Technology and Law Enforcement: From Gumshoe to Gamma Rays

Technology and Law Enforcement: From Gumshoe to Gamma Rays

Robert L. Snow

PRAEGER

Technology and Law Enforcement

Technology and Law Enforcement From Gumshoe to Gamma Rays

ROBERT L. SNOW Foreword by Raymond E. Foster

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Snow, Robert L. Technology and law enforcement : from gumshoe to gamma rays / Robert L. Snow ; foreword by Raymond E. Foster. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-275–99334-4 (alk. paper) 1. Police—United States—Equipment and supplies. 2. Law enforcement—Technological innovations—United States. 3. Criminal investigation—Technological innovations—United States. I. Title. HV7936.E7S56 2007 2007016217 363.2028
4—dc22 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2007 by Robert L. Snow All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007016217 ISBN-13: 978–0–275–99334–4 First published in 2007 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Dee, Kenny Marcy, Pat and David. And for Dan, Cheryl, Emily and Sarah.

Contents

Foreword by Raymond E. Foster Acknowledgments 1 The Birth of High-Tech Police Work

ix xiii 1

2 Training

11

3 Vehicles

25

4 Dispatch and Communications

43

5 Uniformed Officers

53

6 Detectives

71

7 SWAT and Bomb Squad

85

8 Lie Detection

97

9 Automated Fingerprint Identification

107

10 DNA Analysis

115

11 Computers

131

12 Some Thoughts about Technology

149

Notes Bibliography Index

159 171 183

Foreword

Just as technology is rapidly changing in our society, so too it is changing in police work. Scholars and researchers have been continuously exploring how technology may be changing our society, but little attention has been focused on how technology may be changing the nature of American policing. While the academic jury is still out on how technology is changing society, for cops, it appears to be a case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” From Sherlock Holmes’ encyclopedic knowledge of tobacco to today’s National Crime Information Center’s moment-to-moment churning of data, one thing about police work remains constant—law enforcement is about information. Witnesses’ statements, suspects’ confessions, and even evidence are all a form of information. For the cop, it is the discovery and analysis of information that leads to the formation of reasonable suspicion and probable cause. Information leads to solving crimes, arresting offenders and getting convictions. Just as important, information is the key to a police officer’s survival. Consider that during every infield detention, the suspect has perfect knowledge. They know if they are wanted, carrying contraband, or concealing evidence. The suspect decides when to flee, fight, or lie. The cop is always at a disadvantage; he or she is constantly working to discover what the criminal knows. As an example, some police agencies are employing infield fingerprint scanners. If a suspect doesn’t have identification or his identification appears false, a police officer can scan the suspect’s thumbprint and immediately access millions of criminal records and warrants.

x

Foreword

As the police officer pulls out a fingerprint scanner, criminals know the moment of truth is at hand and they must decide to submit, flee, or fight. Although the police officer knows truthful information is moments away, the technology is not going to tell the cop how the suspect will react. Unless the police officer knows the beat cop’s time-tested skills of reading people, the criminal still has an advantage. Our reliance on technology can potentially supplant our human skills. In policing, technology has the potential for pushing an officer closer to the truth while also closer to the moment of danger for the officer. Overreliance on technology can dampen a cop’s ability to see that danger coming. Conversely, ignorance of technology may cause a police officer to overlook valuable evidence. Police and detectives worldwide are relearning something discovered over one hundred years ago. The “Sherlock Holmes” of France, Dr. Edmond Locard, developed what had become the foundation for all scientific investigations of crime scenes—the “theory of transfer.” We have known for a hundred years that whenever two objects come into contact they leave, on each other, some evidence of that contact. When the suspect pulls the trigger he or she is leaving fingerprints on the gun, and the discharge of the gun leaves gunpowder residue on the hands and clothing of the suspect. This transfer applies to all trace evidence (blood, DNA, fingerprints, fibers, and so on). While we have known this, police officers haven’t always been able to do anything about it. In the past, fingerprints lifted from murder scenes have remained unidentified for over 40 years. We didn’t know with whom to compare them. Or, the surfaces that the suspect touched could not be printed with the typical fingerprint powders of the twentieth century. Today, nearly all surfaces can be printed and the fingerprint changed into a numerical representation, and millions upon millions of fingerprint records checked in a very short time. So, too, we have known throughout the history of modern policing that suspects leave hair, tissue, blood, and other bodily fluids at crime scenes. Today, the smallest of fibers and droplets of human fluids can provide reliable evidence of a suspect’s “transfer” at the scene of a crime. In the fairly recent past, science had not developed to a point where the smallest of trace evidence, DNA, was known or its value as an investigative tool realized. Because of our not knowing, we didn’t collect the evidence; or didn’t collect the evidence properly. Who knows what science will be able to collect in the future? The traditional skills of crime-scene preservation and protection have become even more critical as technology has shown us what information we can collect. The old and time-tested detective skills of protecting your crime scene, documenting, and collecting evidence have become more important.

Foreword

xi

We simply don’t know what science will show us tomorrow that can solve yesterday’s crimes. Police officers aren’t the only ones affected by developments in technology—as citizens we have new expectations of our police department’s use of technology. Indeed, some courts during criminal trials admonish juries as to the “CSI effect,” that is, unrealistic expectations of the use of technology by police officers. While television forms many of the unrealistic expectations, some of the confusion as to what science and the police can do may be founded in public’s misunderstanding between the job of a forensic scientist and a criminalist. A forensic science is any science that is brought into the courtroom. It is the use of science to settle a question of law, be it civil or criminal. There can be forensic accounting, forensic serology, forensic anthropology, and so on. Forensic science tells us what something is, but it doesn’t necessarily interpret for us what an item of evidence means in relation to the crime. The interpretation of evidence against the backdrop of a specific crime is what criminalists do. Truthfully, the study of crime is an apprenticeship. The problem is a person doesn’t learn about crime and human beings in the laboratory. There is no school, except the streets, to teach a person how criminals, victims, and witnesses act. Yes, you can learn quite a bit in the classroom, but the real learning, the savvy, comes from working in the trenches. Ultimately, technology as an enhancer of police work is a hollow promise without streetwise, intuitive human beings to analyze, interpret, and test. Yes, technology has the ability to greatly enhance police work, but without hardworking, creative, and fearless people, the technology is a just another object. Thusly, we return to “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.), MPA Author of Police Technology (Prentice Hall, July 2004) www.police-technology.net

Acknowledgments

I’d like to offer a special thanks to my agent Jim Cypher for the time and input he gave to this book. Also, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my wife Melanie, an ex-cop and the best detective I’ve ever known, for her thorough review of my manuscript.

CHAPTER ONE

The Birth of High-Tech Police Work During the night of June 27, 1984, because the day had been so hot, seventynine-year-old Jennie Vincow decided to leave a window open in her house, hoping for a cool breeze. It would be a fatal mistake. The consequences of this seemingly innocent decision would mark the beginning of a yearlong reign of terror that would send tens of thousands of southern California residents to hardware stores for better locks and to gun stores for protection. On that hot, summer night, Richard Ramirez, later to become known as the Night Stalker, entered Jennie Vincow’s open window and began a series of murders and rapes that would claim at least sixteen lives and leave dozens of other victims emotionally scarred for life. Although the authorities finally stopped Ramirez, it wasn’t alert police officers, detective perseverance, or, as occasionally happens in police work, dumb luck that did it. It was a piece of high-tech equipment then in use by only a handful of police departments in the United States. On the morning of June 28, 1984, police officers arrived quickly after Vincow’s son discovered the mutilated body of his mother lying on her bed. Although investigators would find that Vincow had been sexually assaulted, her body punctured by multiple stab wounds, and her throat slashed so severely she had been nearly decapitated, they had no inkling that southern California had a serial killer on the loose. They had no inkling that this would be just the first in a long string of such atrocities. As a part of their investigation, the police recovered fingerprints on a windowsill that they believed belonged to the murderer/rapist. However, these fingerprints were of little value to their investigation.

2

Technology and Law Enforcement

In 1984, fingerprints recovered at a crime scene held little evidentiary value if the police didn’t have a known suspect to compare them with. In those days the police had no practical method for comparing recovered fingerprints against the millions of fingerprints many large cities routinely had on file. Trying to do this manually would take decades. Consequently, recovered fingerprints in a case with no suspect simply went into the case file, to be pulled out and used later only if the police ever did develop a suspect. “Officers would go to a crime scene and throw [fingerprint] powder around and make the complainant think they were doing something,” said Peggy Jones, a fingerprint examiner for the Houston Police Department. “But then the prints would be filed away never to be touched again unless a suspect was developed.”1 A little over eight months after the Vincow murder, twenty-year-old Angela Barrios had just parked in the driveway of her home in the Rosemead area of Los Angeles. As she walked into her garage, a man later identified as Richard Ramirez raced up behind her. The terrified Barrios saw that Ramirez, dressed in dark clothing, brandished a handgun, and she immediately pleaded with him not to kill her. Ramirez, however, jerked the gun up to her face and pulled the trigger. Luckily for Barrios, her hands went instinctively up to her face and the keys she held deflected the bullet. Wisely, Barrios fell to the garage floor and played dead. Ramirez stepped over her and went into the house. When moments later, Barrios heard a gunshot from inside her home, cold adrenalin shot through her and she jumped up and bolted out of the garage, almost knocking down Ramirez as he ran from the front door of the house. Rather than shooting her again, as Barrios feared he would, Ramirez simply fled. Inside the house, Barrios’ roommate, thirty-fouryear-old Dayle Okazaki, lay dead on the kitchen floor, a gunshot through her forehead. The Night Stalker had struck again. Sexual psychopaths like Richard Ramirez, psychiatrists find, will often spend years developing and refining a fantasy that arouses intense sexual excitement in them. Unfortunately, these fantasies usually center around some type of sadistic sexual assault. Sexual psychopaths, psychiatrists also find, will many times replay the fantasy over and over in their minds for years before finally taking any steps to play it out in real life. Occasionally, they will even first attempt to act out the fantasy with a prostitute before at last going out and assaulting an innocent person. But then, even after finally committing a sexual assault, the real-life incident, sexual psychopaths usually find, is nowhere near as perfect as their fantasy is, and so they will often attack a number of victims before they can find an MO (mode of operation) that works best in fulfilling their fantasy.

The Birth of High-Tech Police Work

3

This was the stage that Ramirez was seemingly going through when he shot Barrios and then murdered her roommate. Neither of these two situations apparently fulfilled his sexual fantasy. Consequently, later that night in nearby Monterey Park, Ramirez struck again. There the police found the body of thirty-year-old Tsia-Lian Yu lying on the ground beside her car. Ramirez had shot Yu several times. However, even this incident apparently didn’t totally satisfy Ramirez because he soon struck again, and was seemingly still trying to find the MO that would work best in satisfying his sexual fantasy. In furtherance of this, Ramirez went back to entering the homes of his victims through unlocked doors or windows. If there were any men in the house he discovered it worked best if he killed them right away. They weren’t really part of his sexual fantasy anyway. Then afterward, he found, he could usually have his way undisturbed with the in-shock and cowed women. And this was exactly what Ramirez did on the night of March 27, 1985. On that night, Ramirez entered the home of Peter and Maxine Zazzara in the Whittier neighborhood of Los Angeles. He immediately shot and killed Peter, who the police would later find on a sofa in the den, a bullet through his right temple. The police would also find the nude body of Maxine in the bedroom. Ramirez had gouged out and removed her eyeballs from their sockets. She had also been shot once and stabbed repeatedly. A month and a half later, Ramirez struck again in the Monterey Park neighborhood, this time shooting sixty-six-year-old Harold Wu in the head and then beating and raping his wife Jean. Mr. Wu, however, even though shot in the head and mortally wounded, managed to crawl to a telephone and call 911. The police, though, wouldn’t arrive in time to catch Ramirez or to help Mr. Wu, who would die later that night. His wife, however, would survive. Ramirez’s rampage of murder and rape continued throughout the summer of 1985. And even though in early July 1985, Los Angeles police told anxious citizens who had packed a neighborhood meeting in Monterey Park that they had no evidence that could definitely point to one person as being responsible for the rash of murders and rapes, on August 8, 1985, the Sheriff of Los Angeles County finally announced that they apparently did have a serial murderer/rapist on the loose. Before it would end, the police would attribute sixteen murders and at least two dozen rapes to Ramirez. To deal with the mounting number of unsolved murders and rapes, a countywide police task force that included more than 200 investigators worked around the clock to identify the man known as the Night Stalker. They sorted through mountains of accumulating evidence and fielded thousands of telephone calls. But still they got no closer to identifying who the murderer/rapist

4

Technology and Law Enforcement

was. Consequently, the local news media soon began to question loudly why the police hadn’t yet apprehended the Night Stalker. “Everyone’s been worried about it,” said Frank Fitzpatrick, chief criminalist for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s all anyone talks about. Plus it’s invading your castle. It’s not like the Freeway Killer, where you had a guy picking up young men. The community can’t necessarily relate to that. But this [is] someone breaking into homes.”2 The beginning of the end of Ramirez’s reign as the Night Stalker began on August 24, 1985. On that night, driving a stolen orange Toyota, Ramirez struck again. He slipped into a home and shot twenty-nine-year-old Bill Carns while he slept, and then raped and sodomized his twenty-nine-yearold fiancee. ´ Although Ramirez had tied up his female victim with neckties, she quickly got loose after he left and saw him drive away in the orange Toyota. Earlier that evening, Mickey Jensen, a young man working on a motorcycle in his garage, had noticed the orange Toyota driving several times through the neighborhood. Not having seen the car before and thinking it suspicious, he jotted down the license number, which he would later give to the authorities. Finally, the police had a solid, workable lead in the Night Stalker case. The license plate, officers found, came back registered to a car that had been stolen while the owner dined in the Chinatown section of Los Angeles. The authorities immediately put out an alert for the orange Toyota. Two days later, they located it parked in the Rampart section of Los Angeles. The police quickly put the car under surveillance, hoping that the elusive Night Stalker would return to it. When after a day of surveillance no one had neared the car, the police towed it in and scoured it for clues. The authorities knew they couldn’t allow this opportunity to slip away. And so, when searching for fingerprints, the police used a laser print finder, a new device that at that time was being used by only one police agency on the West Coast. This device consisted of a handheld laser that emitted a light beam that caused visually undetectable fingerprints to glow a yellowish-white. These fingerprints were visible only to the operator, who wore special goggles that blocked out the laser’s blue-green beam. After spending almost fourteen hours going over the Toyota, the police finally found a usable fingerprint on the rear view mirror, a fingerprint that didn’t match the owner of the car or anyone who had had access to it. In the late summer of 1985, unlike when the police had recovered fingerprints from the windowsill of the Night Stalker’s first victim, Jennie Vincow, the authorities now had a way to find out who the unknown fingerprint belonged to. Just months before, a new type of computer had been installed

The Birth of High-Tech Police Work

5

in Sacramento, California. Called an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), this new computer could reportedly analyze a police department’s store of fingerprints digitally and then save these millions of digital codes in its memory. Then, the Los Angeles police had heard, an unknown fingerprint entered into the computer could be analyzed and compared against those stored in its memory. But the most amazing thing about this new computer was that it could do this search in just minutes rather than the years it would take if done manually. In 1985, only a handful of law enforcement agencies had an AFIS system because the price tag for the equipment ran into the millions of dollars. The AFIS system in Sacramento had cost $22.4 million, a staggering sum in the 1980s. But more important, many police departments didn’t own an AFIS system because its value compared to its huge cost had not yet been established. The luck for the Los Angeles Police Department almost went sour, however, when a serious complication nearly stopped them from being able to use this computer. Since the equipment was new and still in the process of being loaded with information from fingerprint cards from across the state, the State Department of Justice in Sacramento had not yet allowed any police agencies access to it. This was why the fingerprints recovered in the Jennie Vincow murder still sat in the file. However, because the Night Stalker case had created such public apprehension and fear, and because the cases believed attributed to this killer had occurred not just in Los Angeles but as far north as San Francisco, state officials made an exception and agreed, even though the computer was only partially loaded, to attempt to identify the fingerprint recovered from the orange Toyota. Los Angeles police officers immediately flew the fingerprint up to Sacramento. After just a few minutes, the new computer spit out a list of possible matches to the fingerprint taken from the Toyota. A fingerprint examiner quickly confirmed that the first name on the list was a match to the recovered fingerprint. The fingerprint recovered from the Toyota belonged to twenty-five-year-old Richard Ramirez. The police immediately obtained a photograph of Ramirez and released it to the press. On August 31, 1985, California television stations began broadcasting Ramirez’s picture, and practically every newspaper on the West Coast placed it prominently on their front page. Richard Ramirez quickly became California’s most wanted person. Because of this, Ramirez quickly discovered that everywhere he went people stared at him. Finally, after being recognized at a liquor store by several of the customers, Ramirez fled the store, knowing that he had to find some transportation out of southern California right away. In a sweaty

6

Technology and Law Enforcement

panic, Ramirez made the mistake of attempting to steal a car in a very tough Hispanic neighborhood. His attempt failed and the residents chased him down, pummeled him, and then turned him over to the police, who charged him with the Night Stalker crimes. A jury, on September 20, 1989, found Ramirez guilty of all forty-three counts the prosecutor had charged him with, including more than a dozen murders. Apparently knowing what was coming, Ramirez asked to leave the courtroom before the verdicts were read, hearing them over a speaker in a holding cell. On November 9, 1989, a judge, who told Ramirez “There are no mitigating factors,” sentenced him to death.3 a a a While of course both the police and the public sighed a collective breath of relief when officers finally took the infamous Night Stalker into custody, something just as important and crucial to the public safety had also occurred. The police and the public had witnessed a real-life example of the value of using high-tech equipment in criminal identification. An unknown fingerprint had been identified in just minutes. What had once been impossible had suddenly become very possible. Although for years many police officers had not given much credence to the value of technology in law enforcement, insisting that the value of it could not match that of a gumshoe (a police officer who went out into the streets and talked to people), soon after the Night Stalker apprehension police departments all across the United States began clamoring for their own AFIS systems and for other high-tech equipment they had ignored for years. For example, when I became an Indianapolis police officer in the late 1960s, our technological base hadn’t changed for many years. We had very little in the way of equipment that police officers decades before us hadn’t had. As a matter of fact, a Presidential Commission formed to look at law enforcement during the 1960s had this to say in 1967, “The police, with crime laboratories and radio networks, made early use of technology, but most police departments could have been equipped thirty or forty years ago as well as they are today.”4 When I started as a police recruit, besides our uniforms, the police department issued new officers a very small amount of equipment, which included a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a wooden nightstick, and a can of tear gas spray that we all soon found out worked about as well as watering a houseplant with a fire hose. If you used it, everyone in the vicinity, including other police officers, got some of the spray. While our vehicles in those days didn’t have AM or FM radios, or even air-conditioning, we did have a built-in radio that allowed us to have two-way

The Birth of High-Tech Police Work

7

communication with the Dispatch Center. However, once away from their police cars officers were without any way to communicate with the dispatcher. If officers got into trouble away from their cars and needed help they had to hope that a public-spirited citizen would see their plight and call the dispatcher for them. The only portable communication device the Indianapolis Police Department had at that time was an Army surplus walkie-talkie that the downtown walking beat used. Interestingly, communication problems for the police in the 1960s weren’t that much different from what the police had experienced more than a century before. According to a paper in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, “During the 1840s the method of communications for the police on the beat was simple: the officers would yell if they needed help.”5 Yet, even though the police of yesterday didn’t totally ignore technology, for example, the telegraph first being used by the police in 1877, and the automobile in the early 1900s, hundreds of pieces of technology that could have potentially assisted the police were ignored. Most of the police officers in the early and middle 1900s saw science and technology as being useful in only a very few specific areas. Few in law enforcement apparently saw the benefit of embracing and bringing in new technology for the overall good of law enforcement itself. In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, a blue-ribbon panel assembled by President Lyndon Johnson to look into the problem of rapidly rising crime rates, said, “The scientific and technological revolution that has so radically changed most of American society during the past few decades has had surprisingly little impact on the criminal justice system.”6 The late 1960s, of course, was also before the advent of widespread computer use, and so in those days most record checking requested by officers in the field had to be done manually, with police department employees at headquarters actually having to physically check files or printed lists for wanted vehicles or individuals. This had a dramatic effect on the efficiency of the police. For example, one time when I was a rookie officer I arrested a man who was drunk and involved in a disturbance at the Greyhound Bus Station. There hadn’t been anything special about the arrest so I promptly forgot about it until I received a notice several days later that the man had apparently murdered another man in Omaha. Immediately after the crime, the police found, he had boarded a bus to Indianapolis in order to escape arrest. Unfortunately, by the time we found out about this, he had already been let out of jail and had disappeared again. As we will see in the following chapters, technology has fixed many of the law enforcement shortcomings of the early and middle 1900s. Police officers today have multiple communications options and carry an array of both

8

Technology and Law Enforcement

offensive and defensive weapons. In addition, the police vehicles of today have become high-tech workstations where multiple tasks, impossible in the past, are now routinely carried out. Incidents such as the one I experienced involving the arrest at the bus station seldom occur any longer. The police today can usually identify individuals wanted for serious crimes, either locally or in other jurisdictions, within minutes. Fortunately for police officers all across the country, and for the citizens they serve, the 1985 arrest of the Night Stalker would become a watershed in the history of criminal investigation. Through this case, police officers saw that by embracing and using high-tech equipment they could solve cases that just a few years before had been labeled as “unsolvable.” Through this case, police officers saw that evidence they had once thought of as useless could suddenly become extremely valuable. Through this case, police officers saw that by adopting the latest in high-tech equipment they could use this evidence to point them toward a suspect. Within weeks of the apprehension of the Night Stalker, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and several city councilmen began lobbying the Los Angeles City Council for funds to purchase their own AFIS system, pointing out that some of the Night Stalker’s victims could possibly have been spared if the Los Angeles Police Department had had its own AFIS system. “It not only solves crimes,” said one of the city councilmen backing the purchase, “but it can prevent crimes.”7 Chief Gates, when pitching for the purchase, described AFIS as “clearly the biggest breakthrough since we began back in the Dark Ages to identify people through fingerprints.”8 Several weeks later, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved purchasing an AFIS system. Today, a little more than twenty years since the Night Stalker case, every police department in the United States either has an AFIS system or has made arrangements to have access to one. Of course, this race toward acquiring new technology didn’t involve just fingerprint evidence. Police departments across the nation also began seeing the value of incorporating technology into almost every aspect of their profession, from acquiring the ability to be able to rapidly search through billions of public records to the rewards of DNA comparison, from the use of new chemicals and light sources to find previously undetectable blood stains to computer-aided training. The possibilities and uses of technology, they found, were endless. “Police work is all about information,” Raymond E. Foster, a retired Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant and author of Police Technology, told me. “Information, whether from witness and suspect statements or physical evidence found at the crime scene, is what solves crimes. Today’s technology,

The Birth of High-Tech Police Work

9

while continuing to make more and more information available to police officers, hasn’t yet even come close to peaking.”9 Many leaders in law enforcement today see technology as the key to controlling crime and making our communities safer. A blue-ribbon panel in Massachusetts, formed to look into the reasons for a spiraling crime rate, recommended the purchasing of new technology for police officers over crime prevention programs such as neighborhood watch and gun buybacks. According to an article in Crime Control Digest about the group’s recommendations, “The Commission said police need 21st century technology to fight gangs, terrorists and other sophisticated criminal organizations that now account for the most serious crimes. The Commission said ‘Scared Straight’ and drug awareness programs for youth had failed to achieve any meaningful results.”10 This new technology, as we will see in the following chapters, has indeed become more and more important, not only in solving crimes, but also in preventing them. This potential for prevention is crucial because the financial cost of crime can be tremendous. A report by the National Crime Prevention Council puts the yearly cost of crime in the United States at $428 billion, or $1.2 billion a day.11 Many criminal justice officials believe that much of the technology we will discuss throughout this book could prevent a significant amount of this crime from occurring, and preventing only a small fraction of it would mean huge financial returns on any investment in technology. Although in the following chapters we will be able to talk about only a small sampling of the many pieces of technology that have found their way into police work, we will still see that technology has indeed radically changed the landscape of law enforcement. Police officers today can perform many tasks that just a decade or two ago would have been deemed impossible. As we will see throughout this book, there are no areas of law enforcement that haven’t been affected, and occasionally even completely overhauled, by the introduction of new technology. And, as Lieutenant Foster above observed, this trend shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Of course, this huge increase in the use of technology by law enforcement also means that today’s police officers must be much more technologically astute. Today’s police recruits must not only still feel comfortable relating to and talking with people from all segments of our society, as did the old gumshoe, but they must also understand and feel comfortable working with ever-changing high technology. Of course, as we will see in the next chapter, this all begins at the Police Academy.

CHAPTER TWO

Training

February 10, 1969, had been a typical winter day in Indianapolis. Although sunny, the temperature had struggled to reach 40 degrees. However, I don’t think I even noticed the weather that day. Something much more important and exciting had been sending jolts of electricity racing out my fingertips all day. That morning I had been sworn in as a recruit police officer for the Indianapolis Police Department. The 200 seats in the Council Chambers of the City-County Building in downtown Indianapolis had only minutes before been filled to capacity with family members and friends of the forty men and women being sworn in. During the ceremony, there had been numerous rounds of applause and occasional loud cheering from the audience. My parents had been there, had listened to the speeches, witnessed my swearing in, and had had photos taken with me. (I was the second one in my family to go into police work, following my older brother Fred, who had joined the previous year. I would also have a younger brother join in the following years and marry my wife Melanie just before she joined the police department.) Now though, the ceremony was over, the family and dignitaries had left, and I and thirty-nine other nervous recruits sat with tight stomachs in the silent Council Chambers, waiting for someone to come and get us and take us to the Police Academy, where we would begin our sixteen weeks of instruction. Finally, a bald man in a starched Indianapolis Police Department uniform marched into the room. “All right, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted. “Let’s go! Follow me, single file!” Our chief instructor, Sergeant Chuck Pritchett, a no-nonsense leader who insisted on maintaining strict military discipline during recruit training, had at

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last come to gather us from the Council Chambers. I found after a short walk that in 1969 the Training Academy for the Indianapolis Police Department consisted of two rooms on the third floor of Police Headquarters, a single classroom, and a small gymnasium. And in 1969 that was the total extent of the Indianapolis Police Department’s training facilities. During my sixteen weeks in the academy, though I found the training intense, the police department’s use of advanced technology, even by 1969 standards, seemed extremely sparse. Other than the occasional use of a slide or movie projector, our instruction involved mostly classroom lectures by various speakers. We heard lectures on state law and local ordinances, accident investigation, community relations, and many other topics. In most of these classes, the only extras the instructors used were some handouts. I also discovered during my recruit training that the Indianapolis Police Department didn’t operate its own firing range, and so when it came time for our two-week firearms instruction block we went to the firing range at nearby Fort Harrison Army Base. This training, like the classroom training, incorporated no advanced technology. We simply shot at stationary paper targets. Additionally, I found, the Indianapolis Police Department also didn’t have a vehicle driving range. For our very short course in driving tactics, the instructors took us to a large warehouse-like structure at the State Fairgrounds, where we underwent a very limited instructional course. And of course, being inside a building we experienced no realistic street conditions during our training. As might be expected, week after week of mostly just listening to lectures can be unbelievably tedious. Consequently, after six weeks of this, we couldn’t wait to go to the firing range because we knew that, once we had been qualified in the use of firearms, we would begin our Saturday ride-alongs. What this meant was that from that time on we would begin riding every Saturday with an experienced officer, so that we could observe real-life police work. In 1969, however, once I began my ride-alongs, I found that the only piece of advanced technology our police vehicles contained was the fixed two-way police radio that allowed us to stay in contact with the Dispatch Center. The vehicles had no air-conditioning, nor even an AM or FM radio. Since the two-way radio had been permanently installed, whenever officers left their vehicles in those days they were required to contact the dispatcher and tell exactly where they were and why they would be away from their car. As we discussed in the last chapter, this presented some significant safety concerns because, if the officers happened onto an event that required them to bolt from their car and attempt to chase or subdue someone, the dispatchers and other police officers wouldn’t know where they were or the situation they were involved in.

