During his 30-year career as a sworn police officer with the Janesville Police Department, Mr. Altstadt managed all types of criminal investigations from misdemeanors to violent felonies, with a primary focus on crimes against persons and financial crimes. As a detective, he handled thousands of cases, conducting the full spectrum of investigative matters, including crime scene analysis and management, interviews, interrogations, and following leads that culminated in the arrest of suspects as well as overseeing each investigation from opening to close. With decades of experience, Mr. Altstadt has a strong understanding of sound police practices and proper investigative techniques as well as appropriate application thereof. In addition to handling his own field investigations, Mr. Altstadt frequently provided assistance and consultation to local, state and federal agencies on their unsolved crimes, specifically related to crime scene interpretation and the interview or re-interview of suspects and witnesses using well-developed interview and interrogation strategies, to glean new information and assist in developing new leads, often leading to an arrest and case closure.
He has testified dozens of times in criminal proceedings before State and Federal court and grand juries, at identity, probable cause, detention, suppression and sentencing hearings, and at trials on topics ranging from police training and crime scene management to interview and interrogation techniques and the investigations of sexual assault and deaths. An adjunct faculty member at Blackhawk Technical College, Mr. Altstadt taught prospective new detectives in the areas of interview and interrogation, crime scene management, and sexual assault and homicide investigations. Following his retirement from the police department, Mr. Altstadt founded a private investigative agency specializing in surveillance, locates, re-interviewing subjects and providing litigation support to attorneys. He has been a member of the Rock County Juvenile Court Advisory Board and is a member and board president of the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators (WAHI) where he supervised the Cold Case Homicide Review Team and contributed to case analyses.
As a law enforcement consultant for Eagle, Mr. Altstadt provides case consultation, investigative support, and litigation support in the areas of Crime Scene Procedures, Interview and Interrogation Techniques, Policies and Procedures, Private Investigations, Proper Investigative Techniques, Sexual Assault, and Suspicious Death Investigations.