along with 34 others ages 10 to 12, were participating in a crime scene investigation exercise on Tuesday through the Cumberland Police Department Summer Camp in South Cumberland.

“We all decided they wanted me to be sergeant,” Cook said with an air of duty and acceptance. “The sergeant is the team leader who organizes everybody.”

The weeklong outreach program with middle schoolers is conducted in cooperation with the Salvation Army on East First Street. The goal is to provide campers with the knowledge to make smart, healthy and safe decisions in order for them to lead a productive life.

But the focus Tuesday wasn’t on the big picture. Instead, it was on one of four mock crime scenes where campers had to secure, photograph, collect forensics and turn in that evidence in a proper manner.

“Your photographers and sketchers are the first into a room,” Cumberland Police Cpl. Jim Hott told the four team sergeants. “You’ve got to capture the scene.”

Officer Chris Fraley was in charge of a hit-and-run that allegedly occurred in an alley alongside the Salvation Army building. After impact, the suspect got out of the vehicle and placed his hands on the rear passenger window of Fraley’s police cruiser, which took the brunt of the impact.

The suspect then left the scene — which allowed Fraley’s team of young forensic investigators to get to work.

While Daniel Hott, 10, photographed the scene, Mason McKay, also 10, was tasked with sketching the crime scene onto a paper, which could later be used by another officer in preparing the incident report.

“I’m supposed to design the rough draft,” Mason said.

Mason said he was careful to illustrate the car and its placement in the alley between a fence and the brick Salvation Army building.

Fraley said the campers prepared for the exercise by completing a morning training session with Sgt. Chuck Ternent.

Ternent went over the basics of crime scene investigation, including evidence collection and why they measure certain distances, such as from the point of a piece of evidence to a fixed point.

Each camp day begins at 7:30 a.m. and includes breakfast, a strict regimen of exercises, two classroom or interaction sessions each morning, lunch, recess and two afternoon instruction sessions before the 4 p.m. dismissal.

Campers are scheduled to engage in a K-9 unit presentation, as well as a Cumberland Emergency Response Team demonstration, drug and alcohol awareness training, a Maryland State Police helicopter demo and a class on Internet safety and bullying.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.