Training

13

After eight riding assignments and sixteen weeks of classroom lectures, my class left the Training Academy and we all received our first assignments as uniformed police officers. Interestingly, I discovered, at my new job most of the veteran officers would say the same thing to me whenever we went on a run together. They would tell me to just forget everything I had learned in the academy, that this was the real world, and things worked differently than what we had been taught at the academy. While I didn’t find this advice to be totally valid, since I did need and used a lot of the information I had obtained at the Training Academy, still, true enough I hadn’t been prepared for the realism of police work on the street. The academy training had been too many academic lectures and practically no courses in realistic interaction with people. While I had learned about the laws in Indiana, the rules of search and seizure, the various Supreme Court decisions that affected police work, and other matters, I hadn’t learned how to handle the types of people-situations I would find myself involved in as a police officer. I hadn’t learned yet how to safely and effectively handle the many emotional and often hostile interactions I would have with people who had called the police or had the police called on them. These I learned through the extremely dangerous method of trial and error. And unfortunately, before I learned the proper way to handle these various situations, I’m sure that many of my errors left some of the citizens I came in contact with feeling less than happy about the police department. Indianapolis, incidentally, wasn’t unique in its training deficiencies. As a matter of fact, for the time, our sixteen weeks of instruction was considered very progressive. In 1969, many localities across the United States didn’t require police officers to have any formal academy training at all, but instead let their recruits learn to become police officers totally through trial and error on the street. a a a Fortunately, as we will see in this chapter, today the use of advanced technology during police training can prepare recruits not just academically, but also practically for the experiences and situations they will find themselves involved in as police officers. Through the use of advanced technology, police recruits can now safely experience, in a classroom setting, many of the human interactions they may find themselves involved in once on the street. For example, many police departments across the country now use training simulators. These are high-tech devices that project various scenarios on movie screens that the officers in training must interact with. In each scenario the officers must decide what the best action to take would be. One scenario, for example, might depict an oddly acting citizen simply asking the officer for

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Technology and Law Enforcement

assistance. Another scenario may have the same person, in the same background settings, excitedly reporting a crime, and yet another scenario may have the person attacking the officer. In each incident the officer in training must decide what action to take depending on the situation, from giving the citizen information to pulling out his or her firearm and shooting the person. Having the same person and background settings in each of the possible scenarios keeps the training honest because it stops the recruits from warning each other about which people in the scenarios to be wary of. This type of instruction can be very effective in training new police officers how, for example, to respond to domestic disturbance complaints, the most common run a uniformed street officer receives. It can teach recruits to be prepared for any response because, as all experienced officers will attest to, absolutely anything can happen during these calls, from an ambush by the aggressor in the disturbance to the reporting victim suddenly becoming violent. But, of course, the real benefit is that, through the use of this technology, officers can learn how to handle these runs, and their many possible dangers, in the safety of the classroom. A recent article in LAWeekly magazine tells about a new situation simulator, called PsychSim, which is presently under development by USC’s Information Sciences Institute. With this piece of technology the simulated characters interact with the person being tested, and will respond and react based on what the person being tested says and does.1 In Whittier, California, law enforcement agencies use a device called an Advanced Disaster Management Simulator. This device uses virtual reality to train police officers about responding to such things as gunfights, chemical spills, multi-vehicle accidents, and terrorist attacks. And as new incidents, unheard of in the past, occur, the simulator can be updated. “This is one of the greatest things I’ve seen,” said Montebello (California) Police Chief Garry Couso-Vasquez. “9/11 woke us up. We need to practice to protect our residents.”2 A company called VirTra Systems recently developed a virtual reality training simulator that projects the scenario totally around the officer. This 360-degree scenario naturally gives the training a much more realistic feel. Captain Tim Bos, head of training for the Clovis (California) Police Department, had this to say about virtual reality training: “The major advantage of virtual reality training (VR) is that the officer is able to experience real life scenarios in a controlled environment . . . Mistakes can be made and the officer can learn from these mistakes. An officer who dies a quick virtual death will not likely forget the importance of the lesson.”3 WILL Interactive, under a grant from the Community Oriented Police Services of the U.S. Department of Justice, has also gotten into the field

Training

15

of realistic police training. This company developed a two-and-a-half-hour computer video game that will be used to train law enforcement officers. During the training officers find themselves faced with various scenarios and discover that the outcomes vary, depending on what the officers do and the decisions they make. The training deals mostly with racial bias and profiling, and was developed to help officers see how these can cloud their judgment. “I want [troopers] to understand the complex dynamics of the public perception of racial profiling,” said Major Alfred D. Peters of the New Jersey State Police. “I want them to understand they have their own biases the same as anyone else.”4 There is even a device available now that allows police officers to experience what a person with a mental illness might experience. A Belgian pharmaceutical company developed the technology, a virtual hallucination machine, to give those who work with the mentally ill an idea of what these individuals see and hear. To undergo this experience, individuals don goggles and earphones. Suddenly, seemingly normal interactions can take on the feeling of delusion. A normal conversation might suddenly turn threatening when individuals wearing the goggles and earphones hear voices warning them that the person they are talking to is about to attack them, or they see the person’s face suddenly becoming grossly distorted. This kind of training can be extremely valuable because police officers quite frequently encounter individuals with mental illness. “The neurons are firing images in random order. Like being awake but dreaming,” said Officer Paul Tieszen of the Des Moines (Iowa) Police Department, who tried out the virtual hallucination machine. “Like a lot of jumbled thoughts. Like being trapped in a nightmare but you are awake.”5 Of course, as might be expected, since police departments now embrace technology much more than they did in the past, much of the instruction new recruits now receive in the academy is hands-on training on how to operate the various pieces of technology they will use in their daily jobs. For example, many police departments now equip all of their officers with laptop computers, and so officers must learn not only how to operate these computers, but also how to use them to accomplish the many tasks they will be called upon to do. Police recruits, for instance, must learn how to file reports through the computer, how to perform records and wanted checks on them, how to access the various information databases available, and how to perform the many others tasks we will talk about in the following chapters. Along with operating a computer, another important skill all police officers must have is the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle under vastly different conditions, whether it is simply going on a dispatched run, patrolling a district, racing to a life-threatening emergency, or even taking part in a high-speed

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Technology and Law Enforcement

chase. Police officers must be able to safely operate their vehicles while completing any of the above tasks, and not just on dry pavement, but also on wet or icy pavement. Unfortunately, driving a police vehicle at high speeds and under adverse conditions was also something that I had to learn through trial and error (and a number of trips to the police department body shop). However, as might be expected, the cost and danger of teaching new recruits high-speed driving in real cars can be just as dangerous and expensive. To solve this problem, many police departments now train their recruit officers through the use of driving simulators. Using these, recruits can experience the various driving difficulties they may encounter in real-life situations, but they can do it in the safety of the classroom. Driving simulators are high-tech devices that look like the inside of a police vehicle, with a steering wheel, brake and gas pedal, dashboard, and all the switches and controls that a real police vehicle has (for the flashing lights, alley lights, siren, etc.). Using one of these simulators, a recruit can experience reallife driving situations safely in the classroom. During the training, the recruits sit behind the steering wheel while various driving scenarios are then played on a large screen in front of them. The recruits must respond to the scenarios as if they were actually driving a police car. The PatrolSim III Driver Training Simulator, manufactured by L3 Communications, has three side-by-side plasma screens that give the officers being trained 210 degrees of vision. It also has a radio dispatch console and a spot for a laptop computer. A driving simulator manufactured by FAAC Incorporated includes the feel of actually operating a motor vehicle, including curb strikes and road vibration. In order to vary the training, an instructor can make these driving simulators depict various conditions, such as ordinary driving, a high-speed chase, driving on ice or wet pavement, and many other possible scenarios. When one considers not only the price of police vehicles, but also the danger police departments would put recruits in if they tried to recreate these situations in real life, driving simulators can be a good investment. And for police departments on a tight budget, those who can’t afford to purchase a driving simulator, but would still like to be able to train on one, En-Mark Corporation has the solution. This company will deliver and set up rental simulators. “We’ve had driving training for years, but we were missing the handson training before we put people in testing scenarios,” said Washoe County (Nevada) Sheriff Dennis Balaam, talking about his department’s use of the PatrolSim III driving simulator. “Now they can see the consequences of mistakes without any injury or damage to vehicles.”6 Of course, even after an officer completes his or her recruit training and moves on to a job within the police department, the training doesn’t just

Training

17

stop there. The world has become so complex and rapidly-changing that any training can quickly become obsolete. Computer capabilities, for example, change so rapidly that training six months old may no longer be valid. In addition, new court decisions come down regularly, legislators pass or amend laws, criminals develop new methods and tactics, and important pieces of information come along that must be passed on to the officers. Consequently, police departments must keep their training as current as possible. While most police departments require at least yearly or semi-yearly inservice training for their officers, some information or training is simply too important to wait for these sessions. Consequently, many police departments today handle this need for immediate training by putting any new and vital information on a videotape or DVD and sending it out to the various police roll calls. A visual message, it has been found, is much more likely to get the officers’ attention than would the sergeant simply reading the information off of a printed document. Along with this method of distributing information and training, there are also law enforcement-specific cable and satellite television channels that regularly broadcast instructional blocks of material, which can be copied and sent out for the officers to view. In addition, the Internet, police departments find, can also be a valuable source for training information. There presently exist a number of Web sites that officers can access that provide valuable instructional material. The FBI, for example, hosts Law Enforcement Online (LEO), a secure computer network that provides online learning modules on various subjects of interest to law enforcement. The Olathe (Kansas) Police Department has implemented a program called IMPACT, which involves a very novel way of regularly training its officers. It converts the department’s in-service training into five to seven-minute training modules. These are then sent to the officers via e-mail, and require that the officers complete certain tasks that are then sent back by e-mail to the training officer. Officers do the lessons on their department-issued laptop computers during their downtime. “We distribute the training through MS Outlook, and the results are collected via MS Excel,” Ed Harris, Manager of the Technical Services Division of the Olathe Police Department, told me about his department’s training program IMPACT. “It’s absolutely innovative in its approach, and substantial in its impact.”7 Keeping up with latest advances in technology, podcast training that police officers can download onto their computers and then listen to on an iPod or MP3 player has become available. Presently, several Web sites develop podcasts for police officers. “Podcasting is allowing us to reach officers all over the world to share our ideas,” said Sergeant Mack Pettigrew of the Ontario Provincial Police, who

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Technology and Law Enforcement

was one of the founders of copsonline.com.8 Law enforcement podcasts can also be downloaded from copcast.net, which originates from the Cardinal Criminal Justice Academy in Salem, Virginia. Naturally, officers who transfer into specialty jobs within a police department must also receive training on the specialized technology that the new job utilizes. For example, recently over a hundred officers who work in the area of accident investigation attended a weeklong course hosted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC). There, the officers learned about the latest computer mapping technology to use for making accident scene diagrams, and about using black box technology. Most cars manufactured today contain computer chips that retain certain information about the vehicle’s operation. The officers attending this course learned how to access this “black box” information from crashed cars, information such as the vehicle’s speed just before the crash, whether the occupants had their seat belts fastened, etc. The attendees also learned how to use the latest accident reconstruction software. Another weeklong course offered by the same group, this one for detectives, the presenters titled Advanced GIS for Tactical Crime Analysis. This course taught detectives how to use various computer software programs to track crimes and then predict such things as the area where the suspect lives and where he or she will likely strike next. In the summer of 2004, NLECTC sponsored a course in explosives training for air marshals. The attendees received hands-on training about the type of explosives terrorists might use to destroy an aircraft. “The opportunity to see actual explosives and watch what they can do reinforces the seriousness of the threat,” said Tony Hedges, special agent in charge of the Denver Federal Air Marshal Service. “The ability to show how explosive devices can be constructed teaches the marshals to think outside the box when it comes to thinking about what can be used to build a bomb.”9 The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also offers training for detectives. This group teaches attendees how to investigate computer child abuse, including such things as how to locate sources of child pornography, how to identify child predators who go online, etc. Another organization, the National White Collar Crime Center, offers extensive training for police detectives in such areas as cyber-investigation, foundations of intelligence analysis, identity theft, and money laundering. Yet, of all the training that police officers receive, many people feel that firearms training is the most important. This is because if a police officer must use a firearm the outcome will often be devastating. The suspect or an innocent person may be wounded or killed, and the police officer must live forever with the consequences. In addition, poorly trained police officers

Training

19

stand a much better chance of being killed themselves. As I talked about at the beginning of this chapter, when my recruit class underwent our firearms training, we simply shot at stationary paper targets at distances raging from a few feet to fifty yards. Unfortunately, police officers seldom encounter threatening paper targets in real life. As it turned out, I found myself involved in a shoot-out with a holdup man very early in my career, and it wasn’t anything at all like my training. It happened unexpectedly, and I didn’t stand stationary and simply take aim and fire, as I did during our recruit training. Instead, I dove for cover, rose up and fired several shots, then dove under cover again. Research shows that most police shoot-outs are just like this. They usually happen quickly, unexpectedly, and often the police officer and suspect are within a few yards of each other. Consequently, training ought to reflect this reality. Fortunately, many of today’s police firing ranges now present firearms training in a much more realistic manner than what I received. Many police firing ranges today incorporate pop-up targets that can be friend or foe, and situation houses in which the officers must work their way through the rooms of the house, constantly making decisions of friend or foe with pop-up targets. Often police departments today will also incorporate paintball shooting into their firearms training. With this instructional method the weapons the officers carry fire paintballs rather than bullets. The officers then participate in a scenario in which a shooting breaks out. Paintballs can vividly demonstrate to the officers how easily they can be shot if not behind cover. However, officers should not just be trained how to shoot, but also trained in knowing whether or not shooting is the best option. To accomplish this, many police departments now use a technological innovation called a laser decision shooting system. A laser decision shooting system is a high-tech device that presents officers with various scenarios on a movie screen. The officers carry a simulated handgun similar to the weapon they carry on duty. This handgun, however, rather than bullets, shoots a laser beam. Depending on what happens during the scenario, the officer may or may not need to draw the handgun and fire at someone on the screen. At the end of the scenario, the device can tell not only whether the officer should have shot, but also measure how fast he or she drew the weapon, how many shots were fired, and exactly where the bullets struck. The law enforcement training facility at Minnesota State University uses a simulator that responds and reacts to the officer’s commands. During the scenario, the officer must decide whether or not to shoot, and a videotape of the officer’s actions during the scenario can be played back afterward to show the officer’s actions, and to correct any mistakes. A different simulator, this one used by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department in New Mexico,

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Technology and Law Enforcement

along with utilizing a simulated handgun, can also be used with a simulated Taser, rifle, and chemical spray. FATS (Firearms Training Systems), one of the first companies to sell shooting decision systems, now sells systems that can use over 250 different simulated weapons. A laser decision shooting system manufactured by Aegis Interactive Systems has the additional capability of being able to shoot back at the officers. The device fires .68 caliber nylon balls during the scenarios. This simulates the bad guys shooting back at the officers. Naturally, this raises the stress level of the training. A system manufactured by Arotech Corporation also has this capability. It shoots foam pellets at the officers. “It does the job,” said Dave Jones of the Columbus (Ohio) Police Department, whose officers train on a machine that fires back at them. “I mean, it makes you think about cover. I mean, it doesn’t hurt too bad, but it definitely lets you know that, ‘Hey, I need to seek cover.’”10 Training instructors who operate these laser decision shooting devices also have the ability to vary the outcome of the scenarios so that the decision made by one officer to the scenario will not necessarily be the correct decision for the next officer viewing it. In addition, the newest high-tech systems will have the aggressor in the scenario react to being shot. If the officers hit the aggressor in a vital spot, he will go down. Conversely, the aggressor will stay up and continue coming at the officers if the shot misses or he is hit in a non-vital body part. “It’s a great training tool,” said Sergeant Dale Farmen of the Aberdeen (South Dakota) Police Department, talking about shooting decision technology. “You can never train for every situation, but this works on decisionmaking.”11 For many small police departments, however, the cost of maintaining a high-tech firing range can be prohibitive. Consequently, many small police departments will contract with larger departments to use their range for training. This, though, can create serious logistics problems. The small department has to find a time when both the range and their officers are available, and they have to have someone there capable of running the range. Adding to this is the overtime expense of getting all of their officers to the range. To get around these problems a number of small police departments have found it more cost-effective to have a high-tech firing range brought to them. Several companies now manufacture fully operational firing ranges that have been built into standard semi-trucks, whose inside walls have been insulated and armored. “It saved us thousands and thousands of dollars,” said Captain Greg Trudell of the Bettendorf (Iowa) Police Department, whose old firing range had to be closed down, and who had looked into the cost difference between building a new fixed-site range and purchasing a mobile one.12

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“The departments are buying them because it is cheaper than constructing a building, and they can park it where they want,” said Brian Danielson, whose company, Meggitt Defense Systems Caswell, manufactures mobile firing ranges.13 But this technological concept isn’t only for small police departments. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, the largest sheriff’s department in the United States, has purchased ten mobile firing ranges. The department sends them out for a month at a time to each district so that the deputies assigned there can complete their firearms retraining three times a year. The Anteon Company has gone with a similar technological concept, except that it manufactures mobile training facilities for SWAT teams. Its Mobile Tactical Trainer’s (MTT) modular system, once delivered and set up, quickly becomes a training site consisting of several buildings one or two stories high. Doors within the MTT are secured with heavy-duty magnets that take a large amount of force to breach, giving officers a chance to train on this. In addition, the MTT is capable of producing background sounds, such as babies crying or people screaming, along with smells of various types, depending on what the site is being used for. At the end of a training scenario, the walls within the MTT can be quickly altered to project a totally different site. Finally, the MTT has audio and video recording throughout, and can provide thermal cameras for recording scenarios carried out under low-light conditions. “Agencies are able to use the MTT for training on clearing techniques, active shooter, vehicle assault, extract hostage rescue, undercover drug/sting operations, violent subject takedown, or probably the thing we’re seeing the most is tactical or specialty team rehearsals,” said Fred Pickens, Anteon director of marketing.14 Along with firearms, police departments today, as we will see in the following chapters, also equip their officers with many other offensive and defensive weapons. Of course, these weapons are of no value if the officers aren’t trained how to use them properly. To make certain, therefore, that officers do know how to use these devices, the companies that have developed them have also developed some very sophisticated training programs. For example, the Taser company, which manufactures a less-than-lethal device that can deliver an incapacitating shock, and which we will talk about in detail later, also produces a training program during which officers can practice shooting the Taser and can see its effects. The Taser Company additionally maintains the Taser Academy at its corporate headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. There, students utilize computer training simulators to learn the proper use of the Taser. Another company, Stinger Systems, which manufactures a device very similar to the Taser, offers an online training course in the use of their products.

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“We have spoken to department training administrators and listened to their concerns about the differing work schedules of their officers, overtime duties, court appearances, the growing time required to conduct training, the actual skills learned, and the overall officer satisfaction of the training experience,” said Stinger Systems CEO Robert Gruder. “It is clear to us that there is a growing interest and pressing need in exploring alternatives to traditional instructor-led classroom based training. Online training is one of them.”15 Penn State University, in order to assist police officers who want to learn about non-lethal weapons, recently developed an online course about them. “The noncredit certificate programs teach about everything from batons to Tasers,” said Ted Mellors, director of Penn State’s Public Safety Center. “The field is growing so rapidly that the online course will be updated to keep up. They’ll be very dynamic in that there will be things changing literally on a day-to-day basis.”16 Some specialized less-than-lethal weapons, which can be dangerous to handle, such as “flashbangs,” require training that allows officers to safely practice using the devices and experiencing their effects. A flashbang is device, used mostly by SWAT teams, that is similar in appearance to a smoke grenade. However, rather than emitting smoke, it explodes with a tremendously loud bang and a brilliant flash of light, which will momentarily stun anyone nearby. The Armiger Police Training Institute in Florida developed a flashbang simulator called the Safe-T-Bang to assist in officer training. “These [devices] are identical in size and weight to the actual device,” said Institute Director Ken Murray. “They give the officers the experience of controlling, throwing and hearing the report with none of the dangerous effects, such as fire.”17 A company called No Lie Blades also manufactures a very innovative training tool for police departments. It is a knife that has the same weight and feel of a real knife, but which, rather than cutting, uses ink to mark the spot where the knife made contact with the officer. A similar training device, the Shockknife SK-1, delivers an electric shock when it touches a person’s body. These devices leave little doubt about whether a knife attack would have been successful. This kind of training can be a lifesaver because many new police officers mistakenly believe that the handgun they carry will stop a knife attack. This isn’t always so. “It’s the 21-foot rule,” said No Lie Blades CEO Hank Hayes. “Generally, you’ll need 21 feet to pull a firearm out of the holster and get two shots off. A knife-wielding suspect who is closer to the officer than this can inflict deadly harm.”18 As readers might expect, the events of 9/11 have radically changed law enforcement forever. Now, police officers must not only be aware of what

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ordinary criminals are doing, they must also be on the lookout against terrorism. To accomplish this, police officers today receive training not only on how to recognize terrorists and terrorist activities, but also high-tech training on how to recognize and what to do if they encounter chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. As a part of this training about terrorism, in 2006, the New York City Police Department opened its Counter Terrorism Training Center. In this facility the police department has created an exact replica of the Leeds, England apartment where terrorists built the bombs that killed fifty-two people in London in 2005. They have also built a replica of the University of Oklahoma dorm room in which a student manufactured a bomb that blew up and killed him. The idea behind this center is to teach officers what bombmaking facilities looks like, and how to recognize the high-tech explosives that terrorists use. Many officers who first see the rooms mistakenly believe that they are drug labs, a possibly fatal mistake, which makes this training all that more valuable. However, this type of in-service training isn’t just for street officers or detectives. Police executives, who will often be in charge of investigating, and coordinating the recovery from, any major terrorist incident, also need to be up-to-date on the latest technology available. The National Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, Maryland supplies just such training. I attended this training myself when I was the Indianapolis Police Department Executive Officer, and I found it very relevant and up-to-date. As can be seen by what we’ve discussed in this chapter, things have certainly changed since I went through police recruit training in 1969, all of it, I believe, for the better. But still, even well-trained police officers aren’t of much value if they can’t get to where they are needed as soon as possible. In today’s police world, not only must police officers be able to safely and effectively operate police vehicles, they must also be able to operate the technological equipment in these vehicles, equipment that will allow them to arrive at their destinations with the most complete and up-to-date information available about the incident they have been sent to handle. As we will see in the next chapter, police vehicles have now become technological workstations where a myriad of tasks can be undertaken that would have seemed like fantasy to the 1960s police officer.

CHAPTER THREE

Vehicles

On the evening of January 22, 1991, three men, Jesus Zambrano and brothers Baldemar and Reynaldo Villarreal, loaded 31 pounds of marijuana into the trunk of a 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass and headed north from Houston, Texas. They had decided to drive to Chicago, where they planned to sell the marijuana. At 1:23 A.M. on January 23, 1991, however, a constable, Darrell Lunsford, stopped the three men for a traffic violation in Garrison Texas, a small town on the north edge of Nacogdoches County, about 160 miles north of Houston. Lunsford approached the vehicle and asked for a driver’s license from Reynaldo, who sat behind the steering wheel. Reynaldo, however, couldn’t produce a license, and the three men, sweating and nervous, then gave conflicting accounts about who owned the vehicle and where they were headed. Naturally suspicious, the constable asked for and received permission to look in the trunk. Baldemar, though ordered to stay in the car, nevertheless got out and followed Lunsford to the rear of the vehicle. As Lunsford opened the trunk, Baldemar said something in Spanish to Reynaldo and then lunged at the constable, knocking him to the ground at the side of the road. Reynaldo and Jesus raced over and joined in the fracas. During the struggle, Baldemar managed to grab Lunsford’s pistol from its holster and shoot the constable in the back of the neck, killing him instantly. Following this, the three men took Lunsford’s ID card, the pistol, his flashlight, and his wallet. They then jumped back into the Oldsmobile and sped away from the scene, leaving the murdered police officer behind. Just minutes before, Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Deputy Don Welch had driven by the scene where Lunsford had had the three men stopped

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Technology and Law Enforcement

and had seen him talking to them. When soon after this he saw the 1982 Oldsmobile speed by him, Deputy Welch returned to the spot where he had seen Lunsford’s car stopped, and found his body. The deputy immediately radioed for help. The three men, realizing Deputy Welch had spotted them, abandoned the Oldsmobile, took the marijuana, and then fled on foot. After an extensive search, local police officers captured them. Jesus Zambrano pled guilty to his part in the crime and received a sentence of thirty years in prison. After a trial, a jury convicted the Villarreal brothers of the murder of Constable Lunsford. Reynaldo received forty years in prison and Baldemar received a sentence of life imprisonment. While this case was tragic in that it involved the murder of a police officer, there is something else about the incident that made it highly unusual. This murder was different because the entire incident had been captured on videotape, the viewing of which, as might be imagined, had a profound effect on the jury. Before leaving his car, Constable Lunsford had activated a then relatively new piece of technology, an in-car video system that recorded everything occurring in front of his police vehicle. This new piece of technology clearly recorded the attack and murder of Lunsford, who was wearing a microphone that also recorded all of the sounds of the crime. a a a In Indianapolis, in February of 2004, the police received the report of a robbery in progress at a pizza business on East 38th Street. As it turned out, several marked police cars happened to be just a few blocks away and got to the scene while the perpetrator still stood inside holding a gun on the employees. As the head of the Homicide Branch, I didn’t give this incident much notice until a few minutes later a call came out over the police radio that the officers at the scene had shot the holdup suspect. I went to the scene, and everything appeared to be in order. The uniformed officers told us that they had surrounded the business and that the holdup man had fled out a rear door, directly at several police officers, who ordered him to drop his gun and give up. Instead, he raised his weapon at them and they shot him. The next day, however, the prosecutor handling the case hurried into my office, his face fixed with a panicky look. “Our defendant,” he told me in a fast, excited voice, “is claiming that he came out of the pizza place and threw his gun down. He’s telling everybody that he had his hands raised and the officers shot him for no reason.” The prosecutor, wringing his hands, added that the man’s family had been contacting all of the local news media outlets with the same story.

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27

The prosecutor, obviously new at his job and having apparently not yet discovered how often criminals will lie, didn’t know what he should do. He couldn’t, he said, prosecute a case where the police had tried to execute a man. Suppressing a smile, I handed the prosecutor a videotape. One of the marked police cars at the scene had been pointed perfectly so that his in-car video system had recorded the entire incident, from the holdup man coming out of the back door to him being shot. The videotape verified the police officers’ version of what had happened. Many other cities have reported similar cases of false accusations against police officers being derailed by an in-car video system. In Newport Beach, California, a woman had accused an officer who had arrested her of sexually assaulting her. However, the in-car video system showed him simply writing out a report during the time she claimed the attack had occurred. “Sometimes they don’t work—and that’s frustrating,” said Captain James Wickham of the Mill Valley (California) Police Department. “But they’ve really helped us out in criminal cases and internal affairs investigations. Officers want to be on their very best behavior because they know the camera is on. It’s a good reminder.”1 Mark Schlosberg of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California added, “Even if it’s not perfect, it’s an independent record of the incident.”2 a a a On August 27, 2005, a burglar broke into a home in the 1000 block of South Clinton Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey. The homeowner, fearful that the burglar might return, asked his neighbor, Janet Marino, to keep an eye on his house. On September 8, 2005, the burglar indeed did return and break into the home again, this time through a window accessible from the townhouse’s porch. However, Marino saw the burglar, grabbed her digital camera and, while her daughter called 911, waited for the burglar to come out. When he stepped out of the front door, Marino yelled at him and then snapped his picture when he turned to look at her. “The police showed up and I showed them the picture,” Marino said. “They laughed and said, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this.’”3 Marino then e-mailed the picture to Trenton Police Headquarters, who sent it out to the laptop computers installed in all of their police vehicles. Within a few hours, Officer Russ Young recognized the suspect and arrested him. The police charged the suspect with both the August 27 and September 8 burglaries.

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“In this case, it expedited the whole case,” said Detective Sergeant Pedro Medina about the use of high-tech equipment by his department. “The picture was sent to all cars from the station within minutes, and every officer knew to look for [the suspect].”4 a a a What all of these incidents demonstrate is that police vehicles have become extremely versatile since I began police work in 1969. Along with being a way to get from one dispatched run to the next, they have now also become high-tech workstations capable of allowing police officers to carry out many tasks impossible in previous years or which would have required the officers to go to the police station to complete. As I talked about in the first two incidents at the beginning of this chapter, in-car video systems first began appearing in police vehicles in the early 1990s, and are now standard in many police departments. Of course, even this innovation has moved forward with advancing technology. When this device first appeared, the vehicles carried the bulk of the recording device in the trunk and officers often had to put in a new videotape at the beginning of each shift. These tapes then had to be stored somewhere for a specified amount of time in the event an incident on them needed to be reviewed. Also, many of the early in-car video systems were bulky and, in addition to the equipment in the trunk, the camera took up quite a bit of space on the dashboard. That’s no longer the case. An in-car video system manufactured by Digital Ally, Inc. is built into the rearview mirror, so that no extra space in the front of the car is taken up at all by the video system. In addition to this, technology has solved the problem of storing the video recordings. Today, instead of videotapes, many in-car video systems record to a hard drive at police headquarters or some other location. This innovation, while freeing up space in the police car, also allows the transmission to be sent in real time to other locations. As might be imagined, this last innovation can be extremely valuable in the event of a large-scale emergency. The first police car arriving on the scene can send back to police headquarters real-time video of what is occurring there. Administrators can then get a better idea of what the emergency encompasses and what resources will be needed. When additional police cars arrive at the scene they can be sent to other parts of the incident in order to give police administrators a better overall picture of the emergency. A concern of many police officers about the early versions of in-car video systems was that they only recorded what was happening in front of the vehicle. Any event occurring elsewhere escaped being recorded. However, this problem has also been overcome by technology. A number of in-car

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video systems now available have the capability of multiple camera locations within the car and a split-screen ability, so the video can simultaneously show what’s happening in front of the police car, behind it, in the rear seat, etc. One of the latest innovations though in in-car video systems is the addition of Forward Looking Infrared devices. These allow police officers to see in the dark by showing them where heat-emitting objects, such as human bodies, are located. “It turns night into day,” said Captain Bobby Richardson of the Highland Park (Texas) Police Department, talking about their new Forward Looking Infrared system. “We are in an area that is heavy with foliage, and even with a searchlight, it’s hard to pick out people hiding behind a honeysuckle vine. This system will shine through the vine and see the person underneath it.”5 Naturally, as might be expected, when first introduced in police work, in-car video systems didn’t sit well with all police officers because they felt it smacked too much of “Big Brother” watching them. Also, the microphone officers wore could record sound near them for up to 1,000 feet from the car, so it recorded everything the officers said near their police cars. To address these concerns, many police departments modified the in-car video equipment so that it only came on when officers activated the emergency lights, or, as the incident in Garrison, Texas, talked about above, when officers manually turned the system on. Some systems, on the other hand, have been modified to turn on when the officers open the car door to get out or remove the shotgun from its holder, and some can even be remotely activated by officers while away from the car. It is easy to weigh in on either side of this argument, but as a police executive and former street officer I’m in favor of having the in-car video system running the entire time the officer is working. Emergencies, by their definition, occur unexpectedly and occasionally there is not time to turn on the system manually, and often not even enough time to turn on the emergency lights and siren. Additionally, citizens pay police officers for a day’s work and should expect that they get it. But an even more important reason to run an in-car video system full time is that these high-tech devices can often pay back their initial cost many times in saved legal fees. While police officers occasionally manage to get themselves involved in incidents they shouldn’t, quite often, as we talked briefly about earlier, individuals arrested by the police will make false accusations of wrongdoing against the officers, either for revenge or in the hope that by dropping their complaint against the police they can get some of the charges against them reduced. And many times, individuals will make false complaints against police officers with the intent of recovering money from the police department. Unfortunately, when it is just the officer’s word against

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that of the complainant’s, many cities will settle these complaints out of court, regardless of their factual basis. In-car video systems could stop much of this. During a recent in-service training session I saw two very good examples of why having in-car video systems running full time is a good idea. One video recording involved a state trooper who could only be described as totally losing it. He raced up to a car he had stopped for a traffic violation, screaming hysterically and acting totally irrational. While the video would certainly support the driver’s claim of the officer not acting professionally, the video could also hold down the amount of damages that would likely be awarded if the case went to court. It would do this by showing that the officer, rather than being mean-spirited, had simply had a mental breakdown. Also, the video showed that his actions, though abusive, were not as bad as the jury would have likely imagined they were if all they had to go on was just the driver’s description. In another video we saw during this training session a driver that a police officer had stopped for a traffic violation was the one who totally lost it. Even though the driver became extremely verbally abusive, the officer remained polite and professional during the entire encounter. A video in this case could be extremely valuable because this is just the type of driver who would file a false complaint of unprofessional conduct against the officer. Early in my career, I had a case very similar to this in which I would certainly have wished for a video of what happened. A dispatcher had sent me and another car to a disturbance at a small warehouse on my district. The other officer radioed that he was a long way off. However, because I was a rookie, I didn’t have the experience to know that I ought to wait for him, and so I went on to the run by myself. Apparently, a young man, not old enough to work there, had gotten a job at the warehouse with false identification. Consequently, when the manager of the warehouse discovered his true age he fired him. I found the young man’s mother on the sidewalk in front of the warehouse with several other people, and she was making quite a scene, screaming at the top of her lungs that the warehouse was trying to cheat her son out of his paycheck. I tried without success to calm her down, and finally went into the warehouse and talked to the manager. He told me that they were writing up the young man’s final paycheck right then. The woman continued to scream, and when I went back outside I walked up to her and tried to explain that her son wasn’t going to be cheated but would receive his paycheck in just a few moments. She acted as though she hadn’t heard me and turned her back and continued screaming. I reached up and touched her on the shoulder and told her again that her son’s paycheck would be there in just a few moments.

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The moment I touched her, the woman stopped screaming and spun around. Then suddenly, she fell and began writhing on the ground, now screaming that I had struck her. At first, the other people standing around seemed as surprised as I was, but then, after a few moments, they picked up on what she was doing, and several of them started agreeing that I had viciously struck her, not once but several times. As I looked around, my stomach squeezed to the size of a walnut when I realized that the only ones outside the warehouse were me, the woman, and a bunch of people I didn’t know. I had no witnesses of my own there to tell what had really happened. Not knowing what to do, I called for my sergeant. He came to the scene and listened to my story and then began talking to the other people present, including the young man’s mother, who now sat on the sidewalk holding her shoulder as if in severe pain. Each person who told the sergeant what had happened seemed to embellish the story a little more, one man even saying he was certain he had seen me strike her several times with my nightstick. Fortunately for me, the “injured” woman’s sister had accompanied her to the warehouse and she was the last one the sergeant talked to. She just looked for several moments at her sister and the other people standing around, then shook her head. “That officer didn’t hit her,” the woman said. “She’s making all this shit up. My sister was here acting like some kind of fool and that officer was just trying to talk to her. He didn’t do nothing. He acted like a gentleman. She’s just trying to get him into trouble.” Suddenly, the people in the crowd apparently remembered that they had urgent business elsewhere and began hurrying away. Finding herself abandoned, the “injured” woman stood up, her bottom lip stuck out. She told the sergeant she wanted to just forget the whole incident. The sergeant, naturally, thought the whole incident was hysterical, as did other officers when he told them about it. But I didn’t find it so funny. As it turned out, an honest woman was all that saved me. However, this isn’t something that can be depended on. An in-car video system, on the other hand, which records everything that happens, can be depended on. I would have loved to have had one then. In addition, though, to protecting police officers from false claims of misconduct, in-car video systems can also offer police officers other protection. “In the past, most in-car camera systems were seen as ways to document police encounters for court purposes or to refute claims of improper police conduct,” Lieutenant Tom Nolan of the Upper Merion Township (Pennsylvania) Police Department told me. “Their role as an officer safety tool came after the fact, when they were used to apprehend a suspect who had assaulted an officer. Officers on car stops can now be viewed live by

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dispatchers on station and officers in the field. The need for assistance can be observed and dispatched, which will be invaluable when officers are struggling for their lives and unable to get to their portable radios.”6 Because of all the reasons Lieutenant Nolan and I’ve talked about above, Chicago, Illinois, recently announced plans to install in-car video systems in many of their police vehicles. “Putting video cameras inside police cars protects drivers stopped by the police and it protects police officers,” said Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich.7 In addition to in-car video systems, many police departments today also equip their vehicles, as were those talked about above in the incident in Trenton, New Jersey, with in-car laptop computers that are connected through wireless technology to police headquarters. While in 1969 we were connected to police headquarters through our two-way radios, today’s police vehicles can, along with radio traffic, also receive photographs, criminal records, mug shots, videos, police reports, driver’s license pictures, and any other document or medium that can be transmitted to a computer. Some systems also allow police officers to download digital photos they have taken into their computer for distribution to other police vehicles. In an effort to provide police officers with as much information as possible, before they get to a run, some in-car laptop computer systems allow police officers to view live video from surveillance cameras mounted on highways and in high-crime areas. Another application presently under development would allow officers to view live video from bank surveillance cameras, which would be a tremendous safety feature for officers answering bank holdup alarms. As any police officer will testify to, going into a bank blind in response to a holdup alarm is unbelievably stressful. In addition, if it turns out to be a good holdup alarm, the surveillance video of the suspect can be uploaded to other officers. Along with being able to view surveillance cameras, being able to do wanted checks on an in-car laptop computer can also be a huge safety feature. Before in-car computers, officers had to use their two-way radios to transmit information on a wanted check to the dispatcher, who then ran the wanted check for the officer. Depending on how busy the dispatcher was it could often take officers several minutes to find out if a person they had stopped was wanted or not, during which time anything could happen. Also, the result of the wanted check would usually be broadcast over the radio, which the wanted individual could often hear. An in-car laptop computer is much faster and more confidential. Also, the ability to pull up driver’s license pictures and mug shots can help tremendously when police officers stop individuals who give false information about who they are.

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In addition to all of these features, officers can also use their in-car laptop computers to see where other police officers are, and they can also check on what runs they have pending. This last feature is very important because before laptop computers officers had to try to write down run information while driving, a dangerous task. Now, they have complete run information stored and waiting on their computer. And of course, the in-car laptop computers can also be used to fill out and send items to police headquarters, such as reports that used to have to be filled out by hand and given to the sergeant, who would then take them to police headquarters. For some specialized reports, officers in the past had to mark out of service and go to headquarters in order to fill out and file them. Now, all reports can be accessed, filled out, and filed on the laptop computer, keeping the officers out on the street. “It keeps them out there on their beat, closer to where we want them—in those neighborhoods,” said Captain Terry Nelson of the Wichita (Kansas) Police Department, talking about his agency’s new laptop computers.8 Sergeant Patrick Daubert of the Weston (Connecticut) Police Department had this to say about the new laptop computers his department has, “We estimate that with this technology in place, our officers are spending 40 percent more time in the field with the citizens of Weston and less time at headquarters filling out reports.”9 Sergeant Boyd Bryant of the Everett (Washington) Police Department agrees, “We believe we can recover at least half of the time officers have traditionally spent in headquarters by moving the system into the police car.”10 An additional benefit of having laptop computers in police cars is that with many of them comes the benefit of mobile mapping. With this software application, officers can see the best route to a dispatched run, exactly where it is located, and the type and location of previous police runs to and near the present one. In addition, as mentioned above, some systems also show where other police units are located. Another relatively new application for police in-car computers is the ability to read the barcode on driver’s licenses and then enter this information onto an electronic ticket form. The computer also calculates the fines for the traffic violation and assigns a court date. A ticket is then printed out for the motorist. Needless to say, this can significantly reduce the time needed to issue a traffic ticket. Finally, a recent innovation that has made in-car laptop computers even more valuable for police officers is facial recognition technology. Like fingerprints, everyone’s facial structure, which is measured by triangulating the distance between various facial features, is different, even in identical twins. A

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computer program takes these measurements from a photograph or video of a person’s face, such as a mug shot, and stores the information in a computer database. Then, if an officer encounters a subject who he or she believes is providing false identification, the officer can take a digital photo or video of the subject’s face. The officer then docks the camera onto the laptop computer and the facial recognition program will search for faces matching the measurements of the subject’s face. “We’ve had 53 examples of people lying to us on the road where we’ve used the technology to find out they’ve given us a false name due to the fact they have outstanding warrants for their arrest,” said Scott McCallum of the Pinellas County (Florida) Sheriff’s Department, commenting about his department’s use of facial recognition technology.11 Along with in-car computers, another recent technological innovation that is making police vehicles much more productive is automatic license plate recognition. These are high-tech systems that consist of an array of standard and infrared digital video cameras mounted on the police car. These cameras are connected to a data processing device. This system reads every license plate the police car encounters, even at speeds of 130 mph and higher. This technology will also work if the officer is stopped. It will read every license plate that passes the stopped police vehicle. This system, after reading the license plate, runs the number against various databases, and if a license plate comes back stolen, wanted, or for some other reason of interest to the police (possible involvement in a felony, a registered sex offender in a prohibited area, the license plate is on the Homeland Security terrorist list, the car has multiple unpaid parking tickets, etc.), the laptop computer in the police car beeps and a photograph of the car the license plate is on flashes onto the computer screen. In addition to this, the device also provides the GPS coordinates of the suspect car when the system read the plate, and information on what the car is wanted for. All of this takes only seconds. “I’m 100 percent convinced this is a tool that could change law enforcement,” Sergeant Chris Morgan of the Long Beach (California) Police Department said about license plate recognition technology. “If this was widely deployed throughout an agency, it would be practically impossible to roll around in a wanted vehicle without [law enforcement] knowing about it.”12 Needless to say, this device can be a boon in areas where the police often find stolen cars. It can even be modified so that a police car can pass through a two-hour parking area and then when the officer returns in two hours it will tell the officer which cars are still parked there. Another major benefit of this system is that it stores the license plates it reads in its memory so that officers can go back and find out where a car was at a certain time. For example, if a

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crime involved a certain car, the police can access the database and find out when and where a police car with this technology passed the car in question, and which way the car in question was headed. A further application of this technology is that all of the license plates around a major crime scene can now be recorded and saved with just a few minutes of driving. In the past, a police officer had to drive around the area near the crime scene and write the numbers down. “Honestly, we have vendors come to us all the time with different technology touting what they can do with this or that,” said Jefferson County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Randy Christian. “But when they demonstrated this to us, we were so excited. This is great stuff.”13 Sergeant Chris Morgan adds, “Using the old way (entering plates by hand), the highest number of plates I saw one unit run in a 10-hour shift was around 150. Now I see anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000, and these are running while the officers are doing other things.”14 Officer safety is naturally always of concern to police administrators and so consequently they are always looking for technological innovations that can give officers more protection. One such innovation that will likely soon begin finding its way into police vehicles is weapons detection technology. With these devices officers will be able to tell if someone near the vehicle is likely carrying a concealed weapon. One such device, presently under development at The College of William and Mary, uses a type of sonar that reflects back differently from flesh than it does from metallic objects such as knives or guns. Other researchers are developing a similar device that uses millimeter wave technology to tell the difference between the energy emitted by a human body and that of a hidden weapon. A person’s body will generate detectable energy at a different rate than will substances such as metal or plastic. Consequently, metal or plastic objects hidden under clothing can be detected. “We want law enforcement and corrections officers to be able to detect any weapon, such as a bomb, gun, knife or nonmetallic weapon, from a safe distance,” said Sara V. Hart, director of the National Institute of Justice, which has dispensed over $7 million in grants to companies working on millimeter wave technology. “This would enable officers to make immediate protection decisions to protect themselves and the public.”15 Television viewers from the 1960s will almost certainly recall a program named “Car 54, Where Are You?” a comedy about two hapless New York City police officers named Toody and Muldoon. Using this show’s title as its project’s name, the University of New Hampshire began Project 54 several years ago. This was a research project that attempted and finally succeeded in building a voice-activated system for police vehicles that allows officers

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to activate the emergency equipment, operate the computer, change radio channels, raise the police car’s antenna, and do many other tasks simply through voice commands. The Project 54 system, which is now in place in many police departments, allows police officers to keep their eyes on the road while performing other tasks, such as activating the emergency lights and siren, or changing radio channels if, for example, a police chase crosses from one jurisdiction to another. Also crucial to officer safety, using this system an officer can keep visual contact with a suspect while still running a records or wanted check. The officer simply tells the system the information he or she wants entered into the computer. This can be a lifesaver because deadly action by a suspect takes only a second, and it is easy for an officer to be distracted when typing on a computer or fiddling with the radio or other controls. In addition, with Project 54, officers using “personal digital assistants” can communicate with their cars from as far as 300 feet away. “I really believe in this,” said Captain Dale Stockton of the Carlsbad (California) Police Department, talking about the installation of Project 54 in twenty of the department’s patrol cars. “I think it is an incredible addition to the patrol car in terms of functionality and safety.”16 New Hampshire State Trooper Tom Lencki, who uses Project 54 in his patrol car, said, “The thing I like best about Project 54 is I can run plates and people on stops or while moving . . . I don’t have to look down at the screen to type something in; my eyes are on whatever I’m running for officer safety.”17 While over the years most citizens have become used to seeing police officers driving around in full-size, sedan-type police vehicles, even this is changing. In Chicago, in February 2006, the Mayor unveiled their latest police vehicle, a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV. This vehicle, equipped with infrared cameras, a wireless computer system, a license plate reader, and other hightech equipment, will soon begin appearing all over Chicago. “Officers have been able to identify stolen cars and wanted offenders by patrolling certain hot spots and scanning the mobile license plate readers,” said Chicago First Deputy Police Superintendent Dana Starks. “The infrared night vision detects offenders in obscure locations. And the high-powered lights can light up crime scenes, helping detectives canvass an area for witnesses and evidence.”18 And of course, as gasoline prices continue to rise so do the financial concerns of police administrators worried about paying high fuel bills. To address this concern, a number of cities have begun buying hybrid and totally electric cars for their police departments. For example, the Battle Creek (Michigan) Police Department recently purchased a Global Electric

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Motorcar to patrol its downtown area. The vehicle has emergency lights and is painted like any other police vehicle. “We decided to do this last fall when gasoline prices were going up,” said Battle Creek Police Department Commander Jackie Hampton. “We are trying to look at innovative ways to lower our fuel costs.”19 In Carrbaro, North Carolina, the police department recently invested in hybrid cars, vehicles that run on both battery power and ethanol. “With the rising cost of fuel and related vehicle maintenance cost,” said Carrbaro Police Chief Carolyn Hutchinson, “it seemed positive to invest in alternate technologies.”20 In April 2006, DaimlerChrysler Corporation announced the introduction of an advanced fuel-cell-powered police vehicle called the Mercedes F-Cell. Capable of reaching 85 mph, this vehicle has a range of about 100 miles. The tragic events of 9/11 have naturally made many police departments stand back and take a look at their emergency preparations. When doing this, many realized the need for a fully equipped, yet mobile, command post that could be sent to the scene of any large-scale emergency. As a consequence, a number of police departments in the last few years began investing in mobile command posts. Looking like a large recreational vehicle (RV), and often built on an RV chassis, these mobile command posts can contain satellite downlinks, multiple workstations, computer consoles, interoperable radio dispatch equipment (which we will talk about in the next chapter), and other technology that was previously fixed at the police headquarters building. “This vehicle allows us to deliver incident command to any scene anywhere,” said Cape Coral (Florida) Police Chief Dan Alexander, talking about his department’s new forty-four-foot mobile command post. “Hurricanes come to mind because of our recent history. But it could be used in a barricade or hostage situation.”21 The Cape Coral police mobile command post boasts an interoperable radio system, six computer workstations, a 37-inch flat-panel LCD television, and eight 20-inch flat-panel LCD monitors. These last items allow police officers inside the command post to view live video of a crime scene or a developing emergency. A mobile command post purchased by Hoover City, Alabama, also contains stadium lighting that can illuminate large areas. A mobile command post purchased by the Nevada Department of Public Safety will, in addition to much of the above, also include the capacity to digitally record all activities, both inside and near the outside of the command post, including detectives talking to witnesses or interrogating suspects. Designers outfitted a police mobile command post purchased by Kansas City, Kansas, with a forty-two-foot tower equipped with a zoom camera.

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Police vehicles, however, don’t just travel on the ground. In 1969 in Indianapolis, we had the latest in air support for our police department. We had several helicopters that could be called to the scene of any emergency. The police department equipped these helicopters with a spotlight that could illuminate an entire city block, and this was very useful for emergency events that took place in dark locations. However, that was the total of their technology. Much has changed since then. Police helicopters today, along with still being very mobile and able to light up large areas, also come equipped with Forward Looking Infrared technology. This technology allows them to see warm, recently used vehicles and individuals hiding or moving in the dark. This camera system can also broadcast live video to other locations, such as police headquarters, a mobile command post, or even to individual police cars. We had an incident here in Indianapolis that displayed the real value of this infrared technology. Late one night several men shot and killed a local sheriff’s deputy when he tried to stop their vehicle. Other deputies chased the car containing the killers into the Indianapolis Police Department jurisdiction. The occupants of this car finally bailed out and fled on foot into some woods. Even though it was dark and there were no lights near the wooded area, the police department helicopter, with its infrared camera, kept the officers on the ground advised of exactly where the suspects were and which way they were headed, making their apprehension much easier than it would have been just a few years before. Reno, Nevada, recently added Forward Looking Infrared technology to its police helicopters. In the short time it’s been used, the police have had great success in locating fleeing criminals, rescuing lost people, and finding cars whose engines are still warm from being recently used. “This lets us do things we’ve only dreamed about doing,” said Reno pilot Scott Armitage. “It really increases our ability to work at night and respond to critical incidents.”22 The King County (Washington) Sheriff’s Department has a Jet Ranger helicopter called Guardian One that is equipped with infrared technology. It also has a zoom camera, GPS mapping, and a digital video recorder. “We’ve had guys cover themselves in mud,” said Chief Scott Somers, head of the King County air-support unit, describing suspects who’ve tried to mask their body heat from Guardian One’s Forward Looking Infrared device, which can detect a two-degree temperature difference. “It doesn’t work.”23 Another recent innovation installed in many police helicopters is a computer mapping system that allows the pilots to quickly find their way to emergencies. In the past, police helicopter pilots had to depend on paper

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maps or locating recognizable landmarks in order to orientate themselves. With the new computer mapping system, the pilot simply enters the address of the run, and he or she instantly receives instructions on how to get there. “This system allows them to do police work without having to do all the navigating,” said Mark Gassaway, inventor of the computer mapping technology and a former pilot for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “Instead of being the last one to the scene, they are the first.”24 Of course, since the various types of technology that have been installed in police helicopters can also be installed in fixed-wing aircraft, many police departments have been investing in unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft. Similar to those used by the military, many of these are not much larger than a child’s model airplane. Still, they are extremely versatile and can be used as surveillance vehicles for areas too dangerous for manned aircraft. They can be equipped with various types of cameras and sensors, and can be made to fly almost totally silent. Police officers control them from the ground, usually through the use of a joystick. One of these small, unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft, called the “Cyber Bug,” can be stored in a police cruiser’s trunk, yet can be made ready to fly within five minutes. Powered by batteries, it flies silently at up to 30 mph for two hours. The Cyber Bug can be outfitted with standard cameras for streaming video or with infrared cameras for low light or darkness. Police departments purchasing them have used these unmanned aircraft for finding lost children and the elderly in large wooded areas, spotting illegal drug growing, surveillance at hostage incidents or large gatherings, assessing the extent of chemical spills, observing traffic problems, and many other uses. “The applications we have in mind for the Cyber Bug include a long list of missions,” said Gaston County (North Carolina) Police Department Assistant Chief Jeff Isenhour, “just to name a few, we could use the Cyber Bug for routine surveillance, lost persons, tactical operations, open area drug eradication, and overhead crime scene photography.”25 Of course, one of the biggest benefits of using unmanned aircraft is that they can be much safer to use in many circumstances than would be a manned one. “The big helicopter would get shot at,” said Dr. Yu-Wen Chang, whose company manufactures the Kite Plane, another unmanned surveillance aircraft, “so they can just launch this and take a quick look.”26 Recently, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley developed an unmanned helicopter that can be used for purposes similar to those of the Cyber Bug or Kite Plane. However, it has an extra ability. It reacts to and avoids obstacles in its path. “Our BEAR [Berkeley Aerial Robot] group is the first to successfully develop a system where autonomous helicopters can detect obstacles, stationary

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or moving, and recompute their course in real-time to reach the original target destination,” said David Hyunchul Shim, a research engineer who helped develop the device.27 For cities located near large bodies of water, police administrators have also recently seen the need to upgrade the technology of their floating vehicles. As travel on water can be nearly silent, criminals will often use these areas for various illegal purposes. Consequently, police departments around the country have begun outfitting their floating fleet with high-tech devices such as infrared cameras to see in the dark. The Port of South Louisiana recently spent $850,000 on a forty-nine-footlong boat that contains the latest technology available. Prince William County (Virginia) recently spent $192,000 on a thirty-four-foot-long boat that comes equipped with computers, radio equipment, and the latest radar. “It gives us the capacity to handle whatever we come across on the water,” said Prince William County Marine Unit Supervisor C. S. Lawhead.28 At the turn of the twentieth century the Indianapolis Police Department had what it called “The Flying Squad.” This was a group of police officers on bicycles who raced to locations where help was needed, a sort of an early 1900s SWAT team. Of course, as the automobile came into use the bicycle faded away as a means of transportation for police officers. However, recently bicycles have seen a resurgence of popularity. Many police departments have begun using bicycles again because they are able to get around traffic jams and can patrol areas inaccessible to cars. But even bicycles have felt the impact of technology. For example, recently the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, purchased ten electric bicycles for its officers to use. These bicycles can travel up to 25 mph and go 20 miles on a single battery charge. “The Little Rock Board of Directors, along with our city managers, have designated public safety as our number-one priority,” said Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey. “A large fleet of electric bicycles speaks to our commitment to public safety.”29 Finally, though some police officers at the turn of the twentieth century rode bicycles, most often police officers then did their patrolling on foot. But again, as with bicycles, the emergence of automobiles did away with this. However, like bicycle patrol, walking beats have also seen a reemergence of popularity. In the last part of the twentieth century many police departments began to embrace the concept of community policing, and as a part of this they also began assigning police officers to walk in certain neighborhoods so that the citizens and the police could get to know each other better. And in some locations, such as airport terminals or shopping malls, where automobiles or bicycles are not an option, the police use walking beats.

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Again, however, technology has stepped in. Today, many officers formally on walking details can now cover much more ground through the use of human transporters. The most well-known of these devices, the Segway, has been adopted by a number of police agencies wanting to give their walking officers the ability to cover more area in a shorter amount of time. In addition, these devices also give police officers the ability to respond quickly to calls for help in areas inaccessible to automobiles. Human transporters, which look like a large child’s scooter, have proven to be very maneuverable and versatile. The device senses a rider’s movements in order to guide it. Leaning forward makes the device go forward, straightening up makes it stop, etc. The Segway, which works on two lithium-ion batteries, will travel at about 12 mph and go about 24 miles on a charge. These devices have recently been put to work solving crime problems walking beats couldn’t. For example, Los Angeles’ Union Station found itself experiencing a half dozen car break-ins every week in its parking garage. Foot patrols in the area didn’t seem to have an effect on the problem. And so, administrators decided to try Segway. “The first day that one of the security officers was on the device was pretty much the last day there was a break-in,” said Robin Blair of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority.30 A number of police bomb squads have also gone to using Segway because the device allows the bomb squad members, often outfitted in protective equipment that can weigh as much as 100 pounds, to get to the bomb site without being exhausted by the extra weight. But many police departments like using Segways because they allow officers to stand a foot or so taller, and consequently able to see over crowds. Police departments also like them because officers can take them onto elevators, up escalators, and because they simply make foot patrol a lot less tedious. “We found that the officers on the units got to emergency calls three or four minutes faster than the other officers,” said Captain Eric Garrison of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. “Moreover, the use of Segway HTs [human transporters] put enjoyment back into foot patrols.”31 So far, we have talked about a lot of different types of police vehicles in this chapter. However, getting to police runs by whatever means, a Segway, a bicycle, or a police car, comes about usually only after a police dispatcher has contacted an officer and assigned him or her to the run. As we will see in the next chapter, the job of police dispatcher is another area that has seen huge advances in technology.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dispatch and Communications

At 8:45 A.M. on September 11, 2001, terrorists aboard hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 intentionally crashed the airliner full of passengers into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The initial impact cut through floors 93 to 99 of the 110-floor structure and sent a huge fireball exploding through the building. The impact killed hundreds of people instantly. For the remaining thousands of people in the North Tower, few knew what had happened, most only realized that they had felt the building shudder, and wondered if a bomb explosion had rocked the structure. However, soon afterward, thick black smoke began spreading throughout the building. Within a minute of the jet’s impact into the North Tower, New York City’s 911 system became flooded with callers who had seen the airplane hit the building. Dispatchers immediately notified the New York City Fire Department and the New York City Police Department, which quickly dispatched units to the location. When emergency personnel reached the scene and saw the level of devastation, senior police and fire officials soon called for more units. Before the event ended, the fire department would have over a third of its firefighters and equipment at the scene and the police department would have over 2,000 of its officers there. At 9:03 A.M., another hijacked airplane, United Airlines Flight 175, also full of passengers, slammed into the 110-floor South Tower of the World Trade Center. The collision cut through floors 77 to 85, and again sent a huge fireball exploding throughout the building. As might be expected, this second terrorist attack increased the needs of the rescue effort.

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At 9:59 A.M., the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, taking only ten seconds for all 110 floors to crash to the ground. Hundreds of civilians and public safety personnel still inside the South Tower perished in the collapse. The fall of the building also created a huge windstorm that killed a number of people near the building. The crew of a New York City Police Department helicopter, who were hovering over the site, watched in horror as the South Tower collapsed, and immediately radioed in what they had seen. However, since the New York City Fire Department’s radios didn’t pick up the police frequency, senior fire department personnel didn’t know what the helicopter crew had just radioed in. “One of the most critical things in a major operation like this is to have information,” said a senior FDNY district chief. “We didn’t have a lot of information coming in. We didn’t receive any reports of what was seen from the [NYPD] helicopters.”1 Following the collapse of the South Tower, an order went out over the police radio to evacuate the North Tower, and officers inside began quickly exiting down the stairwells. They later reported passing a large number of firefighters still in the building who, because their radios were incompatible with the police department’s, didn’t know about the collapse of the South Tower or about the order to evacuate the North Tower. According to an article in USA Today, “The most notorious breakdown occurred after the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Police in helicopters couldn’t warn firefighters of the imminent fall of the North Tower because the two agencies use different radio systems. More than 100 firefighters died when the tower fell.”2 At 10:28 A.M., the North Tower of the World Trade Center also collapsed, killing well over a hundred firefighters still inside. Although some of the firefighters who had been advised by police officers about the order to evacuate chose to stay, others, because of their radio’s incompatibility with the police department’s radios, likely never received the information about the collapse of the South Tower or the police department’s order to evacuate. a a a While the World Trade Center tragedy was a disastrous example of the problems that public safety radio incompatibility can bring, these problems are not just between the police and fire departments or between the police and other emergency personnel. As can be seen in the incident below, radio incompatibility can also cause problems between police agencies working in the same jurisdiction. a a a

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In August 2004, Jackson (Mississippi) police officers arrested Damien Johnson on aggravated assault charges. As required by their department, they brought him to the Jackson Police Department prisoner-holding center on Silas Brown Street to be booked. The officers thought their involvement with Johnson was over for that day. They were wrong. While at the facility to be booked, Johnson suddenly attacked and overpowered a guard, then climbed up onto a truck and scaled the razor wire on the top of the fence that surrounds the facility. A few seconds later, he had disappeared into downtown Jackson. Jackson police officers began an immediate search for Johnson, but the deputies from the Hinds County (the county the city of Jackson resides in) Sheriff’s Department didn’t immediately join in the search because there was no way for Jackson police officers to directly contact the sheriff’s department. The radios the two departments carry are not compatible. The Jackson police officers had to call their dispatch center, who then had to call the sheriff’s department dispatch center. “We have units downtown all of the time,” said Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin. “We could have helped right away.”3 During the search for the escaped prisoner, the only way for the two departments to stay in contact was by calling their respective dispatchers and having them relay a message. Six hours after Johnson’s escape, police officers using a search dog recaptured him. However, because of the radio incompatibility issue the search became a much more complicated task than it should have been. a a a Radio incompatibility has plagued police departments for many years, and still does. At a 2004 U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, three years after 9/11, interviewers found that 23 percent of local communities said their police and fire couldn’t communicate with each other, and a third of local police departments couldn’t communicate with the county sheriff.4 In a 2004 survey of 192 cities, 80 percent said their police, fire, and emergency personnel could not communicate directly with federal law enforcement and homeland security officials. Sixty percent said they could not communicate directly with their state emergency operations centers.5 The list of large-scale incidents in which radio incompatibility has plagued police operations is unbelievably long. In incidents such as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Columbine school shootings in 1999, and even during the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005 the police found they couldn’t use their radios to communicate with other police agencies, firefighters, or

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emergency medical personnel. In New Orleans, during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, police departments had to use some of their officers as couriers with handwritten notes in order to convey information to other agencies. Why has this situation developed and continued despite the warnings of the disasters and emergencies above? Part of the problem has to do with how America is set up politically. Most local police departments are independent and answer only to local government officials. Consequently, most don’t have to confer with state or federal authorities when making purchases, and so they purchase the radios that best serve their needs, and they often purchase the ones that they can get the cheapest. One law enforcement agency might buy from one vendor, while a neighboring police agency might buy from another, while the local fire department might buy from an entirely different vendor. Also, part of the reason for this selection of differing radio types has to do with not wanting to experience problems with two nearby agencies operating on the same frequency or channel, and consequently interfering with each other’s broadcasts. While this last reason is a sound concern, the inability to communicate with other nearby police, fire, and emergency agencies during a large-scale disaster can cost lives, as was shown in New York City on 9/11. “We can literally be rolling side by side with a unit from another city and not be able to talk to them,” said Livermore (California) police lieutenant Scott Trudeau. “It’s not too difficult to imagine how crazy things could get with several agencies converging for one incident.”6 Because of this radio incompatibility, police officers during large-scale emergencies have often looked to other technology to help them. During 9/11, the Cingular Wireless Company provided BlackBerry devices to emergency workers so that they could stay in contact with each other. In addition, during 9/11, many of the rescue workers in New York City found that, though landline telephone service was down, their cellular telephones still worked, and so they also used these. However, police departments shouldn’t have to depend on these makeshift emergency devices, but should be able to depend on their radio systems. Yet still the problem lingers. The problem of incompatible radio systems among emergency workers is such a pressing and vital problem in our country that by late 2005, 60 percent of the grants in the preceding four years to state and local governments by the Department of Homeland Security had been for the funding of interoperable communications systems.7 “From computer systems to emergency radios, the technology that should allow these different levels of government to communicate with each other too often is silenced by incompatibility,” said U.S. Senator Susan Collins (Maine), who sponsored a bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to fix the nation’s problem of radio incompatibility.8

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Fortunately, technology has finally stepped in and has been able to overcome this problem of radio incompatibility. For example, a recently developed device called a “gateway” funnels the audio of one radio system into the other systems being used at an emergency site, allowing the users of differing types of radio systems to still talk with each other. Another device, this one called an Incident Commander Interface, manufactured by Communications-Applied Technology, is so compact it can be set up in the front seat of a police car. It allows police officers with different types of radios on different frequencies to still talk to each other. “It was seamless,” said Lieutenant Stephen Casko of the Houston Police Department, who used an Incident Commander Interface during a highspeed chase of armed robbers that had crossed jurisdictional boundaries.9 A further system, Smart SMG from CodeSpear LLC, uses a software program that allows different types of emergency radios to communicate with each other. The various types of radios are all able to plug into and use the same software. Used at the North American International Auto Show recently in Detroit, the system allowed twenty different agencies with twenty different radio systems to communicate with each other. In February 2006, over a hundred top officials from law enforcement in the Fresno (California) area, along with the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard, held an exercise to test the capability of a new satellite-based interoperable communications system. The group staged a mock terrorist attack to see how well all of the different agencies, using new mobile technology that can be taken to and set up at an emergency site, could talk to each other over the different types of radios. The equipment did its job. During the notorious Washington, DC, sniper incidents, radio incompatibility between federal and local agencies could have been a major concern that might have stymied the investigation. Fortunately, the agencies involved converted an old surveillance van into a mobile unit that contained a new piece of technology called an ACU-1000 unit, which allowed all of the departments to talk to each other over their own radios. “We bridged the radios between U.S. Customs’ Black Hawk helicopter providing air support, U.S. Marshals and Prince William County [officers],” said Captain Eddie Reyes of the Alexandria (Virginia) Police Department.10 Another system developed to allow emergency workers from different agencies to talk with each other at large-scale emergencies is CapWIN (Capital Wireless Integrated Network). Designers developed this system to be used by the many emergency agencies that operate in the Washington, DC, area. Using a standard laptop computer, an emergency worker can log onto CapWIN, and, once there, be able to not only instant message the members of other agencies, but also go into various chat rooms that have been set up for specific parts of the incident. Once in the chat room, the emergency worker

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can find out the latest information about the emergency. For example, there might be a chat room just for law enforcement efforts, one for fire personnel, one for medical personnel, an overall incident chat room, etc. Of course, a real concern during incidents such as large-scale natural disasters or terrorist attacks is the possibility that radio and cellular telephone towers will be destroyed, and consequently communications seriously hampered. For example, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, “The damage caused by the hurricane winds either destroyed or seriously damaged many primary tower and transmitter sites,” said Willis Carter, first-vice president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officers International. “The ensuing power outage, which engulfed the area, required the use of emergency power generators, many of which had been damaged or destroyed by flying debris and rising waters.”11 A number of public safety agencies, especially those in areas particularly vulnerable to this type of damage, are looking at technology that can overcome this problem. One of the answers lies in an interesting new concept in communications for public safety, and that is the use of the mesh network. What this involves is that each radio on the system becomes part of the mesh and can receive and transmit data packets. The data is passed from unit to unit until it finally arrives at a collection point. This system also works well in remote areas, where the regular radio system may not function and cellular telephones don’t work. A real advantage to the mesh system is that it can move with the emergency and can expand in size as needed. Public safety agencies are also looking at another possible solution to the concern that severe weather or terrorists might destroy transmission towers. Some police departments are presently investigating the possibility of using Low Earth Orbit satellites for communications. Bad weather or other natural catastrophes, of course, do not affect these. According to a recent article in Law Enforcement Technology magazine, “Recent developments in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology provide a workable alternative for both voice and data communications.” The articles goes on to say, “Merging land-based radio and LEO satellite communications systems will provide public safety with a mobile, independent, fault-tolerant, and fail-safe communications system capable of surviving the blackouts experienced by current systems.”12 But it’s not just radio systems in the field that have benefited from technology, so have police dispatch centers. Back when I became a police officer in the late 1960s, all of the information from callers to the police department, including the telephone number the call was being made from, the address of the person calling, his or her name, and a description of the problem, had to be verbally obtained from the caller and then handwritten by the emergency operator onto cards that were then sent by a conveyor belt to the dispatchers.

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The dispatchers, in order to know which car to send, had to keep written records of which police cars were out of service on which run and which cars were available for service. Of course, before a dispatcher could send a police car, the person needing help had to first get through to the police department with the request. For decades after the telephone came into widespread use, individuals wanting the police often had to dial “O” and then have the operator connect them. This not only put a lot of extra work on the operators, but also often wasted valuable time when help was needed right away. In 1968, AT&T announced the creation of “911,” which they envisioned eventually becoming the nationwide emergency number. Naturally, it took a number of years before a caller could dial 911 from anywhere in the United States and reach the local police/fire dispatcher. As time passed, 911 eventually evolved into “enhanced” 911 (E-911), whose major feature was that the police/fire dispatcher could see on a computer console where the call was being placed from. As with other aspects of police work, E-911 continues to improve with technology. Today, almost all E-911 centers use computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems. With a CAD system, an incoming call to the police dispatch center comes up on a computer, which shows the telephone number the call is coming from, the address of the telephone number, and any recent police runs to that address. This information can be extremely helpful if the caller hangs up or is cut off for some reason before talking to the dispatcher or giving all of the information the dispatcher needs. Many of the newer CAD systems will even display G.I.S. mapping of the address and the area around it. Other systems will also highlight recent police runs around the address, and some newer systems can even pull up aerial photographs that show the incident address from several angles. “The easy access to current, high-quality oblique and ortho photos aids in the prompt and appropriate emergency response,” said Steven Seiver, chairman of the Rock Island County (Illinois) Enhanced 9-1-1 Emergency Telephone System Board.13 Many readers are probably wondering: what about cellular telephone calls coming into a police dispatch center? Since these don’t come from a fixed site, how can the police know where the emergency is if the person gets cut off? This is a valid concern that can become crucial if the person using a cellular telephone wants to report a life-threatening emergency. Fortunately, this problem is being settled through a federal mandate. Cellular telephone companies presently have the ability to pinpoint a cellular telephone’s location by triangulating its strength to three surrounding towers, usually to within ten or twenty feet. The federal government has mandated that cellular telephone companies supply this information to police dispatch centers.

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Of course, this change also requires police departments to change their E-911 capabilities. Consequently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also mandated that all police departments be able to use the information supplied by cellular telephone companies to pinpoint cellular callers’ locations by October 31, 2001. However, although working on the problem, as of January 2006, only 18 percent were in compliance.14 A further check by the FCC in April 2007 found that, though being worked on, the problem was still largely unresolved. A similar problem has developed with the new telephone systems that use the Internet or a cable television network to transmit calls. Because of how these systems are configured, calls can often be routed through several locations before reaching 911, and so consequently the police dispatcher does not know the address that the call is coming from. The FCC has also mandated that telephone companies fix this problem. On July 25, 2005, FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin created a task force whose purpose is to insure that all telephone companies that use the Internet or a cable television system supply police dispatchers with a call-back number and the address of the person making a 911 call. And, as readers might imagine, these new, and usually less costly telephone systems, are only going to increase in number in the future, so the need to fix these problems becomes more pressing each day. In addition to these concerns, often 911 calls made using the new Internet or cable television network systems, since the location of the caller is unknown, can be sent to the wrong police department, wasting precious time before being transferred to the correct police agency. And occasionally, because of how these new telephone systems are configured, a 911 call from one of them, it has been found, can be routed to a police department administrative number, rather than to the police dispatcher, again delaying getting help where it’s needed. In September 2005, New York City implemented technology that finally allowed it to route all 911 calls from other than land-based telephone lines to the 911 operators, rather than to a police department administrative number, where they had been going. “I believe this implementation both strengthens the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) industry and upholds government’s responsibility to protect human life and property,” said a release from the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.15 Still, even once a call for help has successfully arrived at the police dispatch center, a serious handicap for police dispatchers in the past was that on a life and death emergency call dispatchers seldom knew which police cars were closest to the run. Consequently, they would usually send the car whose district the run was on or nearest to. The problem with this is that

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another police car, possibly on another channel of the police radio, could be much closer. Fortunately, advances in technology have also solved this problem. Today in many communities police cars carry a device in their trunk that constantly uses global positioning satellites (GPS) to radio their position to the police dispatch center. The dispatcher who receives a life and death emergency call can simply look at a map of the community on a computer screen and instantly see which police cars are nearest to the emergency. Some systems even have different symbols for officers waiting for a call, officers out on a call, or officers out of service for another reason. And of course, this system can add a huge layer of safety in the event a police officer is in trouble but unable to broadcast his or her location (most portable police radios have an emergency button that can be pressed if help is needed). The dispatcher will know exactly where the officer is. “It’s going to be very helpful,” said Danette McNeal, a dispatcher with the Guilford (North Carolina) Police Department, whose organization recently implemented a GPS officer location system. “We’ll know where they are. If someone has an emergency call, an emergency situation, a robbery or something like that, I can tell who’s in that area.”16 Sergeant Sheila McFarland of the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Department in Louisiana, whose organization recently installed a GPS officer location system, added, “Sometimes we have to exit the unit quickly and there’s no time to radio it in. And sometimes the walkie-talkies have scratchy reception.”17 Of course, this officer location system can also prove extremely valuable during high-speed police chases. With this system in place, the pursuing officer doesn’t have to worry about radioing in information every time the chase turns in a new direction. The dispatcher can see it on the computer screen in the dispatch center. This is important because when an officer is in high-speed pursuit, any distraction, such as trying to use the radio, can be extremely hazardous. Every bit of concentration must be on driving. In addition to police dispatchers having this GPS officer location information, a new device called DragonForce, under development at Drexel University, can relay information about where police units are located to a map on a handheld device, so officers working an emergency in the field can know the exact location of every other officer at all times. “For the most part, the application the user sees is a souped-up walkie-talkie with a map,” said Professor William Regli.18 While in the past the interaction of most police dispatch centers with the community was one way, with the dispatch center just answering telephone calls from citizens, technology is changing this. A recently developed software program can now let police dispatchers, instead of just answering telephone calls, themselves call hundreds or thousands of citizens at one time.

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Events can often occur in a community that will be a danger to the citizens, such as severe weather, chemical spills, or escaped prisoners, and it is the police department’s responsibility to warn the public of these dangers. Consequently, when an emergency exists in a community that citizens need to know about, police dispatchers can now notify thousands of people in just seconds. On a computer screen a dispatcher draws a perimeter around the area affected by the emergency, and then the software sends a message about the emergency out over the telephone lines to everyone inside the perimeter. “We can pinpoint individual neighborhoods when we are looking for missing persons or to make residents aware of criminal activity near their homes,” said Carol Roegner, spokeswoman for the DuPage County (Illinois) Sheriff’s Department.19 Police dispatchers can also use this new innovation to increase the effectiveness of an Amber Alert, which is the national alert system for children in danger. Police dispatchers now have the ability to send out Amber Alert calls to both fixed and cellular telephones. “Hundreds of children have been recovered through the Amber Alert plan, and the ability to ultimately deliver these alerts directly to the phones of nearly 200 million wireless subscribers can dramatically increase the reach of the program,” said Radio Shack CEO David Edmondson.20 Some communities have extended this call-out from police dispatchers even further. To qualify for an Amber Alert, a child must have been abducted, not simply missing. So some police departments are improvising. In Aberdeen, South Dakota, for example, the local police department recently issued “A Child Is Missing” alert for a missing ten-year-old girl. Almost 3,000 calls automatically went out to people in the neighborhood where the missing girl was last seen, and one hour later the police located her. “We got reports that people were out looking for (the girl),” said Sergeant Randy Majeske of the Aberdeen Police Department. “That’s great to hear. The key is getting the information out there, and people will respond.”21 While the first step of a citizen in trouble is usually to call 911, the call eventually ends up being given to a uniformed police officer, who will respond to and handle whatever emergency the citizen called about. As we will see in the next chapter, during the last decade or so technology has greatly changed the life of a uniformed police officer, and has made him or her much more efficient and self-reliant.

CHAPTER FIVE

Uniformed Officers

In June of 2006, the California Highway Patrol pursued an SUV on the San Bernardino Freeway at speeds of over 100 mph. During the chase, shots were fired. However, even once officers had finally stopped the vehicle using the PIT (Precision Immobilization Technique) procedure, which involves bumping the car with a police vehicle, the driver refused to surrender, and instead stood up through the sunroof of the SUV and screamed at them. The police, though, took the driver into custody without injury. Police detectives in Maui County, Hawaii, in June of 2006, were looking for thirty-nine-year-old Lance Bailey. They wanted to question him about a robbery. An off-duty police officer spotted Bailey and radioed in for assistance. However, when police officers tried to stop him, Bailey fled in a car. After a short chase, he crashed the vehicle and then ran into a nearby sugar cane field. Once cornered, he continued to resist arrest. The police, however, managed to take him into custody without injury. In June 2006, in Bangor, Maine, the local police responded to the call of a family disturbance in a trailer court on Ohio Street. When the police arrived at the address of the call they heard what sounded like an assault going on at that moment. Once inside the house, the police encountered a man named Willie Priester and a woman who told them Priester had just assaulted her. According to news reports, when confronted by the police about the assault, Priester “became irate and flipped out.” Priester allegedly told the officers that they would have to kill him to get him in a police car. The officers tried using pepper spray, but it had no effect. The police, however, managed to arrest Priester without injury.1

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What do the three anecdotes above have in common? In all three incidents, the police found themselves confronted by violent and uncooperative subjects, all of whom appeared ready to fight rather than submit to arrest. In the past, uniformed police officers were faced with limited options in these types of incidents. Only in the most extreme cases would officers resort to deadly force. In the majority of cases, officers used some less drastic method, such as a chemical spray, which, as shown above, isn’t always effective. The officers could also elect to use their batons, an action that often results in broken bones and other injuries. And lastly, officers could simply try to use brute force to overpower and wrestle the violent and uncooperative subject to the ground. This last option, however, as anyone who has ever tried to subdue an agitated and violent person will attest to, quite often results in injuries to both the officers and the subject being subdued. However, in the three instances above, the police, with the exception of the one attempted use of pepper spray, exercised none of these options. Instead, the officers employed technology, using the latest in less-than-lethal weaponry: the Taser. This device works by delivering 50,000 volts of electricity at very low amperage. Officers point the device, which looks like a plastic toy gun, at an unruly subject, and, after pulling the trigger, small compressed gas canisters fire two sharp, fishhook-like projectiles attached to thin wires. When the wires, which can travel up to thirty-five feet, make contact with an individual, 50,000 volts of electricity shoot out through them. Tasers and most other electromuscular disruption (EMD) devices also work when an officer simply touches the device to a subject and fires it. “The advantages to Taser technology are dramatic reductions in injuries to both suspects and law enforcement officers,” Steve Tuttle, vice president of communications for Taser International, Inc., told me. “Nationwide, over 9,500 law enforcement agencies use Taser technology.”2 The 50,000 volts of electricity delivered by the Taser, researchers discovered when developing EMD devices, interferes with the body’s own electrical signals. Consequently, individuals shot with an EMD device lose the ability to use their muscles and will usually fall to the ground in a heap, making it much easier for officers to handcuff them. The electrical charge is set for a five-second duration, after which the device’s effects quickly wear off without any significant damage. By the end of 2006, as stated above, more than 9,500 of America’s 18,000 police agencies employed EMD devices, and these agencies use them more than 70,000 times every year.3 In August 2006, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted to purchase 6,780 Tasers for the Los Angeles Police Department.4 All across the United States police departments have embraced EMD devices as an effective way to reduce injuries to both suspects and police officers.

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“It will be the way of the future for officers and public safety,” said Shallotte (North Carolina) Police Chief Rodney Gause about Tasers. “It doesn’t matter how big he [a suspect] is or what he’s on, it does the job and it does it quick.”5 a a a The job of a uniformed police officer hasn’t really changed that much in the last century. Police departments still charge uniformed police officers with the dual tasks of patrolling a district to watch for crime and of answering calls for service. What has changed, however, is the increased effectiveness with which uniformed police officers can now perform their jobs, thanks mostly to advances in technology. When I became a police officer, the only pieces of protective equipment I carried were a six-shot Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a straight wooden nightstick, and a can of tear gas spray. Fortunately for the police officers of today, technology has provided them a large array of newer and more effective protective equipment. For example, in 1969, the police department required that I load the .38 caliber revolver I carried with police department-issued 158-grain round-nose bullets. While these could possibly stop an aggressive person, they were just as likely not to. A friend of mine on the police department went through a terrifying experience that demonstrated the shortcomings of the protective equipment of the 1960s. Off-duty, he regularly worked security at a local Catholic Church bingo night. One evening, he sat in the back of the church office as they counted the night’s receipts. Suddenly, apparently without casing the location, a masked man with a handgun burst in the door and announced a holdup. My friend, in full police uniform, though startled, drew his .38 caliber revolver and ordered the holdup man to drop his weapon. The holdup man, apparently not seeing the officer at first, swung his weapon toward him. My friend said he started shooting, expecting the holdup man to fall. But instead he fired all six shots from his revolver into the holdup man, and the man simply stood there looking stunned, still holding his gun pointed at my friend. Finally, after a few very tense seconds, the holdup man turned and fled out the door. Responding police officers later found the holdup man lying dead in an alley a half block away. All six shots had struck him. Of course, the frightening part of this story is that the holdup man, if he had been so inclined, could have shot and killed my friend. Fortunately, few large police departments issue revolvers any longer to their officers. Instead, most today issue semiautomatic pistols, which have a much larger bullet capacity than a six-shot revolver. The one I carry now at

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the Indianapolis Police Department, for example, a Glock model 22, can be loaded with sixteen bullets, fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber. And since uniformed officers also carry two clips on their gun belts, this gives each officer forty-six rounds. The bullets officers use today have also benefited from technology. Ours at the Indianapolis Police Department are 10mm (.40 caliber), hollow-pointed bullets. When one of these bullets is fired, its construction makes the bullet flatten out around the hollow point, consequently giving the bullet much more impact when striking a target. Also available on handguns carried by police officers today are laser sights, which work by projecting a red dot wherever the bullet will strike, thereby greatly increasing aiming accuracy. Some laser sights even have a pulsating beam that makes visually locating the laser spot much easier. Police officers can also equip their handguns with small flashlights that will illuminate the area the gun is pointed at. Since many police gunfights take place under low light conditions, all of these innovations could prove to be lifesavers. There is even research underway to put Global Positioning devices inside firearms. These would record the location, date/time, and the direction in which someone fired a weapon. As might be imagined, this would assist tremendously in crime scene investigations where firearms were used. This would also be very beneficial for the investigation of line-of-duty shootings. Investigators could verify exactly what the officer did with his or her firearm. Using a firearm, however, should always be a last resort by any police officer. If it must be used, this should be the only option a reasonable officer would use under the circumstances. Fortunately, most confrontational encounters with citizens don’t require this level of force. And just as fortunate, technology has stepped in and provided the uniformed police officer with a large selection of less-than-lethal weaponry that he or she can pick from when confronted by a combative citizen. In the 1960s, police officers truly believed that whoever invented the CN tear gas spray (chloroacetophenone) we used actually hated the police, and this invention was his way of striking back at us. We believed this because the tear gas spray we carried in the 1960s, and even the CS spray (orthochlorobenzylidene-malononitrile) that replaced it and then the pepper spray (oleoresin capsicum) that replaced this, usually hurt the police as much as the person being sprayed. Tear gas, CS spray, and pepper spray come out as a liquid, and though the person sprayed might get the bulk of the impact, the mist from the spray almost always also got the police. And even if the officer didn’t feel the effect of the chemical spray during the initial confrontation, just sitting in the same car with a chemically sprayed suspect would cause a police officer’s eyes to water and burn.

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A recent innovation in chemical sprays has done much to correct this problem. Today there is a pepper spray that is dispersed as a gel rather than a liquid, resolving the mist problem. Also, this gel is sticky and will adhere to the person sprayed. This prevents those officers standing close by from catching part of the bleed-off like other chemical sprays. And while most chemical sprays come in small containers that police officers carry on their gun belts, Universal Guardian Holdings, Inc. has recently marketed the Cobra StunLight. This device, along with being a flashlight, also shoots a stream of pepper spray. Along with chemical sprays being improved, so has the traditional, straight, wooden nightstick the police department issued me. With a standard, straight nightstick, most police officers swing it like a baseball bat, which isn’t always terribly effective and often results in other police officers catching some of the blows during a fracas. In addition, swinging the nightstick this way has the potential of becoming a lethal encounter if the officer strikes a person on the head. And of course, swinging it this way makes it much easier for someone to take the nightstick away from the officer. The first improvement in the standard, straight nightstick became the side-handled baton, which, as the name implies, has a short, perpendicular handle on the side of the baton. This weapon could be held much closer to the officer when used, lessening the chances of it being taken away, and when laid against the arm made it easier to ward off blows from an assailant. Following this came retractable batons that expanded like an old car antenna, and finally the latest, called the Rapid Rotation Baton, which looks like a child’s play sword, but which can be used very effectively to subdue a combative person. Sometimes though, a confrontation will reach the point where chemical sprays and police batons are not enough, but still the officer doesn’t want to use deadly force unless absolutely necessary. These types of incidents call for the latest in technology: an electromuscular disruption (EMD) device. The most common EMD device used by the police, though certainly not the only one available, is the Taser. “Taser technology can immobilize a suspect who can overcome pain, might be on dangerous drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine, or even emotionally disturbed,” Steve Tuttle told me. “The Taser system doesn’t use pain compliance, but immediately stops any coordinated action by the subject only while the Taser system’s current is flowing.”6 According to Taser International, a Taser, once it strikes a target, goes through two phases. The first phase is called the “arc phase,” during which the device generates a high-voltage output that can penetrate two inches of clothing or other barrier. The air, because of the arc, becomes ionized and

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conducts the second charge, called the “stim phase,” during which the device delivers a shock to the target. All Tasers contain a computer chip that stores information about the time and date of the usage, and how many times the officer shocked the individual. While usually one standard five-second shock is sufficient to bring about compliance, if an individual, once the five-second shock wears off, becomes violent again, more five-second shocks can be delivered. As another method of tracking Taser use, Taser International also inserts twenty to thirty pieces of what looks like colored confetti into each Taser cartridge. These are expelled whenever someone fires a Taser. Each piece of this confetti contains the serial number of the cartridge used. Police supervisors can use these to determine which officer fired his or her Taser. If, on the other hand, an unknown private citizen uses a Taser, the police can find out who purchased the cartridge. Recently, Tasers and other EMD devices have been in the news because several people have died soon after being shot with them. Most of these deaths have eventually, after the autopsy, been found to be caused by something other than the EMD device, such as drugs or the stress of the excited state the person was in that caused the officer to use the EMD device. Another fact to consider too, which news media reports often ignore, is that many people shot with an EMD device are involved in deadly force situations, in which the officer would have been justified in using his or her firearm, but elected instead to attempt a less-than-lethal alternative. Taser International claims that police departments that use the Taser can reduce their lethal force incidents by 75 percent and officer injuries by up to 80 percent. After an extensive compiling of statistics in the use of Tasers, Taser International reports that they have found over 9,000 cases in which officers would have been justified in using deadly force, but saved a life by using a Taser instead.7 “The Taser worked like a charm. Thank God,” said Lawrenceville (Georgia) police officer Gabrel Loyd, who used his Taser to stop a man who had charged at him waving a butcher knife. “I know there’s a lot of controversy about the use of Tasers, but I’m glad we kept ours. I believe two lives were saved that day.”8 A medical review of the dangers of Taser use, conducted for the Police Commissioner of British Columbia, Canada, concluded, “The medical panel provided oversight of medical issues in the review, namely of medical matters associated with the use of the Taser as well as interpretation of a not uncommonly associated condition called excited delirium. The latter is a state of mind begetting irrational and often violent behavior in some persons subsequently apprehended by law enforcement officers through use of a Taser.

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This behavior has accounted for many seemingly Taser-related deaths.” The report goes on to say, “The public is unlikely to be aware of a dilemma; notably that in the state of excited delirium itself, not infrequently there are fatal consequences. Both excited delirium and sudden death are features of cocaine toxicity notwithstanding use of the Taser or other less than lethal methods of apprehension.”9 Further research has shown that the Taser, regardless of any negative publicity, can be a valuable less-than-lethal alternative for uniformed officers. For example, a research study conducted by Florida Gulf Coast University of 400 randomly selected violent police/citizen confrontations in Orange County (Florida) found that: 1. Pepper spray, once considered “the cutting edge less-than-lethal weapon of its time,” is plagued by “issues regarding cross-contamination of backup officers and a growing number of reports that suspects were able to fight through the burning pain.”10 2. That the use of an impact weapon such as the baton often resulted in blunt force trauma and an escalation of suspect resistance. 3. Hand to hand tactics failed almost 30 percent of the times and resulted in the largest number of injuries to both suspects and the officers.11 4. The Taser resulted in a considerable reduction in arrest-related injuries to both police officers and suspects. 5. According to Dr. Bill Lewinski of Minnesota State University, “This study confirms the general law enforcement experience that the Taser is the most versatile and effective force instrument available to law enforcement to date.”12 However, a serious concern does become apparent when reports come in of police officers using EMD devices against very young children, elderly and infirm individuals, or pregnant women. Consequently, several organizations and a number of police departments have developed rules for when an EMD device may and may not be used. The Police Executive Research Forum, a highly respected law enforcement research group, issued a 52-point Policy and Training Guideline on the use of EMD devices. Among the points, this group stated that these devices should only be used against individuals who are actively resisting or showing aggression against the police, or who are about to harm themselves or others. They also stated that EMD devices should not be used against pregnant women, elderly persons, young children, or visibly frail persons, unless exigent circumstances exist. Also, this group advises that EMD devices should not be used around combustible vapors, particularly individuals sprayed with

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pepper spray, since these individuals can catch fire, a regrettable situation a number of police departments have experienced.13 In order to document that these less-than-lethal weapons are being used properly, some police departments are now purchasing EMD devices equipped with small video cameras that record the incident. Many people will often claim later that they weren’t being combative or threatening when the officer used the EMD device. A video can support or refute this. “Now, we’ll have proof of the situation a detention officer is in when he deploys a Taser,” said Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio. “Everything’s on camera, and we’ll have nothing to hide. It’s about the safety of the people, and our technology helps in that regard.”14 Because EMD devices have been so effective their uses have spread. For example, companies now market an EMD belt that can be fastened onto combative prisoners when they are being taken to and from court or to other locations outside a penal institution. The police officers or prison guards accompanying the prisoner, and occasionally even the judge, have a remote device that can activate the belt if the prisoner becomes disruptive or violent. A device of this type manufactured by Stinger Systems, called Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology (REACT), can be activated from up to 150 feet away. Stinger also manufactures what they call an Ice-Shield. This is a riot shield that can operate like a normal police riot shield to protect an officer, but can also be used to deliver an incapacitating shock. There is even an EMD land mine device manufactured by Taser International that shoots out wires when a person walks over it. These are designed to be placed in areas where entry is prohibited. There is also research presently being conducted on plasma EMD devices. This innovation will do away with the need to shoot wires into a subject. Instead, the electrical charge travels down a stream of plasma. EMD devices are also being developed for riot control. For most incidents involving large crowds of unruly people, uniformed officers are usually the ones called to control the event. While most people have seen videos of uniformed officers with riot shields and batons moving into a crowd of rioters, technology will soon make this unnecessary. Presently under development are EMD devices that will work on large crowds, such as rioters. One version will shoot thousands of small conductive fibers into the crowd, which will carry the electrical charge. According to an article in the June 2004 issue of New Scientist magazine, “Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightninglike beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.”15 While a decade ago, less-than-lethal devices that could shoot lightning bolts were the province of science fiction, advances in laser technology have

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now made them practical. “Before, it took a laser about the size of two trucks,” said LaVerne Schlie, a researcher for the United States Air Force. “Now we can do it with something that fits on a tabletop.”16 A further device under development would use a laser to ionize the air around the rioters and then allow the resulting plasma to conduct an electrical charge. Another interesting device presently being researched would use pulsed energy projectiles, which would create a burst of expanding plasma that would knock down groups of rioters. An additional device under development would cause intense pain in a group of people, but would have no permanent effects. Scientists are additionally looking into a device that utilizes microwaves to heat a person’s skin to severely painful levels, but again with no permanent effects. Recently, scientists unveiled an acoustical crowd control device that creates a sound humans find particularly irritating. “We know the human brain is sensitive to certain frequencies, just like it is to certain smells,” said Commander Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “So what happens is it’s like a squeaky chalk on a chalkboard. We can use auditory just like chemicals. We can have people leave an area because it’s too uncomfortable.”17 A further crowd control device recently developed is actually a super lubricant. When the police spray this on the street, it makes it impossible for people to stand or move around without falling down. Another interesting less-than-lethal device, meant to disorient groups of individuals and make them less combative, is the Veiling Glare Laser. This device creates a blinding brightness so that the individuals affected cannot see the area around them clearly. According to an article in New Scientist magazine, “The VGL (Veiling Glare Laser) exploits a rather unsettling phenomenon called lens fluorescence. The lens of the human eye is transparent to visible light, but certain violet or ultraviolet wavelengths can make it fluoresce or glow. When your lens fluoresces, all you can see is glare.”18 This device would work well on groups of rioters throwing stones or flaming bottles. A similar device, the Green Laser-Baton Illuminator, is a handheld device about the size of a flashlight, meant for handling individuals rather than crowds. This device also causes flash-blindness in individuals it is used on. Neither of these devices has come into widespread use yet, however, because of safety concerns dealing with flashing a laser beam into someone’s eyes. A real danger, though, in any police/citizen confrontation, be it with individuals or crowds of rioters, is the possibility of a police officer’s gun being taken away and used against him or her. This occurs much more often than one might suppose. In 2005, 10 percent of the police officers killed in the line of duty were killed with their own firearms.19

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To guard against this happening, several companies have developed “smart guns.” These are handguns that recognize the grip of the owner, and will not fire if someone other than the owner attempts to use them. Every person’s grip is unique, and a small computer inside the smart gun’s handle uses sensors to measure the pressure at multiple points on the handle as the trigger is squeezed. “When you hold a gun—or a pen or a golf club or whatever—you grip it in a unique, consistent way,” said Professor Michael Recce of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “It becomes ingrained in your mind—the so-called ‘muscle memory’ effect—and we’ve developed a way to measure that.”20 Of course, in the event that a gun is used against a police officer, police departments want to do all they can to protect the officer, and consequently most have invested in soft body armor for their officers. Soft body armor consists of a garment made of a flexible fabric so tightly woven that when a projectile, such as a bullet, strikes it the energy of the projectile is spread out and absorbed by the fabric, preventing penetration. Interestingly, scientists developed the first soft body armor, called Kevlar, not for use as body armor, but rather as a flexible replacement for the steel belting in automobile tires. However, when a scientist involved in law enforcement research heard about Kevlar’s properties he decided to test it and found that it also stopped bullets. Since the adoption of Kevlar, several other soft body armor fabrics have been developed, including Twaron, Spectra, and Dyneema. Readers should be aware, however, that just because officers wear soft body armor doesn’t mean they won’t suffer some injuries if shot. They will, usually from blunt force trauma, though seldom are these injuries fatal. And yet, as much protection as soft body armor is, it won’t stop all bullets, particularly those from assault rifles. Still, wearing soft body armor is an important safety measure. According to an article in Police magazine, wearing soft body armor increases an officer’s chances of surviving a gunfight by 40 percent.21 The Second Chance body armor company claims that its product alone has saved the lives of almost 1,000 police officers.22 For police departments that want to maximize their officers’ safety, several companies manufacture an armor plate that can go inside the driver’s door of a police car. It is a natural reaction for officers, when exiting a police vehicle in an area where the danger of being shot exists, to take cover behind the driver’s door. But if the door doesn’t have an armor plate it actually offers very little protection, as many bullets will pass right through it. Almost as dangerous to police officers as a gunfight though, and even more risky to civilians, are high-speed car chases by the police. Every year, hundreds of innocent citizens are killed or injured when vehicles the police are chasing crash into them, or when the police car itself crashes into them.

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And yet, to maintain law and order, the police cannot simply allow people to flee from a lawful stop. In recent years, a number of devices have been developed to assist police officers in stopping fleeing motorists. One invention, called the Stop Stick, is a long triangular pole in nine or twelve-foot lengths that the police place in the road. These have an eighty-foot cord attached to them so an officer can throw them across the road and then deploy them from a position of safety out of the roadway. Inside the device sit many sharpened, hollow tubes that slowly deflate a tire rather than causing a blow out, which could lead to a deadly crash. So, when a fleeing vehicle runs over a Stop Stick, within a few minutes the tires will loose all of their air. Also available from the Stop Stick Company is a device called the Terminator. This is a small version of the Stop Stick, two feet in length, which an officer who has stopped a car can drop in front of the rear tire of the car before approaching the driver. A new technological device recently developed, also meant to stop police chases, is the microwave gun. Officers using this invention aim and fire it at a fleeing car. The microwaves cause the computer chip in the car to heat up with excessive current and quickly stop working. Since the microprocessors in most cars control the fuel injection system, the car will not be able to accelerate. Consequently, the fleeing car soon comes to a stop. “The beautiful part of using the (microwave) energy is that it leaves the suspect in control of the car,” said Commander Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who tests new technology for his department. “He can steer, he can brake, he just can’t accelerate.”23 Another chase-stopping device presently under development, thanks to a grant from the federal government, will shoot a sticky, weblike substance at a fleeing car, which will then jam its moving parts. A vehicle hit with the substance slowly grinds to a stop. In February 2006, the Los Angeles Police Department participated in the pilot project of a device that could also drastically reduce the number of highspeed police chases. It is a high-tech dart that contains a global-positioning device, a radio transmitter, and a power source. Officers shoot the dart at a fleeing car. The device, after sticking to the car, then lets officers know where the vehicle is at all times. With this information, officers up ahead can intercept the car. This device would also prevent a fleeing driver from hiding a car. We talked in detail in a previous chapter about in-car video systems, however, I saw a device at a police trade show in the summer of 2006 that greatly extends the usefulness of video. It is a radio microphone that fits on the officer’s shoulder like most radio microphones. But in addition to functioning as a radio microphone for the officer’s walkie-talkie, it also contains a small video camera that records everything the officer sees, in and out of the police

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car. A small screen on the back of the microphone shows the video, and this new piece of technology even had infrared capability, so officers using this technology can see their way in the dark. Another portable video system I also saw at the show, manufactured by Digital Ally Corporation, is built into a flashlight. Along with lighting up an area, a uniformed police officer carrying this piece of equipment can also record it on video. While the police work we’ve talked about so far in this chapter can occasionally be exciting, often much of the work a uniformed officer must do is mundane. For example, as in all government jobs, many reports have to be made and filed by police officers. As we discussed in a previous chapter, some police departments estimate that 40 percent of a uniformed police officer’s time is spent off the street and at the police station filling out forms. Recent advances in technology, however, have reduced this off-street time to nearly zero. Although we talked about in-car computers in the chapter on vehicles, one of the major advantages to having in-car computers is the ability of uniformed officers to complete and file reports in the field. Many of the in-car computers presently in use have all of the police department forms in their memory, so there is no need to go to the police station for a form. Also, the reports can be filed electronically on the computer, drastically cutting down on paperwork. But in addition to all of this, a new ability made possible by technology is that police officers can now also cross-check other officers’ reports using their computer, helping them significantly in their search for crime patterns. Police officers, using this ability, can see if the same criminal striking on their district is also striking elsewhere. If so, the officers on the other district may have the information the officer needs to identify and apprehend the criminal. Many police officers today also carry BlackBerry personal data assistants so that they can do wanted checks and other computer-related tasks while away from their in-car computer. One of the most popular software systems for BlackBerry devices is called INFO-COP. This software, designed specifically for police officers, will allow them to do many of the same things on a BlackBerry that an in-car computer can do. In addition to completing reports, writing traffic tickets has also become much easier for uniformed police officers. Rather than using the in-car computer capability we talked about previously, a new handheld device also allows an officer to read the magnetic strip or bar code on a driver’s license. The device then inserts the driver’s personal information on the traffic ticket and prints it out. The device can even figure out the fine and assign a court date if necessary. “There is no doubt it will make it faster,” said Wisconsin State Trooper Dale Wegener about his department’s new electronic ticket. “This is the wave of the future.”24

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While as a uniformed officer, though I never liked writing traffic tickets, there was another task I disliked even more, and that was accident investigation. In my thirty-eight years as a police officer I’ve found that uniformed officers are divided into two camps: those that hate taking accident reports and those that love taking them. Accident investigation is a very complex field that requires an eye for detail and an in-depth understanding of physics and mathematics. Because of this, accident investigation can be exceedingly tedious and time consuming. Technology, however, has recently made accident investigation a little less complex and time consuming. For example, often a considerable amount of time at an accident scene was taken up making precise measurements, such as the length of skid marks, the distance from the impact point to nearby landmarks, the distances between pieces of the wrecked vehicles, etc. Now, laser technology has greatly simplified this. Using a laser, extremely accurate distances can be measured much quicker at crash scenes. Also, computer software now allows officers to quickly draw a professional diagram of the accident scene, a task that used to have to be done by hand at the scene and then again at the police station on a drafting table. The computer-generated diagrams can be downloaded and printed. Other computer applications are also simplifying accident investigation. According to an article about an accident investigation computer application called Smart Station, “Using the system, [a police officer] collects data on where investigators found a tire, a bumper or where a vehicle hit another car, and puts the information into a computer. Using special software, the computer uses latitude and longitude measurements to put that data onto an aerial map and recreate how an accident happened.”25 Another computer application, this one called PhotoModeler, works with as few as three photographs of an accident scene. The photos are loaded into PhotoModeler and the program then generates a 3-D map of the accident scene with accurate measurements between all of the objects at the site. As might be expected, all of this new technology greatly speeds up the process of accident investigation, and consequently also greatly decreases the time roads must be closed for the investigation. This is important because, “If you have a road closed long enough, the chance of another crash is virtually certain,” said Lieutenant Steve McCarthy of the Massachusetts State Police.26 This risk of another accident increases because the attention of drivers becomes diverted as they try to see the crash. Since roads must be closed down for some amount of time while an accident investigation is being completed, no matter what technology is being used, officers usually block off the area, particularly in darkness, with road flares. These, however, only burn for a short amount of time and must be replaced, often several times during the investigation. While these work well

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to warn drivers to be cautious, practically every police officer has at one time or another burned holes in a uniform from bits of sparking phosphorus that often fly off of flares when they are lighted. PowerFlare Company has come up with a solution in the form of a battery-powered flare. One inch thick and four inches in diameter, the PowerFlare Safety Light emits 360 degrees of bright, flashing light. The devices, tough enough so that vehicles can run over them (something that happens often with flares), also have various flashing modes, depending on what they are being used for. In addition to all of the technology talked about above, as the following incident will show, new technology in automobiles themselves can also aid greatly in accident investigation. a a a On November 30, 2004, at 12:55 A.M., a car crash in Washington, DC, took the life of forty-nine-year-old John C. Johnson, Jr. Johnson had been driving to pick up his sister from work, and entered the intersection of Park Place and Irving Street NW on a green light. A Buick LeSabre reportedly ran a red light and struck Johnson’s car broadside, killing him instantly. Upon receiving a call about the crash, a Washington DC police dispatcher sent Officer Mike Miller to the scene. Although few car owners realize it, almost 20 percent of the vehicles on the road today have a “black box.” This is a device that records data about a vehicle’s operation, and will show such things as the vehicle’s speed just before a crash, whether the seat belts were being used, whether the car was braking or accelerating, etc. In the case investigated by Officer Miller, he found that the black box from the Buick LeSabre showed that just before the impact the vehicle was accelerating and traveling at 91 mph. Officer Miller theorized that the driver of the car, Guy B. Agnant, was attempting to beat the red light just before the crash. Officer Joseph Diliberto, who assisted Officer Miller in the investigation, had this to say about a vehicle’s black box, “It can help sway an investigation one way or another. It can help define whether there is criminal culpability.”27 Later investigation showed that ten minutes before the crash Agnant had fled from police officers who were trying to stop him for a traffic violation. On October 18, 2005, Agnant pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the case. a a a However, along with helping to investigate crashes, these black boxes can also work to prevent them. A new program is presently being developed for individuals convicted of repeatedly driving aggressively or above the

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speed limit. Information from their vehicle’s black box will regularly be sent to a satellite receiver. From there the information will be sent to the driver’s probation officer or some other official. By keeping tabs on the driving behavior of these aggressive, and often reckless, individuals, accidents can likely be prevented. As most readers are probably aware, along with aggressive drivers, drivers impaired by alcohol cause a great many motor vehicle accidents every year. In the past, the police required suspected drunk drivers to blow into a tube attached to a device called a Breathalyzer, which would then do a single measurement of the individual’s blood alcohol. A major complaint about the old Breathalyzer machines was that this one measurement wasn’t always accurate and that the officer had too much input in the outcome of the test. Technology has now changed this. The newest device in use by law enforcement is called the Alcotest. This device uses two separate technologies, infrared spectroscopy and an electrochemical cell, to measure a person’s blood alcohol content. Both results have to match in order for the test to be valid. “You have no deciding factor what the results are,” said Sergeant Kevin Flanagan of the New Jersey State Police. “Once you take the breath sample, the instrument will analyze that sample by two different technologies.”28 In any interaction with citizens, however, whether a drunk driving arrest, an accident investigation, or even simply taking a crime report, uniformed police officers must be able to communicate with the citizens involved. This isn’t always easy. While in the last couple of years many news stories have focused on the problems of immigration, both legal and illegal, a real problem police officers find themselves facing when dealing with recent immigrants is a language barrier. Many individuals police officers come in contact with don’t speak English. While this language problem has made officers who speak foreign languages very valuable to their departments, it has also caused bottleneck problems in that investigations must often stop and wait until investigators can locate an officer who speaks a certain language. Advances in computer technology, however, have offered a solution to this problem. Reminiscent of Star Trek’s “universal translator,” devices developed by several companies can now translate spoken words into various other languages. One device, about the size of a small book, called the Voice Response Translator, can translate about 1,000 phrases into almost 50 languages. Most of these are yes or no questions because the translators presently on the market can’t translate back to the officer what the person says. However, researchers are hard at work developing such a device. Soon, technology

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will make it possible for police officers to be able to communicate with any citizen, no matter what language the citizen speaks. Traditionally, when interacting with certain citizens, uniformed police officers have always looked for any connections these citizens might have to crimes. While they still do this, now officers must also always be on the lookout for the possibility that any citizen they encounter might be a terrorist. There are few, if any, people in America who haven’t felt some effect from the events of 9/11. For some it may be as minor as the inconvenience of increased security at airports and public buildings. But for uniformed police officers the impact has been tremendous. Uniformed police officers are America’s first line of defense against terrorism. Because of their job, they are more likely than any other government official to encounter terrorists or terrorist activity. Fortunately, technology is assisting them in this new part of their job. While the events of 9/11 involved crashing aircraft into buildings, the next large-scale terrorist attack could involve a biological, chemical, or nuclear incident. Uniformed police officers, therefore, must be ready to intercept and stop any such terrorist attacks. Fortunately, a number of companies have developed chemical, biological, and nuclear detectors small enough to be used in the field by uniformed police officers. For example, Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation manufactures a device small enough to fit into an officer’s pocket, but which detects and measures gamma radiation from nuclear devices. “The addition of the nukeALERT II and new palmRAD products to our product line will enable Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation to help put affordable, unobtrusive radiation detection equipment into the hands of the hundreds of thousands of first response personnel supporting homeland security objectives in the United States,” said David Brown, president of the company.29 In addition to the device above, Safety Solutions, Inc. has developed the Hazmat Smart-Strip, a device about the size of a playing card that changes color when it detects certain dangerous chemicals. Idaho Technology manufactures a handheld device that can detect certain dangerous biological agents. A small monitor, developed by TIAX LLC, can be worn on a police officer’s belt and will sound an alarm if it detects the presence of nerve gas, such as the type that terrorists used during the 1995 Tokyo subway incident. MSA Corporation has recently introduced the SAFEMTX Multi-Threat Detector. This briefcase-size device can detect up to six different threats. It can assist uniformed police officers in detecting chemical warfare agents, gamma radiation, volatile organic compounds, toxic industrial chemicals, oxygen deficiency, and combustible gases.

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Although the work done by uniformed police officers is where most police investigations begin, many investigations are simply too complex or time consuming for uniformed officers to handle beyond taking the original report. Uniformed officers must get back into service as soon as possible and be ready to answer new calls for service. Therefore, complex investigations are usually taken over by police detectives. As we will see in the next chapter, while much of detective work involves simply finding the right people to talk to, detectives must also find the evidence that will make these people willing to talk, or which can refute what they say. In the last few years, technology has been playing an increasingly bigger role in helping detectives find this evidence.

CHAPTER SIX

Detectives

In 1965, John E. Robinson started his first real job: as an X-ray technician in a hospital outside of Kansas City, Missouri. The only problem with this was that, even though he had a diploma and a number of certificates stating that he was an X-ray technician, he really wasn’t. The documents were all fakes. Due to Robinson’s lack of training and consequent incompetence, the hospital eventually fired him. This episode, though, set a pattern for his life, and Robinson started going from job to job. But now, along with phony resumes and credentials, he also began scamming people out of their money at each stop. He became such a good con man that he managed for years to stay out of jail when caught by feigning remorse and guilt for what he had done. “He had no real employment, unless you consider figuring out ways of scamming people out of their money to be real employment,” said Johnson County (Kansas) District Attorney Paul Morrison.1 In 1987, a court in Missouri finally sentenced Robinson to prison because of one of his fraudulent schemes. Although Robinson eventually had this sentence overturned, a judge in nearby Kansas sentenced him to prison for another illegal scheme, and so he remained incarcerated until 1993. Robinson, along with being a con man who loved to find new ways to separate people from their money, had also been interested for many years in sexual bondage and domination. Upon his release from prison, he discovered the usefulness to both pursuits of the relatively new innovation: the Internet. He found he could use the Internet to easily meet many women who shared his interest in this type of sex. He also discovered he could use it to hatch a new scheme for scamming money from his victims. Robinson, taking the name “Slavemaster,” soon began contacting and conversing with women in

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sexual bondage chat rooms, and, always very smooth and glib, persuaded many of them to leave their homes and come to him in Missouri. This would be a fatal mistake for at least seven of them. Some of these women who came to Missouri, therefore, suddenly stopped calling or writing their families, which made the families suspicious, even though they had received typewritten notes reportedly written by their family members saying that they would be traveling abroad and out of contact for some time. In these letters, they directed their families to send alimony, Social Security benefits, and other checks to a post office box in Missouri, where the police later found Robinson would pick them up and cash them. Although it is believed that Robinson murdered at least seven women in order to get their monthly checks, and got away with it for years, he finally slipped up when he gave his name and telephone number to a woman he had met on the Internet, and who he was trying to convince to move from her home in Michigan. This woman left the information about Robinson with her mother before departing to meet with him in Missouri. The mother, a short time after her daughter had left home, received a typewritten letter, purportedly from her daughter, saying that she was now traveling abroad with Robinson and would be out of contact for some time. However, the mother noticed that the letter contained a Kansas City postmark, and she knew the letter was much too literate and mistake-free to have been composed by her daughter. She immediately contacted the police. Robinson was well known to the police. Over the years, he had been connected to the disappearances of several women. The police, though, had never had enough proof to do anything. In this case, however, detectives went to a judge and received permission to monitor Robinson’s online computer activity. The police soon found that Robinson was in the midst of attempting to lure two women, one from Canada and the other from Texas, to the Kansas City area. While the woman from Texas, who Robinson finally did persuade to come to Kansas City, told Robinson she liked bondage and wanted a dominant sex partner, he apparently stepped over the line with her and battered her so badly she went to the police. The local prosecutor filed charges of sexual battery and also obtained search warrants for Robinson’s home, a storage facility he rented, and for a piece of property he owned in La Cygne, Kansas, about 60 miles south-south-west of Kansas City, Missouri. On June 2, 2000, detectives from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, knowing about all of the women who had disappeared after being contacted by Robinson, brought along with them to the La Cygne property several dogs that had been specially trained in sniffing out dead bodies. These dogs immediately indicated that they detected something inside two 85-gallon

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chemical drums on the property. Opening them, the police, repelled for a moment by the noxious odor, found the decomposing remains of two women, including the missing woman from Michigan, whose mother had begun the investigation. Police searching the storage facility Robinson rented discovered the bodies of three more women, also stuffed into chemical drums. Later examination showed that severe blows to the back of the head had killed all of the women. The detectives, wanting, of course, to build a complete and airtight case against Robinson, and always cautious since evidence can later be excluded from trial, decided that they needed to find at least one of the crime scenes where a murder had occurred. In an attempt to do this, the police located and searched an apartment where Robinson had temporarily put up one of the victims that the detectives had found in the chemical drums. However, they discovered that the walls of the bedroom in the apartment had been scrupulously cleaned and likely painted after the victim’s disappearance. Undaunted, the detectives had crime lab technicians spray luminol onto the walls. Luminol is a chemical that can detect traces of blood no matter how hard a person tries to clean it up. It can detect blood that has been diluted up to 10,000 times. The luminol worked as the detectives had hoped and showed blood spatter patterns on the walls consistent with the way the victim had been murdered. The police also used luminol to find traces of blood from one of Robinson’s victims in a trailer on the property in La Cygne and on a roll of duct tape they recovered. The police additionally matched hair they found in the trailer on the La Cygne property to one of the women they found in the chemical drums there. Evidence recovered also showed that Robinson had more victims than just the five the police had found. Detectives felt they now had enough evidence to go to trial. Robinson’s first trial, held in Kansas, lasted three weeks. On October 29, 2002, a jury convicted Robinson of the murders of the two women found on his property in La Cygne, Kansas. “It’s just been a long time coming and we’re very happy about the verdict,” said the aunt of one of Robinson’s victims. “I’m just glad he’s been held responsible for his actions.”2 In January 2003, a judge in Kansas pronounced Robinson’s punishment: two sentences of death. In October 2003, in Missouri, Robinson, facing irrefutable evidence collected by the police, acknowledged that the state had enough evidence to convict him of the murders of five more women, and the judge imposed five life sentences. In March 2006, federal authorities indicted Robinson on federal charges of “kidnapping causing death,” a move that could bring another death penalty trial.

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Many of the relatives of Robinson’s victims didn’t feel much compassion for him after his convictions. “It’s a shame he’s still alive,” said the mother of one of his victims.3 a a a As the above anecdote illustrates, being a successful detective in today’s police world requires individuals that keep up to date on the latest advances in technology. The news media dubbed Robinson as the world’s first “Internet Serial Killer” because he met most of his victims in chat rooms on the Internet. Consequently, to properly investigate this case detectives had to be aware of not only how the Internet works, since they had received a search warrant to eavesdrop on Robinson’s Internet activities, but all of its variations and nuances. Also, as the above incident demonstrates, while gathering clues at a crime scene has been part of a detective’s job for many years, technology can help detectives do this better than ever before. For example, in years past if a person cleaned up blood spatter well enough, the police couldn’t do much with the crime scene. Now, with the use of chemicals such as luminol, criminals can no longer wash away evidence of their crimes. Additionally, since DNA, as we will see in a following chapter, has become such a vital part of criminal identification in the twenty-first century, finding bloodstains can be even more crucial to the success of an investigation, because those areas that show indications of blood have also often been found to be areas that contain DNA evidence. But not only can science and technology help detectives find invisible blood spatter, it can also help them interpret what the blood spatter patterns mean. By measuring the size of blood spatter droplets and the direction of the tail of the spatter, detectives can determine the spot where the blood spatter originated from, often giving detectives the position of the victim and the likely position of the perpetrator. The size of the blood spatter can also tell detectives how the wound occurred. Blood spatter from a victim being shot, for example, because of the high velocity of gunshot impacts, will produce spatter with a high percentage of fine, or atomized, specks of blood. For many years, detectives at crime scenes have manually fastened strings to blood spatter on walls, furniture, etc. Then, utilizing the results of a complex mathematical formula that included a measurement of the blood spatter droplet and the direction of its tail, the detective stretched the string in the direction and angle the blood spatter droplet had come from. By fastening strings to a half dozen or so blood spatter droplets, the detective could find the spot of origination for the blood, which would be where all of the strings

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converge. This spot of convergence would usually be the location of the victim when assaulted. However, as an article about the interpretation of blood spatter patterns at a crime scene notes, a new computer program can often do a much better job of finding the point of origin for blood spatter than can be done by manually using string. “After evaluating the crime scene, an attempt to string the bloodstains was made,” the article said. “This immediately became difficult and was obvious too many directions and locations within a small area would make the visualization confusing. The computer displayed several different points of origin, all within a relatively small area, where strings appeared disorganized. Viewing the computer displays, bloodstains with the same points of origin were visible and easy to view.”4 As every detective knows, the proper gathering of evidence at a crime scene can mean the difference between solving a case or seeing a criminal go free. However, a modern detective must, besides knowing what to look for, also keep up to date on what science and technology has developed or improved upon that can assist him or her in this evidence gathering. For example, while in the anecdote at the beginning of the chapter the detectives used luminol to find invisible blood, a new, improved version of luminol called BlueStar Forensic reportedly will also do this, but with even better results. According to an article in Evidence Technology Magazine, “After testing luminol and BlueStar Forensic on bloodstains that were 10, 20, and 30 days old and had been placed on various substrates, BlueStar Forensic consistently proved more sensitive compared to luminol. The findings in these experiments have proven that BlueStar Forensic is easier to use, more sensitive, and easier to photograph when compared side-by-side with luminol.”5 Much like bloodstains, foot or shoe prints at a crime scene can tell a detective volumes about what happened. However, while often present, this evidence, especially if made in dust, many times isn’t visible to the naked eye. Yet, with technology such as the new alternate lighting systems now employed by crime lab technicians, which uses different colors or spectrums of light, previously invisible foot and shoe prints can today easily be detected at crime scenes. In addition, with the new electrostatic dust lifting technology, fragile foot or shoe prints made in dust can now actually be lifted off the floor and taken as evidence. An electrostatic dust lifter consists of a piece of black Mylar film coated with metal on one side. Crime lab technicians place the film side over the dusty foot or shoe print and apply voltage to the metal side. The electricity will cause the dust to be transferred from the floor to the Mylar film.

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Much as locating evidence such as foot or shoe prints, finding hair at a crime scene can mean nothing or everything. It could be simply a stray hair left there innocently by a third party, or it might be a hair left there by the criminal. If the root structure is intact, the latest DNA technology can often tell detectives whom the hair belongs to. Like other trace evidence at a crime scene, hairs, because they are so small, can many times be overlooked. Therefore, experienced detectives have crime lab technicians utilize alternate lighting systems, such as ultraviolet light or simply different colors or intensities of visible light. These can make trace evidence, such as hair, stand out. As mentioned above, DNA can often be recovered from hair that has the root structure intact, such as hair that has been intentionally pulled out. This DNA can then tell the detective whom the hair came from. This can be extremely important because a visual inspection alone of hair can be deceiving. In an FBI study, 11 percent of hair samples that had been determined through visual inspection to be from the same source were later proven by DNA testing not to be so.6 Of course, like blood and hair, other bodily traces left at a crime scene, such as semen, can be crucial to identifying who the perpetrator is. This is because DNA analysis can often positively identify the source of the semen. But finding a drop of semen at a crime scene when using only the naked eye can at times be impossible. Detectives today, however, use new technology that will make this drop of semen stand out. One such piece of technology is called a Reflected Ultraviolet Imaging System. According to an article in the Miami Herald, “ . . . a Reflected Ultraviolet Imaging System, an advanced imagery device—a` la CSI—that will help crime scene investigators find fingerprints and trace evidence, such as blood that someone tried to wash off and bodily fluids that might be invisible to the naked eye.”7 While a detective, to be successful, must recognize every piece of evidence at a crime scene that could be used to possibly identify a suspect, at some complex crime scenes this is often an impossible task. Fortunately, technology has also solved this problem. Some police departments now equip their detectives with small video cameras that can be worn into a crime scene and will show everything the detective sees. This video is transmitted live back to the crime lab or detective office, where the technicians or experienced detectives can advise the investigators about what looks like good evidence, and can also advise them about what specialized units or equipment will be needed to recover the evidence. “This is a big improvement over typical homicide investigations, where detectives would go into the scene, take a couple of shots, and then come out and try to explain what they saw based on the photographs,” said Sergeant

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Darwin Armitage, homicide detective for the El Paso (Texas) Police Department. “Photos don’t even compare to you seeing it live.”8 Only a few police departments, however, presently have the capability of live feed from a crime scene, and so good detectives must keep abreast of the improving capabilities of crime laboratories. Detectives must stay up to date on any new equipment that will allow the crime lab to analyze evidence in ways that previously would have been impossible. For example, while bullets and bullet casings have always been valuable pieces of evidence at any crime scene, recent advances in computer technology, as the following anecdote illustrates, have made them even more valuable. a a a On December 14, 2005, an attempted murder took place in Los Angeles. When detectives arrived at the scene of the shooting they recovered several spent shell casings. The victim, however, didn’t know his assailant and couldn’t provide a very good description. It didn’t look like a very good case. Regardless, the police sent the recovered shell casings to the crime lab to be computer-imaged by the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, and then included in the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN), a nationwide computer system of spent bullet and shell casing images maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Just a few hours following the shooting, Los Angeles police officers arrested three men involved in a vandalism incident and recovered a handgun from one of them. The crime lab test-fired the gun and submitted the bullet and shell casing for imaging and inclusion in NIBIN. On January 5, 2006, detectives received a report that the shell casing from the seized gun matched the casings recovered at the attempted murder scene. Using photographs taken of the three men when arrested, the police obtained a positive identification of the assailant from the intended murder victim. a a a Almost all modern firearms have spiraling grooves cut into the metal on the inside of the gun barrel. These cause the bullet to spin when fired, and thereby greatly increase its accuracy. However, these grooves, called rifling, also leave distinctive markings on the bullet fired. It is these markings that are computer-imaged and fed into the NIBIN system. Along with these markings, semiautomatic weapons leave another distinctive mark, this one on the bullet casing. These weapons use part of the energy created by the fired bullet to move back a slide, eject the spent bullet casing, and then load a new bullet. The ejection mechanism, it has been found, will scratch the bullet casing in a distinctive, unique way for each gun. These, along with the markings made by

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the firing pin on the primer of the bullet casing, which are also distinctive for each gun, are additionally computer-imaged and put into the NIBIN system. As of December 2005, technicians have entered over 925,000 pieces of evidence from crime scenes into NIBIN. The system has responded with over 12,500 hits, matching bullets and bullet casings sent in with images already in the NIBIN system.9 Along with the federal government’s NIBIN, several states have instituted their own computer systems dealing with firearms. These systems store the images of bullets and shell casings from all guns sold in the state. Before firearms can be sold, some states require that the firearms first be test-fired, and the bullets and shell casings recovered, computer-imaged, and put into a computer database. Then, after recovering a bullet or bullet casing as evidence at a crime scene, the police can access this database and find out who owns the gun that fired the bullet. And while the gun, of course, may be stolen, this information still gives detectives a good starting point for their investigation. Additionally, in 2006, a bill sponsored by California State Assemblyman Paul Koretz would require makers of guns sold in California to modify the firing pins of these guns so that they would leave a distinctive, microscopic mark on any bullet fired by them. By examining the casings left at a crime scene, the police could then determine the exact gun the bullets came from. “It has the potential to solve some significant crimes in some pretty large numbers,” said Koretz.10 In addition to all of the things I’ve mentioned so far, there are many other areas of criminal investigation that technology has brought from science fiction to fact in recent years. For example, crime laboratories will soon have the ability to identify two or more digital images as coming from the same camera. Digital cameras, researchers have discovered, overlay their images with a pattern made by pixel-to-pixel non-uniformity, and each camera’s pattern is unique. According to a press release from Binghamton University, where research on “digital fingerprinting” is taking place, “Although these patterns are invisible to the human eye, the unique reference pattern or ‘fingerprint’ of any camera can be electronically extracted by analyzing a number of images taken by a single camera.”11 As might be imagined, this new technology could prove very helpful in child pornography cases involving digital photographs. Not just child pornographers though, but many criminals don’t want the police to be able to trace certain evidence back to them. For example, in the past, many criminals thought that they could file off or otherwise remove serial numbers from evidence, and that afterward the police will not be able to trace the item. While a few years ago this may have been true, as the

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following incident shows, science and technology have again taken something from science fiction to fact. a a a In June 2005, police divers on a routine training dive recovered four AR-15 assault rifles from the bottom of the James River in Richmond, Virginia. Although the serial numbers had been filed off, detectives suspected that the firearms had been taken during a gun store robbery some months previous. Undaunted, the detectives turned to the crime lab for help. When a serial number is stamped into metal, scientists have found, it affects the crystalline structure of the metal beneath it. Consequently, in the case above, a crime lab technician used a chemical called etchant on the guns, which reacted with the change in the crystalline structure and made the serial numbers reappear. “A lot of times you don’t even need a microscope to see it,” said Jim Pickelman, a crime lab technician.12 a a a Many other innovations have also recently found their way into crime laboratories. For example, detectives will often send documents to the crime lab that they believe have been forged or altered. The Crime Lab has equipment that uses both reflected visible light and ultraviolet light to detect indented writing, erasures, forgeries, and overwriting. Additional tasks crime laboratories can now do that they couldn’t in the past include using a process called inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy, which can compare glass fragments at a crime scene with glass fragments found elsewhere, such as on a suspect’s clothing, thereby placing him or her at the crime scene. The crime lab can also use secondary ion mass spectrometry to detect certain trace evidence, such as coloring or conditioners on hair samples, drugs such as heroin or cocaine on small fibers recovered as evidence, or explosive residue on material taken from suspected bombing sites. To find specific chemical elements within evidence, which again can connect a person to a crime scene, the crime lab may use laserinduced breakdown spectroscopy, high-pressure liquid chromatography, or gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. In a case recently in Texas, for example, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy showed that partially burned wood that had been used in an attempt to burn a murder victim’s body came from the same tree as firewood stored at the suspect’s house. The suspect eventually confessed and pled guilty. While most of these crime lab instruments and procedures are extremely complex, a detective doesn’t need to know how they work, he or she only

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needs to know their capabilities. With this knowledge, the detective will know what to look for at a crime scene and what information can be recovered from it. At any crime scene an important part of the investigation is the drawing of the crime scene diagram. While photographs and videotaping of the crime scene can be important, these can often be cluttered with irrelevant objects, and distances in them can many times be distorted. Crime scene diagrams, on the other hand, contain only those items relevant to the case, and also contain carefully measured distances. New technology, however, no longer requires that these diagrams be done by hand at the scene and then later redone at the police station with drafting equipment. New computer software can make professional-looking crime scene diagrams, even for people who have no drafting or drawing experience. “Jurors will understand what happened a lot better than before,” said Sergeant Phillip Bailey of the Clayton County (Georgia) Sheriff’s Department, whose organization recently purchased a computerized crime scene diagrammer.13 For incidents that occur outside of buildings, some police departments use Geographical Information System (GIS) software to obtain a recent aerial photograph of the area, and then use this as the basic template for the crime scene diagram. Computer software can now even be used to draw crime scene diagrams that are in 3-D. Using one of these 3-D systems, detectives can show a jury what the crime scene looked like from the victim’s point of view, from the point of view of the accused, or from that of a key witness. The jury can then decide if the person testifying could have seen what he or she claimed to have seen. “It gives you a third dimension,” said Detective Inspector Jeff Wilkinson of the Ontario Provincial Police Criminal Investigations Branch, talking about his department’s acquisition of a 3-D computer-aided drafting package. “You can actually begin to develop your investigative theories about how something transpired without entering the scene.”14 A device being tested in Italy goes even further than 3-D. It uses a super computer to create a virtual reality reconstruction of a crime scene that is displayed on an 18 × 7 foot screen. Using information and laser measurements taken at the crime scene to build the virtual reality, the system allows detectives to run various scenarios to see if they fit the evidence found at the scene. The police have already used this technology to solve an old crime. By running a virtual reality scenario, they were able to determine who would have been a good witness. Yet, while as stated above, still photography and videotaping can have drawbacks compared to a crime scene diagram, these can still be extremely

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valuable to a detective working to solve a crime. Although detectives have for many years taken still photographs of crime scenes, it was always a guessing game as to whether or not these would turn out all right. Was the light correct? Did the frame include everything it should? Would the angle distort the image? In the past, these questions couldn’t be answered until after the film had been developed, which was almost always too late to go back and do them again. This dilemma has been solved through the use of digital cameras at crime scenes. With these, detectives can now see what the photographs look like while still on the scene. Videotaping of crime scenes, on the other hand, is relatively new, but again something that can greatly strengthen a case. For example, at a homicide scene a video is usually shot from the point of entry to the crime scene, if known, and then through every step of the crime. This, of course, can be very beneficial for prosecutors reviewing the case, and can bring a sense of realism to any jurors who view it. “Many courts have come to expect video as part of the evidence they’ll see,” said Jan Garvin of the Law Enforcement & Emergency Services Video Association. “It’s another element of the investigative arsenal that can provide compelling and telling evidence.”15 Also, many police departments now regularly videotape all in-custody interrogations. Quite often, experience has shown, suspects, later regretting what they told the police, will deny saying anything or claim that the police coerced them into making incriminating statements. Showing the jury a videotape of an interrogation can quickly deflate these claims. One of the biggest problems in many criminal investigations, though, is that often several days can be taken up after a detective finishes at a crime scene before he or she can begin trying to identify a suspect. This is because the detective must often spend this time collating the information and evidence gathered at the crime scene with other information and databases available in order to find any connections. And often it has been found, particularly in homicide investigations, the first forty-eight to seventy-two hours can be crucial to solving the case. Experience has shown that if a homicide isn’t solved during this time the chances of ever solving it drop dramatically. “[The detective] would go to the scene, collect information, collect the clues, do all the investigative work,” said Jim Onalfo, CIO of the New York City Police Department. “Then he’d go back to the precinct, and through very archaic techniques, would drudge through databases, many of them one at a time.”16 The New York City Police Department recognized this problem and used technology to solve it. In July 2005, they opened their new $11 million Real

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Time Crime Center. Now, when a homicide or shooting occurs in New York City, the Real Time Crime Center goes to work immediately. Personnel there find previous reports concerning the crime scene and the area surrounding it. They additionally pull up and send to detectives aerial maps of the crime scene. They can also do research on persons of interest in the investigation, finding connections to previous crimes or to other persons of interest. In addition, the Real Time Crime Center can cross-reference and research nicknames, tattoos, and criminal MOs. It can also help detectives find the addresses of witnesses, especially in old murders where they may have moved several times. Of real importance though, particularly with a police department as large as New York City’s, is the information sharing that the Real Time Crime Center now makes possible between precincts. Before the creation of the Real Time Crime Center, information was many times kept and stored at the precincts, and often not shared. Now, this information is kept at the Center for distribution wherever it is needed. “The Center will put valuable information into the hands of detectives even before they leave the squad room, so they can hit the ground running in identifying and apprehending criminals,” said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.17 Six months after the Real Time Crime Center opened, the New York City Police Department announced that, because of its success, they were expanding the role of the Center to include serious crimes other than shootings and homicides. According to an article in the New York Daily News, in the first six months it had been in operation, the Center assisted in 300 murders and 800 shootings.18 By the middle of 2006, it had handled over 2,700 cases.19 “We want to use every advantage technology has to offer in suppressing crime,” said Police Commissioner Kelly. “With the Real Time Crime Center, our detectives have a new partner in crime fighting.”20 While perhaps not as glamorous as the investigations that use the Real Time Crime Center, investigating auto thefts is still a very important job for detectives because it is a multi-billion dollar problem in our country. For example, in 2004, thieves stole over 1.2 million vehicles in the United States.21 Although some of these vehicles were taken by kids just out for a joyride, often thieves take stolen vehicles out of state and re-sell them, or they take them to chop shops where criminals take the cars apart and sell them piece by piece. While in the past, auto thieves, unless caught in the act, could be hard to apprehend, technology has changed this. Many vehicles are now equipped with devices that allow them to be tracked by satellite. Experienced car thieves, though, often know how to disable these devices. However, a company named LoJack manufactures a device that can be hidden in a car, and

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will allow the police to track the car if it is stolen. The company is presently developing a similar device for motorcycles, and has previously developed a similar device for construction equipment. Also, in order to catch car thieves, many police departments are now using “bait cars.” These are vehicles that the police park in high vehicle theft areas, some with the key in the ignition and some not. While appearing to be simply ordinary parked cars, these vehicles are in reality packed with high-tech equipment. Technicians, for example, equip them with remote kill switches so the police can stop the engine when they want to move in for an arrest. These vehicles also have remote door locks so that the car thieves cannot get out once they realize they’ve stolen a bait car; the cars have hidden video cameras that record the theft; and these vehicles have Global Positioning System equipment so that the police can secretly track the car in the event they want to know the location of a chop shop or some other location involved in the purchase of stolen vehicles. “So, out in front of the 7-11, there’s a car running,” said Albuquerque police chief Ray Schultz. “It may be ours . . . The moral of the story is don’t take other people’s property.”22 While practically everyone knows that being a police officer can be inherently dangerous, some parts of police work are more dangerous than others. One of the most dangerous jobs in police work is that of being an undercover detective. In this job, a police officer pretends to be part of a criminal organization while gathering evidence against its members. This can be extremely hazardous because the officer is often in danger of being killed if found out. In order to gather information as an undercover officer, often these detectives will try to record conversations with criminals. While in the past undercover officers had to wear rather bulky recording equipment on their body, called a “body wire,” this equipment had a distinct disadvantage in that it could easily be found if criminals searched an undercover detective. Technology has stepped in and made the job of undercover officer much safer. For example, the company SeV has designed a line of clothing for undercover officers that allows the wearer to hide the wires for recording devices in the fabric itself, making them undetectable. “You look just like an average guy with a black coat on,” said Michael Cox, whose company sells the product.23 SeV also manufactures trousers and baseball hats with hidden compartments. Technology has also made video recorders so small that undercover officers can now carry them without fear of being detected. For example, they can be hidden in tie tacks, jewelry, shirt buttons, pagers, cell phones, etc. A very innovative system, manufactured by Specialty Vehicle Solutions of

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Trenton, New Jersey, hides a video camera inside a 64-ounce plastic Mountain Dew cup. This device can send a signal for up to a half-mile to a recovery unit hidden inside a standard forty-quart Coleman cooler. Similar to the work of undercover police operatives, many times detectives want to keep watch over individuals without them knowing they are being watched. In the past this was done by police officers tailing the suspects in unmarked, nondescript cars. Technology has also changed this. Now the police can simply attach Global Positioning System equipment, smaller than a credit card, to the car in question. It can be attached either by adhesive or a magnet. The movements of the car can then be monitored on a computer. Also, though few people realize it, with a court order the police can covertly activate systems such as OnStar, allowing them to listen to conversations inside a vehicle.24 When covertly tailing a suspect, the police often want to see what’s going on if the suspect should stop in a darkened area. A number of companies have developed night vision lenses that allow the police to see what’s happening in the dark, even at a distance. These companies have also developed lenses for still and video cameras that allow activities taking place in the dark to be recorded. AstroScope Corporation states that with one of its night vision lenses detectives can photograph or videotape in the dark from over 1,000 meters away. Although it is a detective’s job to gather evidence and information from a crime scene, occasionally the crime scene is too dangerous to allow the detective to work it. Armed criminals may still be in the area or perhaps the police suspect that a bomb may be present. This is when the police call in one of their specialty units, either the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team or the bomb squad. Both of these units handle extraordinarily dangerous situations, but, as we will see in the next chapter, technology has taken a little of the danger out of these operations.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SWAT and Bomb Squad

Even though Brian Nichols’ girlfriend had broken off her relationship with him, he wasn’t ready to let her go. Described by those who knew him as violent and extremely possessive, Nichols lived up to this description when he broke into his girlfriend’s Atlanta-area condominium on August 19, 2004. Once inside, he bound her hands and feet with duct tape and then repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Although Nichols threatened his girlfriend and her family if she reported him, when he finally left, she called the police, who arrested him. On March 11, 2005, a Fulton County (Georgia) Sheriff’s deputy brought Nichols over to the Fulton County Courthouse for his trial on rape, aggravated sodomy, and false imprisonment charges. As he was being unhandcuffed so he could change clothing before the trial, Nichols attacked and overpowered the deputy, taking her gun. He then went to the eighth floor courtroom where his trial was to take place and shot and killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and the court reporter Julie Brandau. As he was making his escape from the courthouse he also killed Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Hoyt Teasley. Nichols fled the area by subway, finally stopping in Buckhead, a northern suburb of Atlanta. There he encountered U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm. Wilhelm was off-duty and working on his home, which was still under construction. Nichols shot and killed Wilhelm, then stole his firearm, identification, and pickup truck, which he drove northeast to the Atlanta [For readers wanting more information about police SWAT teams and how they operate, see my book SWAT Teams (Perseus, 1999)].

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suburb of Duluth, just over the border in Gwinnett County. There, he forced his way into the apartment of twenty-six-year-old Ashley Smith as she was returning home from a trip to a convenience store. He bound her with masking tape and an electrical cord. “I kind of thought he was going to strangle me,” Smith later told the police.1 Smith, however, though terrified of what he might do to her, remained calm during the ordeal, and attempted to defuse the situation by talking to Nichols about her five-year-old daughter, who wasn’t there. Eventually able to build rapport with him, Smith persuaded Nichols to untie her and then finally to let her leave to go see her daughter. When he did, she immediately called 911. The Gwinnett County Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team responded to the apartment area and immediately began gathering intelligence and setting up perimeters around Smith’s apartment. However, to be able to properly enclose the area and evacuate nearby residents who might be in danger, the SWAT Team commander needed an up-to-date diagram of the apartment area. He found though that the one given him was not up-to-date. And so, the commander turned to technology and ordered pictometry for the area. Pictometry is a computer application that can bring up recent aerial photographs, including both overhead and oblique shots, of any area. According to Pictometry International Corporation, this technology will supply up to twelve different views, both overhead and oblique, for any location. “It’s a great tool to have,” said Major Dan Branch of the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department. “We enlarged the areas outside the inner perimeter to see what areas could be affected in the event there was a volley of gunfire.”2 On the pictometry photos the SWAT commander noticed a recently built line of garages that was not on the diagram he had been originally given. With this information, he was able to use these garages as cover for his officers, and with this safety edge the officers found they could covertly approach the area where Nichols held up. Brian Nichols, twenty-six hours after killing Judge Barnes, looked out of the apartment window and suddenly saw the SWAT Team all around him. He quickly waved a white T-shirt at them and surrendered. “He saw the firepower and manpower surrounding him and gave up,” said Major Branch.3 a a a In the history of law enforcement, SWAT teams are a relatively new innovation. These groups of specialized officers didn’t come into being until the mid-1960s, when police departments suddenly found themselves being seriously outgunned by criminals.

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The watershed incident that brought about the formation of police SWAT teams in America was the Texas Tower incident on August 1, 1966. On this date, a University of Texas honors student named Charles Joseph Whitman climbed to the top of the clock tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin and began randomly shooting innocent people with a high-powered rifle. The police who responded to this incident quickly discovered that they didn’t have the weapons they needed to match the arsenal Whitman had taken with him to the top of the tower. Nor did the police have a plan in place for such an incident. For ninety minutes officers simply shot back ineffectively as Whitman picked off person after person, eventually killing over a dozen people and wounding more than thirty. Only through luck and ingenuity on the part of several Austin police officers, who developed a plan on-site, were the authorities finally able to stop Whitman’s hour and a half rampage. Following the Texas Tower incident and several other high-profile mass murders, police departments across the United States realized that they needed to have plans in place and specially equipped and trained units ready to handle these high-risk incidents that only a few years earlier had been practically unheard of. The Los Angeles Police Department is believed to be the first police department in the United States to use the acronym SWAT. Its newly formed team of officers was soon called to handle several high-risk incidents, including the Black Panthers in 1969 and the Symbionese Liberation Army (the group that kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst) in 1973. Before long, other large police departments began following suit, and today probably every police department in the United States either has a SWAT team or access to one. In the 1960s, however, the only special pieces of equipment that most SWAT teams carried were binoculars and high-powered weapons. The decades since their formation, though, has seen a huge growth in the use of technology by police SWAT teams. In the anecdote above, for example, the police used computer pictometry in order to gain intelligence about the area around where Nichols was held up. As incident after incident has shown, being able to gather good intelligence about a SWAT event can be crucial to successfully resolving it, because intelligence can determine the best actions for the SWAT team to take. Gathering information about the layout of the area of the incident, of the area the perpetrator is holed up in, and about his or her temperament can be important deciding factors as to whether an assault should be launched right away or whether the SWAT team should just set up and wait for negotiators to attempt to talk the perpetrator out. SWAT teams, upon their arrival at any incident, immediately set up what is called an inner perimeter. This perimeter encloses the area of highest

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danger, and is usually manned only by SWAT officers. There is also an outer perimeter, beyond which the danger from the incident is minimal. This perimeter is usually manned by uniformed police officers. Naturally, the police need good intelligence about the area around any SWAT incident so that the SWAT team commander will know where to best set up these perimeters, and also so that officers can evacuate any non-involved people inside them. Good intelligence can also help the SWAT team commander decide where to place the snipers, who act both as intelligence gatherers and as a last resort to end the incident. Fortunately, technology has provided SWAT teams with many ways to gather this intelligence. As talked about above, accessing recent aerial photography of an area can be very beneficial. But sometimes a SWAT team commander needs an aerial view of the area as it is at that moment. “The SWAT officers can look at the photographs and see if there is a shed or a pool or a doghouse so that when they move in, there are no surprises— except if something has changed since the photos were taken, of course,” said Captain Tim Cannon of the Orange County (Florida) Sheriff’s Department.4 A police department could, of course, use a helicopter to get a real-time view of the area around an incident, but doing so may frighten a hostage taker or barricaded subject into doing something violent, or the suspect might shoot at the helicopter, as Whitman did during the Texas Tower incident when the police flew an airplane close to the tower. A better solution, as we talked about in the chapter on vehicles, is the use of an unmanned surveillance aircraft just a little bigger than a model airplane. These devices weigh just a few pounds, can be launched easily, and, very important, fly silently. Equipped with both conventional and infrared cameras, these unmanned aircraft can give a SWAT team commander immediate intelligence about the area around a SWAT incident. For example, a SWAT team commander might want to be certain that the entrances to a building are unblocked, want to know the position of a possible sniper, or know whether or not a certain rooftop would be a good spot for the SWAT team entry. All of these can be learned through using an unmanned surveillance aircraft. “This can go places a helicopter can’t go,” said Commander Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, talking about their recent acquisition of an unmanned surveillance aircraft. “It’s so portable we could carry it in our trunks or on our backs.”5 However, the gathering of intelligence about what is going on inside the area where the perpetrator is holed up, which often can’t be done by surveillance aircraft, can also be crucial to the SWAT team’s decision about what action should be taken. A violent, agitated suspect will require different action than will a cool, relaxed one. Recently, a SWAT team in Colorado sent

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a robot into an area where a barricaded man was held up. “He told us he’d been up drinking and was he going to kill himself,” said Lieutenant Bret Farrar of the Lakewood (Colorado) Police Department.6 However, when the video feed from the robot showed that the man had laid his gun down, SWAT officers broke in and subdued him. Another new device for gaining intelligence in areas where an aircraft can’t see and a close approach by SWAT officers could be dangerous is the Eye Ball. This is a device about the size and shape of a baseball, but which is actually a video camera. It can be rolled, thrown, or dropped into a room or building. Since it is encased in rubber, the device takes little damage from a fall and makes very little sound when it strikes the floor. The Eye Ball, being bottom heavy, will automatically right itself and begin giving a 360degree view of the area, the rotation of the lens being controlled by SWAT officers nearby. Run by batteries, the Eye Ball will transmit live video and audio feed for about two hours. It also has an infrared mode for low light areas. “Law enforcement officers can roll, toss, or drop the ruggedized Eye Ball into virtually any hazardous situation—providing the immediate visibility required for users to make safe, intelligent decisions in dangerous environments,” said Remington Arms Company officials about their new surveillance device.7 Quite often though, SWAT incidents will occur in an area a floor or two above ground level, and the SWAT team commander would like to make a surprise assault through a second or third floor window while the hostage takers or barricaded subjects are distracted by a diversion staged on the other side of the building. In the past, SWAT teams were faced with two options. They could use ladders, which are dangerous because the SWAT officers are totally exposed and helpless when climbing the ladder. Or they could also use a cherry picker, a device with a small platform often seen in cities lifting individuals who repair phone or electric lines high off of the ground. This second option, however, only allows one or two fully equipped SWAT officers to make a quick entry. Now a number of companies have built modified cherry pickers that are large enough to lift a whole squad of fully equipped SWAT officers up to a second or third floor window. The Mobile Adjustable Ramp System manufactured by Patriot3 Corporation, for example, can reach to a height of thirty-two feet. When a police SWAT team arrives at an incident, quite often before deciding on a plan they must first find a suspect who is hidden somewhere in a building. While most police SWAT teams employ night vision goggles or other low light devices, these work best in open darkened areas because they use ambient light from the moon or stars. They don’t work quite as well

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in dark enclosed areas. A new device solves this problem. It is a flashlight that illuminates the area with infrared radiation, allowing police officers with infrared sensing devices to see clearly in darkened areas without illuminating the area or themselves with visible light. “When I have to go into a building and it’s totally dark and I can’t see what’s going on, I’d love to know ahead of time where the bad guy is,” said Sheriff Sam Page of the Rockingham County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Department.8 When looking for armed and dangerous suspects in darkened areas though, it can be very hazardous for a SWAT officer to stick his or her head around a corner or up into an area such as an attic to see what’s there. Fortunately, there are now ways of seeing around corners and into places like attics without endangering an officer. A number of companies manufacture video cameras on long poles that can be stuck around corners or into attics, and which allow the officer controlling the device to see what’s in the area before preceding. And of course, this equipment comes with an infrared mode for darkened areas. Some of these devices also have the camera motorized so that it can be moved without moving the pole, something that can be important if an officer is trying to covertly look into the area. A further device many police SWAT teams find particularly useful is an under-the-door camera. This is an extremely thin device that can be slipped under a closed door and will allow the operator to see what is in a room. In some SWAT incidents, the officers may know or suspect that the perpetrators and possible hostages are behind concrete walls or some other substantial barrier. However, there is no way to covertly insert a camera through these types of walls to see what is on the other side. For this situation, science and technology has come up with a solution. Using ultrawideband radar, several manufacturers have developed portable, handheld devices that can see through these types of walls and detect motion on the other side. A device called a Radarscope, for example, developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, allows SWAT teams to see through twelve inches of concrete. “As they go into a building, it can help them prioritize what rooms they go into,” said Edward Baranoski of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency about the Radarscope. “It will give them an extra degree of knowledge so they know if someone is inside.”9 Since the events of 9/11, most large-city SWAT teams have tried to prepare for possible terrorist incidents in their communities. As a part of this preparation, police departments realize that they need to be knowledgeable about the layout of facilities that could be the target for terrorism. To accomplish this, a number of police agencies have been collecting blueprints

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of these facilities. But technology has provided an even better solution. A software program called SCORMAP stores this blueprint information about facilities, but in a 3-D format. In an emergency, this 3-D blueprint allows the police and others to view details about a building not available in 2-D representations. Engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have used a similar concept to make 3-D representations of outdoor areas. While digital aerial photographs are being taken of an area, a laser calculates distances and angles. A computer then combines all of this information into a 3-D picture of the area. Because of the extra information this technology provides, it could be of extreme value to a SWAT team commander planning an assault or a hostage rescue. An even more startling innovation will allow previously scanned interiors of buildings to be entered into a computer and become part of a virtual reality representation. This could be of great value in a hostage situation. SWAT rescuers could don virtual reality goggles and practice a rescue in the virtual reality representation of the building the hostages are being held in. This would give the SWAT rescuers an intimate knowledge of the area in which they will be operating, something that has been shown many times to make the difference between success and failure. While in their beginnings SWAT teams carried weapons that were simply high-powered guns meant to match the arsenal of criminals, technology has added some very useful extras to the SWAT weapons arsenal. For example, a new and very useful addition to the SWAT team arsenal is the Corner Shot gun. This is a firearm whose barrel is on a hinge and can bend around corners. The holder of the gun can see on a video monitor, available with crosshairs, what is around the corner. If there is an immediate threat, shots can be fired without ever exposing the SWAT officer. Often though, in many SWAT operations all the SWAT team needs is a few seconds of distraction in order to be able to storm an area and neutralize a suspect. One way to do this is through the use of “flashbangs.” As we talked about previously, these are grenades that explode with a brilliant flash and a huge boom, but which do little damage. The intensity of the flash and the loudness of the explosion are so great that they overload a suspect’s sensory organs and cause several seconds of confusion and disorientation. While traditional flashbangs are thrown like grenades, the latest version can be fired from a launcher. It can be delivered at a distance of up to a hundred yards, and has a sensing device that won’t allow it to explode until it is within nine feet of a target the operator has locked it onto. Another flashbang device under development will not only make a brilliant flash and loud noise but will also emit a noxious smell, thereby overwhelming three

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of the five senses. Other devices being built will contain irritants or paint to mark the target. Also under development for SWAT team use is a “sound gun.” This device creates a directed beam of intense sound that affects the inner ear balance system, and consequently disorients anyone it strikes. “It shoots out a pulse of sound that’s almost like a bullet,” said Elwood Norris, chairman of American Technologies. In order to test the device, Mr. Norris had himself shot with it. “It almost knocked me on my butt,” he said. “I wasn’t interested in anything for quite a while afterwards.”10 Another device, this one useful for getting suspects to leave buildings, scientists originally developed to hail ships while still hundreds of yards away. Part of it consists of loudspeakers three feet in diameter. Used at close range this device can emit a sound so powerful that individuals will attempt to flee it. According to an article in the Daily News of Los Angeles, the police used this device recently in Santa Ana, California, to clear a house in which the occupants refused to leave. Upon turning on the device, the occupants immediately fled the building.11 Of course, for any SWAT operation to be successful, teamwork has to be coordinated perfectly. Sometimes this can be a problem because hearing orders over the radio can occasionally be difficult due to the background noise in the area. A recent invention remedies this problem. This device filters out background noises and allows SWAT officers to hear instructions over an earpiece. The device contains a small computer that recognizes the frequency of a human voice and transmits it while blocking out other noises. “It knows what areas of the spectrum voices are produced in, and it looks at the time variation and frequency content of the signal,” said Jarle Svean, who works for the company that invented the device.12 Most SWAT team commanders also feel they could do a much better job of coordinating the team’s actions if they knew what each member of the team was seeing, rather than trying to figure it out from radioed descriptions. Now even this is possible. Many members of police SWAT teams now wear small video cameras on their ballistic helmets that allow the SWAT team commander to receive a real-time feed of what each SWAT officer is seeing. “There are a lot of officers on radios, and there is a lot of screaming, and it can get chaotic,” said Captain Michael Czerwinsky of the El Paso (Texas) Police Department. “But with helmet cams, a live video feed is streamed to the command post, which gives the commander more information to make a better decision.”13 While being a member of a police SWAT team can certainly add to the danger of police work, another specialty area of law enforcement that also ratchets up the danger level is the police department bomb squad. Since

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the events of 9/11, this position has become more and more important in insuring the public safety. However, dealing with high explosives put together by amateurs, or dealing with professional bombs possibly booby trapped, to say nothing of handling chemical, biological, and nuclear devices, can only be described as unbelievably hazardous. Yet, as the following incident illustrates, technology can lessen the danger level of this job. a a a On June 22, 2006, the authorities closed the Sandy Civic Center TRAX train station on East South Street in Sandy, Utah, a southern suburb of Salt Lake City. Earlier, an employee had found a suspicious-looking backpack while searching for a missing laptop computer. Someone had scribbled offensive words on the backpack and wires could be seen protruding from it. “The driver found a backpack with writing on it,” said Sandy police sergeant Victor Quezada. “There was another package right below it connected to the backpack with wires.”14 The Sandy Police Department Bomb Squad responded and quickly determined that the backpack appeared dangerous enough that they didn’t want an officer to handle it. But still, the backpack needed to be examined. And so, the Sandy Police Department turned to technology. Rather than sending in an officer, they sent in a remote control robot. Bomb squad members viewing video from the robot found that the backpack did indeed contain bombmaking materials and a note that the police described as “concerning.”15 Using a water cannon, the robot attempted to neutralize the contents of the backpack, and then detonated what appeared to the bomb squad members to be several dangerous items. The bomb squad did all of this from a safe distance, and though the event shut down the station for over five hours, no one received any injuries from what could have been a very dangerous situation. a a a As the incident above illustrates, the use of robots can greatly decrease the danger of investigating possible bombs. A robot manufactured by EOD Performance, Inc., for example, can lift 35 pounds vertically, climb stairs, has digital X-ray capabilities, is functional from –40 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and can be operated from 300 yards away. However, even more important, in addition to lessening the danger of handling unstable explosive devices, robots also reduce the risk that the bomber is hiding nearby, watching and waiting to remotely detonate the bomb when a technician approaches it. Another significant concern for police department bomb squads, after what has occurred in Iraq, is dealing with vehicles that may have bombs

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attached underneath and out of sight. Even with a mirror or video camera on a long pole, a bomb squad member could still be killed if the bomb explodes while he or she is inspecting the undercarriage of the vehicle. Fortunately, technology has stepped in and reduced the danger level of this task. Several companies manufacture small, flat robots that can travel under cars and trucks and give the operator, who stays a safe distance away, a live video feed of the vehicle’s undercarriage. For those situations, however, in which no robot is available, the U.S. Army has developed a “bomb jammer.” This is an electronic device that can block a person from remotely detonating a bomb with a cell phone or other device. They have been used successfully in Iraq. But of course, before a bomb squad can act they have to know if a bomb is even present and where it’s at. Often all the police department receives is a warning that there is a bomb in a facility or an unidentified vehicle, and the police must then find it. Recent scientific innovations have made this task a little easier. For example, a device that emits gamma rays can be used to inspect the interior of trucks. “It’s a density meter,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Ron Smith about the gamma ray device they use. “The denser the material, the darker the image is going to be.”16 Consequently, officers can inspect a truck’s manifest to see whether, according to the results of the gamma ray inspection device, the truck contains something more than it should. Another way to detect bombs is through “sniffer” technology. These handheld devices take in a sample of the air and then examine it for explosive materials. Other handheld devices can also check the air for traces of chemical or biological weapons. A device called the Sabre 4000 weighs only seven pounds, yet can detect over forty threatening substances. A portable device called a RadScout checks for radioactive material. It detects gamma rays and neutrons coming from radioactive items and alerts the user to the location of such material. Occasionally though, a police department will locate a bomb in a populated area and realize that if it is disturbed or moved it will likely explode. Consequently, to protect those nearby, the first concern is to contain any explosion. Recent innovations in ballistic blankets and other devices have made this less of a concern. A ballistic blanket is a covering that can be thrown over a bomb. It absorbs and contains the explosion. A ballistic blanket manufactured by Tamiami International Equipment, Inc. measures four feet on a side, weighs 22 1/2 pounds, and can be deployed by one officer. Also useful in areas where bombings have a high potential are bombmitigating trashcans. The explosion of a bomb placed in one of these is absorbed by the material of the can, rendering it harmless to those nearby.

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According to Mistral Corporation, a maker of bomb-mitigating trashcans, “The compressive layer is designed to absorb the major blast energy and resist fragments. The outer shell contains any remaining lateral blast energy and fragmentation. Residual blast energy is vented upwards away from the public, keeping the receptacle unpenetrated.”17 Scientists have even developed portable, collapsible bomb-mitigating devices. These can be taken to a site, set up, and the suspected bomb then placed inside. One large enough to hold a standard suitcase weighs less than 75 pounds. Naturally though, any bomb exploding before it can be moved to a safe area, or before a ballistic blanket or other device has contained it, is bad news for any bomb squad members nearby. Luckily, advances in fiber technology can make things a little safer for bomb squad members. A new fabric material called Dyneema is reportedly stronger than steel, yet still flexible enough to wear in situations where unrestricted movement is needed. According to an article about Dyneema, “The armor is designed to reduce the likelihood of severe injuries by protecting against the large number of smaller blast fragments generated by blast weapons and homemade explosives.”18 The goal of any police operation is always to render an area safe and then to gain information about any possible crimes committed. Often this information comes from people the police have taken into custody or who are witnesses. But human nature being what it is, people often lie, and the outcome of a police investigation can many times rest on the truth of a person’s statement to the police. Fortunately, as we will see in the next chapter, science and technology have developed a number of ways to show whether or not a person is lying.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lie Detection

In 1999, I wrote a book titled Looking for Carroll Beckwith. Some of the people who read this book considered the claims I made in it as so preposterous and outlandish that I was eventually asked to take a lie detector test. The idea for Looking for Carroll Beckwith came about through a dare I took at a party. I had been talking over drinks with a colleague who, besides being a police detective, is also a practicing psychologist. Through making small talk about books we’d read recently we got onto the subject of past life regression therapy, about which I had read a book just a few months before. This is a therapy some psychologists and psychiatrists use with patients who have physical or psychological problems that can’t seem to be explained by events in their life. A therapist skilled in hypnosis will put the patients into a deep hypnotic trance and then supposedly take them back to a life they had lived before their present one, and then to the event in this past life that has brought about the problems they are presently experiencing. My position on past life regression therapy was that it was just a lot of gullible people taking bits of forgotten subconscious memories from this life, and then re-ordering them into a story that they felt would please the therapist. When I took this position, perhaps a bit too rigidly, I didn’t know that my colleague used past life regression therapy in her practice. After listening to my thoughts about it, she dared me, if I thought the process was so phony, to try it myself. Because I found myself backed into a corner with the stand I had taken (and because I had had several drinks), I finally agreed to try past life regression, but only to show her how stupid the whole concept was. Later, because I didn’t really want to try past life regression but felt that I couldn’t back out

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without looking foolish, I decided that my plan would be to cooperate fully with the psychologist my colleague had referred me to, and then investigate what I saw, or thought I saw, during hypnosis. I would prove that everything I saw had come from forgotten memories of this life. In addition though to thinking that the concept of past lives was silly, I also didn’t want to try past life regression because I wasn’t really certain I could even be put into a hypnotic state. I thought I was much too strongwilled. However, the psychologist I went to turned out to be very skilled. I went into a deep hypnotic trance and saw some vividly clear scenes that did appear to come from several past lives. Still, I felt certain that these were just forgotten memories of this life coming from my subconscious mind. I had simply regurgitated them and then re-ordered them to fit a supposed past life. I was so positive of this that I set out on what I thought would be a quick, but turned out to be a two-year, investigation in order to prove it. From the start of the investigation though, nothing went as I thought it would. Occasionally during my thirty-eight years as a police officer, I’ve gone into investigations absolutely certain of what the outcome would be, yet the evidence I uncovered turned out to be something totally different from what I had expected, and in these cases I had to stop and re-order my thinking about the investigation. That was what happened in the investigation of my regression session. Actually, the outcome of my investigation startled and upset me so much that it led to me writing the book Looking for Carroll Beckwith. Because the claims I made in my book were so controversial producers asked me to appear on dozens of radio talk shows and on a half dozen national television programs, including “In Search Of” and “Beyond Chance.” Most of the audiences, I found, were fairly receptive to the claims I had put forth in my book, and the shows seemed to go well. However, in July 2003, a lady named Sally Kaplan telephoned me at the Homicide Branch of the Indianapolis Police Department, where I worked as the commander. She told me that she worked for Cosgrove Meurer Productions, and that they had previously produced the television program “Unsolved Mysteries.” She went on to say that they were currently producing a new television series titled “Proof Positive.” The premise of this show, she told me, was to subject claims such as those I had made in Looking for Carroll Beckwith to scientific inquiry. So on that note, she asked, would I be willing to take a lie detector test on national television? I immediately said yes. I knew that everything I said in my book, though controversial, was absolutely true. So why not? I thought. She thanked me and said that she would be getting back with me about a filming schedule. Then I began to worry. I didn’t worry about what I had stated in my book, because, as I said, it was all true. What I did worry about was trusting my reputation and future,

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both as a police officer and writer, to a machine that research has shown is only 70 to 90 percent accurate. I knew I was trusting my reputation and future to a machine that the courts have viewed as not reliable enough to use as evidence in court. What if the lie detector said I was lying when I wasn’t? But just as worrisome, although during my police career I had sent many people for lie detector tests, I had never taken one myself. My hands would tingle and sweat whenever I thought about it. But I had said I would do it, and I knew there was no way I could back out of my promise without looking like I was afraid I would be exposed as a liar. So I went through with it, hoping there’d be no problems. And there was a problem. During my research for Looking for Carroll Beckwith I had stumbled onto the number 1917. I didn’t know when I found it if this was part of an address, a date, or simply the number 1917. Later in my investigation I found out that it was part of date, an extremely important date as it turned out. So, when I took my lie detector test, the examiner asked me, “When you first encountered the date 1917, did you know the significance of it?” I answered no, and the lie detector immediately showed a “significant physiological reaction,” which means that something about the question had bothered me. An examiner could interpret this reaction as deception. I immediately knew what the problem was. I told the examiner, “Ask me that question again, but ask me if I knew the significance of the number, rather than date, 1917 when I first encountered it.” When the examiner asked me the question in this format, the lie detector showed that I was telling the truth, much to my relief since, as I said, the network had scheduled my session with the lie detector to be shown on national television later that year. Interestingly, apparently to add a cliffhanger before a commercial, the director had me take a second lie detector test given by a second examiner, which I had no problem passing because I now knew the importance, before beginning the test, of talking with the examiner about the exact phrasing of the questions. This is standard procedure for a polygraph examination, but had not been done on my first test. In the show segment, just before a commercial break, it appears as though I might have failed the lie detector test when my answer to the question about the date 1917 shows “significant physiological reaction.” However, upon returning from the commercial break, the examiner explains to the camera about the poor phrasing of the question, and then I am shown passing the second test without difficulty. a a a Police officers constantly find themselves listening to stories that they are not sure are the truth. Occasionally, the outcome of a case can depend totally on

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whether or not a person is telling the truth. Consequently, the police must often depend on lie detection devices, which, as I mentioned above, are not foolproof. The polygraph, invented in 1915, has been, until recently, the lie detection device the police have depended on most, with varying success. Of course, while polygraphs are called “lie detectors,” that is not what they really detect. They instead detect physiological changes brought on by stress, assumed to be caused by lying. “What has happened over the years is that the media has dubbed this lie detection, and that’s what’s clicked, but from a scientific perspective, absolutely not,” said Dr. Bob Lee, an expert on polygraph testing. “There’s no such thing as lie detection. I couldn’t tell you what a lie looks like.”1 During my televised examinations dealing with the claims I had put forth in my book Looking for Carroll Beckwith, I found the operators used two different types of polygraph machines: an older analog version during my first test and the much newer digital version during my second test. Both devices work on the same principle, but with varying success rates. A person being examined on either type of polygraph is first fitted with two air tubes that go around the chest and abdomen. These measure changes in the breathing rate. The subject of the examination also has a blood pressure cup placed around the upper arm. This measures the heart rate and blood pressure. Finally, the polygraph examiner attaches two electrodermal clips to the fingers of the person undergoing the exam. These measure changes in the rate of perspiration. Before they begin, polygraph examiners will usually have a pre-test session during which they talk with and get to know the person being examined. However, while they are talking, the examiner is also profiling the person being examined, watching the various physiological measures as the person talks. Following this, the examiner will discuss in detail the questions that will be asked. For a polygraph to work properly, the only stress should be answering the questions, not wondering what the questions are going to be. After this, the actual test begins. The examiner will usually ask the person taking the test a dozen or so questions, only three or four of which actually relate to the topic under investigation. The others are neutral and control questions that can be used to compare the person’s physiological responses with the responses on relevant questions. A neutral question might be, on a Monday, asking the person being examined if it’s Monday. A control question is a bit more narrowed in its focus. A control question for the investigation of a theft might be, “As a child and teenager, did you ever steal anything?” Since everyone has likely stole something during this time period, no matter how a person answers the question, the examiner can use the physiological

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responses to gauge the responses to relevant questions. During the test the examiner looks for any significant physiological responses accompanying the answers given to relevant questions. Following the polygraph test the examiner will usually discuss any of these significant physiological responses with the exam taker, and ask why there would be such a response. While these can denote possible deception, occasionally a person can have a reason not connected with the truth or falsity of the answer that will explain the reaction. It is then a judgment call on the part of the examiner. An analog polygraph, such as the one used in my first polygraph exam, looks just the ones often seen in movies, with long needles scratching lines onto rolling graph paper. The examiner must look at these marks on the graph and decide what they mean. Many polygraph operators don’t consider analog polygraphs to be as reliable as the newer digital polygraphs. These newer devices have the results going to a computer, which uses various mathematical algorithms to determine the truth or falsity of an answer. Interestingly, when I took my second polygraph test the examiner had me sit on another recent technological innovation: a “countermeasures cushion.” This is a chair cushion that measures the slightest movement of the person being examined. In the past, it has been found that some individuals could skew the results of a polygraph test by clenching their buttocks, biting their cheek, or pressing their toe against a tack hidden inside their shoe when answering the questions. The countermeasures cushion is so sensitive it can detect the heartbeat of the person who sits on it, and consequently will expose any attempts to skew the results of a polygraph test. However, even with the new digital polygraphs and countermeasures cushions, studies still find polygraphs only 70 to 90 percent accurate, depending on whose research you read. One study showed that if 10,000 people were polygraphed to find ten guilty people, 1,600 people would be falsely labeled as guilty and two guilty people would pass.2 As I mentioned earlier, courts usually will not accept the results of polygraph tests as evidence. Personally though, I was much more concerned about the fragility of the polygraph. I was concerned about how much the accurate outcome of a polygraph test depends on the wording of the questions. In my case, for example, switching just one word, from “date” to “number,” changed the polygraph results from possibly deceptive to truthful. The real value though of the polygraph is that the average person believes it works much better than it really does. Individuals who are lying can often be made to tell the truth if the polygraph operator tells them that the machine says they’re lying. An article about polygraphs in the Washington Post said, “Instead, many experts say, the real utility of the polygraph machine, or ‘lie

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detector,’ is that many of the tens of thousands of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works—and thus will frequently admit to things they might not otherwise acknowledge during an interview or interrogation.”3 Fortunately, many members of the criminal population are not well educated, and are often in awe of high-tech equipment. The police use this fact to their advantage. Put simply, we have a suspect who we know is lying. We offer him a polygraph test, which he takes because he hopes that by some fluke the test will not expose his lies. However, when the polygraph examiner stops the test and says that the needles are going off the chart, the person believes that the technology can’t be wrong, breaks down, and admits everything. This happens hundreds of times every day across the United States. Another lie detection device often used in today’s police departments, either in addition to or instead of the polygraph, is the Voice Stress Analyzer. This device works on the theory that a person’s voice modulations change when experiencing the stress caused by lying. A person trained in the use of the Voice Stress Analyzer will watch the changes in modulation when a person answers relevant questions, and decide whether or not they denote deception. A real advantage of this device over the polygraph is that individuals can be tested without their knowledge and it can be used on recorded sessions. However, like the polygraph, research shows that this device falls far short of being a perfect lie detector. Since neither technology is foolproof, police officers realize that the polygraph and the Voice Stress Analyzer are simply individual tools in a large array of tools to be used in an investigation, and should never be the end-all of an investigation. “You use it in conjunction with a good investigation,” said Bill Endler, retired chief of police of the Elkhart (Indiana) Police Department, talking about the Voice Stress Analyzer. “That’s really what it’s about.”4 Presently more than 1,500 law enforcement and correction agencies use the Voice Stress Analyzer.5 In addition, a number of large private companies also utilize this technology when dealing with employees and clients. An article about the Voice Stress Analyzer claims that insurance companies in London, England, have saved 25 percent on fraudulent claims through the use of this device.6 As I mentioned earlier about the polygraph, if people believe that the technology is infallible they will often make confessions and admissions they otherwise wouldn’t. For private citizens interested in getting the truth, a handheld version of the Voice Stress Analyzer called the “Truster” is presently being marketed in the United States. It can be hooked up to a telephone or simply carried in a pocket or purse. In addition, presently under development are eyeglasses fitted with Voice Stress Analyzer technology that will flash green, yellow,

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or red signals, visible only to the person wearing the glasses. These mean true, maybe, or false respectively. Also under development are walk-through lie detectors for locations such as airports. Passengers would be required to stand under these and answer questions, which would be scrutinized by Voice Stress Analyzer technology. Recently, companies have begun marketing a new version of the Voice Stress Analyzer. Called Layered Voice Analysis, this computerized device works by measuring the frequency changes in a person’s voice and putting them into a mathematical algorithm that can show cognitive dissonance if it’s present. If it is, then that means this is an area that the investigator needs to explore further. “It analyzes the voice and alerts the interviewer that there’s something there,” said Dan Westfield, security chief of the Department of Corrections in Wisconsin, whose officers use Layered Voice Analysis. “Let’s start questioning a little deeper on what we’re talking about right now. It helps the interviewer get to the heart of something a little quicker.”7 A number of scientists, however, believe that a physiological change as good as the ones measured by the polygraph or Voice Stress Analyzer is the change in a person’s stomach and gastrointestinal track when lying. A study has shown that changes in gastric “slow waves” could clearly denote the stress that accompanies lying. “The addition of the EGG (electrogastrogram) to standard polygraph methods has clear value in improving the accuracy of current lie detectors,” said Dr. Pankaj Pasricha, a researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch. “The communication between the big brain and the little brain in the stomach can be complex and merits further study.”8 Regardless though of which physiological changes are measured, the fragility of the polygraph and Voice Stress Analyzer has led scientists to attempt to find much more reliable methods of lie detection. The newest area showing great promise is fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). This technology examines the blood flow in a person’s brain when answering questions. Researchers have found that lying takes more effort than telling the truth, requiring a larger blood flow, and that different areas of the brain receive more blood flow when a person is lying, specifically the anterior cinglate and the right superior frontal gyrus. “We can tell if people are lying or telling the truth,” said Dr. Jia-Hong Gao of the University of Texas Research Imaging Center. “The brain has a difference, a blood flow change, people have to think about how they lie, lies use the calculation center of the brain.”9 Many scientists believe that when people lie they must first suppress the truth. Then next, they must think about the lie they are going to tell. As

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mentioned above, this takes much more activity, and consequently much more blood flow, in the brain. “The fact that deception requires extra work in a number of brain regions may indicate that deception involves inhibition of the ‘default’ response— truth,” said Professor Daniel Langleben of the University of Pennsylvania.10 To make this new technology work, test subjects lie with their heads in an fMRI and respond to questions posed on a computer screen. The examiner looks for blood flow patterns, and especially for blood flow patterns in areas of the brain known to be used when lying. This technology shows so much promise that two companies, Cephos Corporation and No Lie MRI, Inc., are offering the use of fMRI machines specifically for lie detection. “fMRI is the next generation of truth detection technology,” says the Cephos Corporation’s Web site.11 According to a June 2006 article in USA Today, No Lie MRI, Inc. plans to charge $30 a minute for the use of their equipment.12 Research is also presently underway into the use of infrared rays to detect changes in the blood flow in the brain. This technology would be a much less expensive alternative (fMRIs can run as high as $3 million), and would be portable. Also, using this technology, researchers believe it would be possible to do the lie detection exam without the person being tested knowing it. The fMRI, on the other hand, since individuals must stick their heads in the machine and keep them still, requires a person’s cooperation. Another recent scientific breakthrough in lie detection is known as “brain fingerprinting.” The brainchild of Dr. Larry Farwell, this system uses a headband with sensors to detect brain waves that are activated when a person is looking at information. Dr. Farwell discovered that there is a brain wave known as a P300 MERMER that is involuntarily activated whenever a person sees something he or she recognizes. Consequently, if a person is shown a picture of the murder weapon in a homicide case, a weapon that hasn’t been disclosed to the public, the murderer will recognize this weapon and a P300 MERMER will be involuntarily activated in his or her brain. An innocent person who has never seen the weapon will have no such response. “Brain fingerprinting is a scientific technique for determining whether certain information is stored in the brain or not by measuring brain waves, electrical brain activity,” said Dr. Farwell. He added, “When you recognize something, there’s certain information processing that takes place in the brain at the moment of recognition. And that’s the information that we pick up.”13 Dr. Farwell’s technology has undergone several rigorous tests, including one in which he was asked to identify which men out of a large group of men were FBI agents. Using something only an FBI agent would recognize, Dr. Farwell had a 100 percent accuracy rate in finding the FBI agents. His technology has had similar results in other tests.

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“If we can do this with the FBI, we can do this with organized crime; the KGB, or its successor SVR; and now with terrorist groups, Al Qaeda and so forth,” said Dr. Drew Richardson, who works with Dr. Farwell.14 Of course, while this technology couldn’t be used in pre-employment screening and certain other lie detection tasks, it could still prove extremely valuable to the police in either ruling out or pinpointing a suspect in an investigation. This technology is so reliable that it has already been accepted as evidence in court and has set free a man falsely convicted of murder. In 1977, a jury in Iowa convicted then sixteen-year-old Terry Harrington of the murder of a retired police officer who worked as a night watchman. Dr. Farwell, however, tested Harrington, showing him various items the actual murderer would recognize. His brain showed no recognition. On the other hand, when Dr. Farwell showed Harrington items from his alibi, which the jury had rejected, his brain showed recognition. Because Dr. Farwell’s work is backed by so much scientific research, the Iowa court system accepted his work with Harrington, and on February 26, 2003, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed Harrington’s murder conviction. Interestingly, the expert hired by the prosecution in the Harrington case called Dr. Farwell’s work “impeccable” and “totally perfect.” Other areas scientists are presently investigating regarding lie detection include infrared eye scanning. Research has shown that the temperature around a person’s eyes changes when lying. Other researchers are looking at subtle body movements and facial expressions that denote lying, but which are often made too quickly for an interrogator to pick up. “Looking for what we call ‘micro-expressions’ and ‘micro-gestures’ associated with deception would be a major leap over today’s polygraph technology, which is time consuming and requires professional administration,” said Professor Dimitris Metaxas of Rutgers University.15 Of course, in order to administer any kind of lie detection technology, the police must first have a suspect, and this usually involves gathering evidence at the crime scene and other locations that will point to the person responsible for the crime. One of the best, and most definitive, pieces of evidence the police can recover is a fingerprint. As we will see in the next chapter, though always valuable in criminal cases, fingerprints, because of recent advances in technology, have now become extremely valuable.

CHAPTER NINE

Automated Fingerprint Identification Beginning in the early 1990s, someone began dumping the chopped-up bodies of middle-aged men along roads in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Autopsies revealed that all of the men had been stabbed to death before being cut into pieces. After their deaths, each of the victims, the police discovered, had been put into multiple layers of plastic trash bags. Even though the police believed there might be fingerprints on the plastic bags, no scientific method existed at that time for finding and recovering them. Still, detectives sent the bags to the police property room. The news media, picking up on this string of killings, dubbed the murderer as the “Last Call Killer.” This name came from the fact that many of these men were last seen in gay bars at closing time. As might be expected, these killings caused considerable concern in the gay community in the Northeast. In 2000, Canadian police began using a process called vacuum metal deposition. This process involved placing an item into a vacuum chamber and then evaporating gold atoms into the chamber. These atoms would adhere to any fingerprint residue. Following this, in order to clarify the fingerprints, technicians used the same procedure with zinc atoms. While this was an expensive, time-consuming procedure to use, and consequently available only for the most important, heinous cases, it would find fingerprints on items such as plastic trash bags. Hearing about this new method for recovering difficult fingerprints, the New Jersey State Police sent over 40 of the plastic trash bags that had held body parts to the Toronto Police Service to see if this new process could recover any fingerprints from them. After completing the vacuum metal deposition on the bags, the Toronto police indeed found many fingerprints

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on them. Once all of these fingerprints had been collected and examined, the police discovered something important to the case. Although technicians found fingerprints from several individuals on the bags, they found the same set of fingerprints on all of the bags. However, this set of fingerprints didn’t match anyone in the files the New Jersey State Police had access to. So the investigation stalled. Then, in 2001, the state of Maine went online with a statewide Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). Maine also linked its information with the FBI’s national network of state AFIS computers, IAFIS. Consequently, New Jersey authorities then had access to it. Although we talked in Chapter One, and will go into detail later in this chapter, about how AFIS works, basically it is a complex computer system that digitizes fingerprints and then enters this digitized code into a computer database. Police officers can then have a fingerprint recovered at a crime scene digitized and compared with those stored in the computer’s memory. In the cases of the murdered and dismembered men, the state of Maine, New Jersey State Police found, had fingerprints in their AFIS file that matched the ones the police had found on all of the over forty plastic trash bags. The police lab in Toronto had found nine of ten fingerprints that the state of Maine said belonged to Richard W. Rogers, a surgical nurse who worked at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. In 1973, Rogers had beaten an acquaintance to death with a hammer and then dumped his body, wrapped in a tent, in a wooded area in Maine. Rogers, after being arrested for this killing, claimed self-defense, and a jury acquitted him. However, because of his arrest, the police in Maine had his fingerprints on file, which later became part of their AFIS database. On October 26, 2005, Rogers appeared before a court in Toms River, New Jersey, charged with the murders of two men. While the police only charged Rogers with the murders they believe he committed in New Jersey, the judge in the case ruled that he would allow testimony about two nearly identical murders in other jurisdictions, killings the police believe Rogers also committed. Rogers’ attorney unsuccessfully challenged the scientific technique for recovering the fingerprints, and the fact that his client’s fingerprints on all of the bags only meant that he had touched the bags, not necessarily killed the men, whose chopped up parts had been stuffed inside them. However, during the trial, witnesses placed Rogers with several of the victims just before they disappeared. In addition, the police scoured Rogers’ work record and found that he had taken days off from work that coincided with the four murders. After the prosecution rested its case, Rogers decided not to testify, and his attorney didn’t call any witnesses on his behalf.

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On November 10, 2005, following less than four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict against Rogers on the two counts of murder. The judge sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences. Under New Jersey law, this means he must serve at least sixty-five years before being considered for parole. Rogers was fifty-five at the time of his sentencing. “We think that this is a good thing,” said Clarence Patton, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. “A lot of people have been waiting quite a long time for some justice.”1 a a a As this anecdote clearly shows, the introduction of AFIS technology has revolutionized criminal investigation. As we talked about briefly in the first chapter, although identification through fingerprints had been around for almost a century, until the advent of AFIS, a fingerprint recovered at a crime scene held little evidentiary value if the authorities didn’t have a known suspect to match it against. Typically, most large police departments had millions of fingerprints on file in their identification section (ten from each person). To manually compare a recovered fingerprint against all of these would take years for each case. Consequently, recovered fingerprints from crimes with no suspect simply went into the case file, to be used only if sometime in the future the investigation did turn up a suspect. However, with the advent of AFIS, many police departments began pulling out their old crime files and running the once useless fingerprints through the new system, seeing if they could get a match. The success rate in doing this has been tremendous. Hundreds of previously unsolved cases across the United States have now been solved through the use of AFIS, some of these cases decades old. The police in New Orleans, for example, recently solved the September 1976 rape and murder of a seventy-seven-year-old woman. Although the police had recovered a fingerprint from a piece of glass at the crime scene, they had no suspect to match it against, and so it sat in the file for years. However, after running it through the FBI’s Integrated AFIS system (IAFIS), which we will talk about below, they got a match. When confronted by the police, the suspect confessed to the thirty-year-old murder. In September 2004, the police in Louisville, Kentucky, closed a 1991 murder case. Kawain D. Woods pled guilty to the murder of Joseph Keith Brown, who he had robbed and shot to death. Although the police at the crime scene recovered fingerprints in Brown’s car, in 1991 they held little value, but with the advent of AFIS they broke the case. “This has been a long time coming,” said Brown’s sister about the guilty plea.2

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As a final example of the value of AFIS in solving old cases, in February 2005, the police in Chicago arrested Jacob Jameson, who had been named chicagopoetry.com’s poet of the month. A routine computer check meant to find people who had used an alias when arrested found that Jacob Jameson was not his real name. He was actually Norman Porter, Jr., a convicted murderer who had escaped from a prison in Massachusetts over twenty years before. The Chicago police had arrested and fingerprinted him under the name Jameson in 1993, before AFIS, for failing to pay for a roofing job. Until the advent of DNA analysis, which we will talk about in the next chapter, AFIS was the biggest leap forward in criminal investigation and identification since the introduction of fingerprints in the early 1900s. Before this, in the late 1800s, the police, in order to positively identify criminals, had used a system called Bertillonage, named after its developer Alphonse Bertillon. This identification system involved the meticulous measurement of various bony body parts, which Bertillon believed stayed stable over a lifetime and were not identical in any two people. However, a 1903 case involving two individuals incarcerated at Leavenworth Penitentiary, who did share strikingly similar Bertillon measurements, led police agencies to begin looking for a better method of positive identification. (It was later discovered that the two men were actually identical twins, but apparently had been separated and were unaware of each other.) For some time before the 1903 case it had been known that fingerprints were unique to each individual, even for identical twins, since they form through environmental factors. Consequently, at the start of the twentieth century police departments switched from Bertillonage and began adopting fingerprints as their method of identification. Following this, little changed until the advent of AFIS technology in the 1980s. Put simply, how AFIS works is that a fingerprint is entered into an AFIS computer, and the computer then scans and records the unique features of the fingerprint. It looks at the ridges and valleys of the fingerprint, measuring the distance between them. It also looks at ridge endings; at bifurcations, which are where ridges spit into two; at spurs, which are small ridges that branch off of larger ridges; dots, which are pieces of ridges approximately the same width and length; lakes, which are where a ridge splits into two and then rejoins soon afterward; and many other markings that make a fingerprint unique. The AFIS computer then converts all of this information into a computer code that goes into its memory database. However, when an AFIS computer searches a fingerprint recovered at a crime scene, the computer doesn’t do what I saw on television recently: split out a picture of the person the fingerprint belongs to. Instead, because fingerprints recovered at crime scenes are seldom as good a quality as fingerprints

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taken voluntarily, an AFIS computer will, rather than a picture, bring up a list of close matches to the recovered fingerprint. A fingerprint technician must then compare the fingerprints of these close matches with the fingerprint recovered from the crime scene to see which one actually matches it. Although AFIS first made its appearance in police departments in the United States in the 1980s, it took some time before all major police departments across the country finally converted to it. As the anecdote at the beginning of this chapter indicated, Maine did not begin using a statewide AFIS until 2001. The reason for this delay in police departments converting to AFIS is not just because an AFIS computer system is expensive, often running into the millions of dollars, but also because to make the system work all of the fingerprint cards collected by a police department over the previous fifty to sixty years must be converted to AFIS language, which can be a tedious, time-consuming task. In the 1990s, many states began networking the AFIS computers of the police departments within their state, but criminals, it has been found, often move between states, as Richard W. Rogers did in the anecdote at the beginning of this chapter. Consequently, in the late 1990s, the FBI began developing its IAFIS system, which became operational in July 1999. This is not a stand-alone system, but rather a networking of state AFIS computers. Using IAFIS, the police in Florida can put a recovered fingerprint into the system, and will know if the fingerprint belongs to a person who has been arrested in Oregon. As of January 2006, IAFIS had access to nearly 49 million fingerprint cards. The FBI is already planning its next generation IAFIS. This system will include information besides fingerprints, such as mug shots. In addition, it will have what is called a “rapback function.” What this involves is if a person is fingerprinted for a job that requires a records check, then the FBI will in the future notify the employer if the person’s fingerprints are taken or recovered in relation to a crime.3 Interestingly though, detectives have discovered, nearly as often as finding fingerprints at a crime scene they will find palm prints. Like fingerprints, before AFIS palm prints held little value if the police didn’t have a suspect to match them against. In the last few years though a number of police departments have begun using their AFIS computers for palm prints, and similar to when AFIS for fingerprints went online, old crimes began being solved. “Sometimes because of the type of surface that somebody is grabbing or the location of the surface they touch, the only part that actually keeps any ridge detail is the palm,” said Captain Jutta Chambers of the Henderson (Nevada) Police Department, whose agency recently began using their AFIS computer for palm prints.4

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Often however, rather than identifying a crime scene fingerprint or palm print, the police instead want to positively identify a person they have stopped or have in custody. Good police officers know that they can never depend on the name a person gives them when asked, nor can they often depend on identification, which can be forged. AFIS has solved this problem. In Indianapolis, for example, we had a man who security officials at Indianapolis International Airport discovered had several illegal guns hidden in his checked luggage. Although he gave officers at the airport a name, they felt certain it was phony. Consequently, officers at the airport took his fingerprints, sent them to IAFIS, and then transported the man downtown to police headquarters for questioning. Before he got there, through IAFIS, airport officers already knew his real name and that he was wanted for bank robbery in Alabama. Another identification problem that police officers face is that often they will stop individuals on the street under questionable circumstances and these individuals will either claim to have no identification, or will give what the officers feel certain is a phony name. In the past, officers have had to physically transport these individuals to police headquarters in order to have them fingerprinted for identification, a process that could take an hour or longer. Technology has stepped in and solved this problem. A new handheld device, called a mobile AFIS, can take an electronic fingerprint on the street. Then, using wireless technology, it can run the fingerprint through the police department’s AFIS computer, usually coming back with an identification within minutes. On some models, officers don’t need to send the fingerprint to their identification bureau. Some mobile AFIS systems have their own memory that can store thousands of fingerprints. This can be a useful bit of technology when looking for gang members or wanted criminals. Also, a mobile AFIS can be useful when issuing traffic tickets. This device can settle the claim many individuals will make that they weren’t the one the officer gave the traffic ticket to. “AFIS technology has already proven itself,” said Kelly Gallagher of NEC Solutions America, a manufacturer of AFIS equipment. “Now this technology can be accessible where it is needed most—in the field.”5 This mobile AFIS technology, incidentally, can also be useful in identifying crime victims. For example, in February 2006, the police in Minnesota found the body of a stabbing victim dumped in a wooded area of Mille Lacs County. Through using a mobile AFIS to run the victim’s fingerprints, the police identified him as Thomas Lawrence Reyna of Minneapolis. With this identification, the police connected the body with a crime scene in Minneapolis, where his murder had apparently taken place. The police subsequently arrested Emilio Escalera Marrufo and charged him with murder.

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“It worked out really well,” said Mille Lacs County Sheriff Brent Lindgren.6 Along with its many uses in criminal identification and investigation, AFIS has also found a home in jails and detention centers. Far too often, news reports tell about an inmate, often a dangerous one, who jail personnel accidentally release because they mistake him for someone else scheduled for release. Now, many jails and detention centers use AFIS machines to positively identify all inmates before being released. The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department in Kansas, for example, released ten prisoners between 2001 and 2005 who shouldn’t have been released. “Any time we’re dealing with people, we have human errors,” said Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed about the erroneous releases.7 In November 2005, in an effort to cut down on these human errors, the sheriff’s department installed an AFIX Verifier System, which matches the fingerprints of inmates with their names. Finally, along with the many benefits AFIS has for criminal identification, fingerprint recovery has also increased in importance to the police because researchers have found that fingerprints found at crime scenes, even smudged, unusable ones, can often contain DNA. “Investigators should be aware that a DNA profile can be obtained from a wide array of fingerprints and provides additional data from the evidence, but not all fingerprints will yield interpretable DNA profiles,” said Dr. Robert Bever of the Bode Technology Group.8 Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York explained why DNA may or may not be available in a fingerprint. “Some people upon touching things slough off more cells from the skin of their fingertips than others,” he said. “How many cells they slough off depends, in part, on whether they’re sweating a lot, for example. Or, there could be health-related reasons that cause some people to slough off more skin cells than others.”9 As we will see in the next chapter, like AFIS, the introduction of DNA analysis has resulted in a huge increase in criminal identification and later conviction in court. In many ways, DNA rivals fingerprints as conclusive evidence of presence at a crime scene. However, often more important to the investigation, unlike fingerprints, DNA can also often show a criminal’s actions at a crime scene.

CHAPTER TEN

DNA Analysis

On Friday evening, July 12, 2002, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the husband of Pam Kinamore returned home from work to find that his wife’s car was there, but she wasn’t. After looking around, he discovered she hadn’t left a note and he didn’t remember her telling him about having to go anywhere. Pam owned an antique store in nearby Denham Springs, and her husband knew it just wasn’t like her to simply leave and not say where she would be. He began to worry. Several hours later, with still no word from Pam, her husband called the police. The officers at first didn’t believe that Pam had encountered any foul play, and thought it likely she would return soon. The police often find that people reported missing return on their own soon after someone files a report. However, as the days passed with no word from Pam, foul play became more and more likely. Her family, becoming frightened and desperate, began handing out flyers with Pam’s picture on them. They also offered a reward for her safe return. Five days after Pam’s husband made the missing persons report, a state survey crew saw what appeared to be a naked body beneath the Whisky Bay Bridge in Southern Louisiana, just west of Baton Rouge. They immediately called the police. Quickly-arriving officers discovered that the nude body belonged to Pam Kinamore. An autopsy would later show that she had been sexually assaulted and had died from a slit throat. The police now began to worry. Not just because of this one murder, but because the circumstances of it bore striking similarities to the murders of two other local women in the preceding months.

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On September 23, 2001, the police had found forty-one-year-old Gina Wilson Green dead in her home in Baton Rouge. An autopsy showed that she had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death. Eight months later, on May 31, 2002, the roommate of twenty-two-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace found her roommate’s body in the townhouse they shared in Baton Rouge. Pace had been sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death. Because the police feared that they might have a serial killer on the loose, they arranged to have a DNA comparison made. The results soon showed that the same man had sexually assaulted and killed all three women. The police no longer wondered, but now knew that Baton Rouge did have a serial killer on the loose. And, unfortunately, he wasn’t through. On November 24, 2002, hunters in St. Landry Parish, west of Baton Rouge, stumbled onto the nude body of twenty-three-year-old Treneisha Dene Colomb. An autopsy showed that she had been sexually assaulted and then beaten to death. DNA tests showed that the same man who had killed the other three women also killed Colomb. Earlier, in August 2002, because the serial killer was crossing jurisdictional lines, the police had formed a forty-officer task force. This group included officers from the Baton Rouge Police Department, the FBI, the Louisiana State Police, and several nearby sheriff’s departments. Police administrators hoped that by forming this task force, information sharing and communication between the departments would be much smoother. The police task force, as a part of their effort to catch the man responsible for the sexual assaults and murders, began asking local men to voluntarily give DNA samples. The police took more than 700 samples by swabbing the inside of the men’s mouths. A complaint heard from several of the men, however, was that their sample wasn’t really voluntary, but rather that they only gave it in response to intense pressure from the police. In addition to this, the authorities, in the hope of convincing anyone with knowledge about the crimes to come forward, began posting information about the serial killer on outdoor electronic billboards. The Lamar Advertising Company donated six of these. However, despite the efforts of the police task force, the serial killer continued. On March 13, 2003, a man fishing near the bridge where, in the previous year, the state survey crew had found the body of Pam Kinamore, saw another body in the water. He called the police, who quickly arrived and discovered that the body belonged to twenty-six-year-old Carrie Lynn Yoder. She had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death. DNA tests showed that the serial killer had struck again. Finally, in May 2003, the police task force at last got a break. One of the DNA samples the police had taken from local men matched the DNA

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from the murder scenes. This DNA sample, the police discovered, belonged to thirty-four-year-old Derrick Todd Lee. However, when the police went to arrest Lee they found that he had fled. Upon investigation, the police discovered that on the day Lee had given his DNA sample, he and his wife had pulled their two children out of school and fled town, telling people that they were moving to Los Angeles. “You have to be glad because it seems inevitable, I hope, that they will catch him,” said the mother of Charlotte Pace when told that the police had identified Lee as her daughter’s killer. “That means no one else will die, and that’s all that matters. Of course, I wish it had happened sooner.”1 On May 27, 2003, the police in Atlanta arrested Lee at a hotel where he was staying. He waived extradition to Louisiana, and once the police returned him there they charged him with the rape and murder of five women. Eventually, through DNA analysis, he would also be charged with other sexual assaults and murders, including the January 2002 murder of twenty-one-year-old Geralyn DeSoto, who had been beaten and stabbed to death. Lee, incidentally, even before he gave his DNA sample, had been well known to the police. His name had reportedly been submitted to the task force as a possible suspect. Lee had started his criminal career as a peeping Tom while a teenager. As an adult, he soon progressed to burglary, stalking, robbery, battery, and attempted murder. Yet, even though progressing to more and more serious crimes, the police had continued to arrest him as an adult for peeping into dwellings. Lee’s first trial, for the murder of Geralyn DeSoto, got underway on August 5, 2004. At the trial, a victim of Lee, who had escaped death because her son had returned home and scared Lee away, positively identified him as the man who had attacked and attempted to rape her. Lee’s son also testified for the prosecution. He identified a knife and pair of boots that the police had connected to the crime as belonging to his father. During the trial, Desoto’s husband described coming home and finding his wife. “I noticed her face was swollen and bruised,” he told the jury. “I turned her head a little bit and at that moment I saw her throat was cut wide open.”2 With all of the evidence the prosecution presented, particularly the DNA evidence that positively linked Lee to the crime, it took the jury less than two hours to convict him. A judge later sentenced Lee to life imprisonment without parole. In September 2004, Lee’s trial for the rape and murder of Charlotte Pace began. Experts testified that the DNA recovered at the crime scene absolutely belonged to Lee, with the chances of it belonging to someone else being one in 3,600 trillion. The prosecution also presented DNA evidence from several other of the rapes and murders that linked them to Lee.

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The jury, on October 12, 2004, after deliberating a little over an hour, found Lee guilty of Pace’s murder. At the sentencing hearing, Lee’s attorney pleaded for his client’s life. “I don’t know what kind of evil must have descended upon that man to produce what you saw in those pictures,” he told the court. “I do not understand that evil. I do not fathom that evil. But evil is not defeated by sticking a needle in an arm.”3 However, despite Lee’s attorney’s impassioned plea, in December 2004, a judge sentenced Lee to die by lethal injection. The prosecutor in the case, John Sinquefield, applauded the sentence and said, “Tonight the south Louisiana serial killer got south Louisiana justice, and south Louisiana justice for the serial killer is the death penalty.”4 a a a In 1984, British scientist Sir Alec Jeffries discovered that each person’s DNA contains parts that are unique to that person. Two years later, the police in England made use of this discovery. They employed it to eliminate one man as a rape suspect and to help convict the real rapist. Nuclear DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is, of course, the blueprint for our bodies, an identical copy of which we carry in the nucleus of almost all of our cells. Because it is a blueprint for a person’s body, it is unique, except for identical twins. “DNA profiling,” says criminologist and DNA expert Keith Inman, “examines small sections of human DNA that are known to vary among people. It is similar to ABO blood group typing in the sense that different people have different types, but is far more discriminating. DNA has the potential to discriminate between all people, except for identical twins.”5 DNA evidence at crime scenes, it has been found, can come from almost any bodily residue left behind, including such things as skin cells, saliva, blood, hair, semen, sweat, and ear wax. As evidence, DNA is valuable not only because it can pinpoint a specific person as the one who left it at the crime scene, but also because it is extremely durable. Properly stored evidence can retain usable DNA for decades. Even attempts to destroy DNA evidence don’t always work. When, for example, a rapist killed twenty-nine-year-old Linda Massey in March 1990, he covered her body, both inside and out, with paint and caulk in the hope it would stymie any evidence collection by the police. Despite this, the police managed to obtain and preserve semen from Massey’s body. In May 2004, a match to the DNA from this semen led to the arrest of Albert E. Hill, who had been sentenced to prison on a burglary charge, and who, because of this burglary conviction, had been required by law to give a DNA sample.

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As the incidents above involving Lee and Hill clearly show, in the last decade DNA technology has revolutionized criminal investigation and identification. At least as important, and possibly more important, than fingerprints, DNA can not only positively prove a person’s presence at a crime scene, but can also often tell detectives some of the perpetrator’s actions. For example, semen or pubic hairs left on a murdered rape victim clearly point to the owner of these as the rapist and likely the murderer. This can also prove true for DNA from saliva where an attacker may have licked or bit a victim. DNA from blood at a crime scene that doesn’t match the victim can show detectives that a suspect likely injured him or herself, and consequently these detectives will want to be certain to look for wounds when questioning any suspects. If wounds are indeed present, then a DNA sample from these individuals can place them at the crime scene. Because DNA analysis is so specific in identifying the DNA’s owner, all states have now established DNA banks, where they store DNA samples from known criminals in a computer database. This database can then be accessed and compared whenever the police recover an unknown DNA sample at a crime scene. Different states, however, have different requirements for whose DNA will be included in their DNA bank. Some states only include criminals convicted of major crimes such as murder and rape, while others include DNA from anyone in the state convicted of a felony. As state DNA banks continue to grow larger and larger, the police are making more and more arrests because of them, and consequently many officials are seeking to expand the parameters of who must give DNA samples. In New York, for example, Governor George E. Pataki campaigned for passage of his All-Crimes DNA Bill, which would require DNA samples from all convicted felons. “DNA is widely heralded as the fingerprint of the 21st century,” said Governor Pataki, “but more than half of the individuals who are convicted of felony offenses in the State are still not required to provide a DNA sample for inclusion in our DNA bank.”6 A study in New York showed that individuals linked to a crime through DNA had an average of twelve prior convictions, often for crimes not requiring a DNA sample.7 Presently, forty-three states collect DNA from all felons, while eighteen states also collect DNA samples for some misdemeanor convictions (misdemeanors are generally minor crimes that are punishable by a fine or a less than one-year sentence, usually served in the county jail; felonies are serious crimes, usually punishable by at least a year in prison). In Illinois, although everyone now convicted of a felony must give a DNA sample after sentencing, individuals already in prison serving sentences before the legislature passed this requirement were not mandated to give a

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DNA sample. In June 2005, the Illinois Legislature passed a law requiring all inmates in state prisons to also give a DNA sample. In California, in November 2004, voters approved Proposition 69. This proposition would expand the state DNA bank to include, beginning in 2009, DNA samples from individuals arrested for, but not necessarily convicted of, a felony. Similar to what the FBI did with state AFIS systems, in which they networked the state systems through their Integrated AFIS system, in 1998, the FBI launched the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). This is a linking of the various state DNA banks. Like IAFIS can do with fingerprints, because of CODIS, a DNA sample now collected at a Virginia crime scene can be matched to a DNA profile in the New Mexico DNA bank. According to an article in Law Enforcement Technology, “CODIS integrates the information obtained under state DNA data systems and makes it available on a nationwide basis by matching DNA collected at crime scenes to DNA profiles of convicted offenders or to DNA found at the scenes of other crimes.”8 As of November 2006, CODIS had access to about 3.8 million DNA profiles.9 And much like what AFIS did for old criminal cases that had fingerprints that couldn’t be used at the time, detectives are now taking DNA from hundreds of old cases out of police property rooms and sending it to the lab to see if technicians can get an identification. The success so far, as with AFIS, has been spectacular. In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the police arrested a man who they said had strangled to death at least twelve women from 1977 to 1993. The women, mostly prostitutes; who had been strangled with shoe laces, panty hose, and wire; had been found all over Kansas City. However, until DNA analysis became available the police didn’t connect the twelve slayings. In April 2004, the police took Lorenzo J. Gilyard, an employee of a trash-hauling company, into custody and charged him with ten counts of first-degree murder and two counts of capital murder. Gilyard, not surprisingly, had a long criminal history, including charges of child molestation, other sex crimes, and burglary. The police matched Gilyard’s DNA with bodily residue samples they had taken off of the victims’ bodies and preserved, even though this evidence was of little value at the time. “It’s a blessing,” said the sister of one of Gilyard’s victims. “Thank God for DNA.”10 On October 21, 1991, twenty-eight-year-old Patricia Ann Scoville of Honeoye, Vermont, disappeared while riding her bicycle. Eight days later, the police found her body in a shallow grave. The case, however, stalled

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after this with no arrest. Then in April 2005, the police matched DNA taken from the victim’s body to Howard G. Godfrey of Kirby, Vermont. The police charged him with Scoville’s rape and murder. Godfrey had previously been convicted of assault and attempted murder in 1996. When the state released Godfrey on parole in 2000, they required that he provide a DNA sample. Interestingly, the parents of Patricia Scoville had, in the years since her murder, lobbied tirelessly for the Vermont DNA bank. “That’s what we believed would happen,” said Patricia’s father. “We had belief in the system.”11 The Salt Lake City Police Department, in July 2004, announced that they had solved the twenty-eight-year-old rape and murder of Carolyn Sarkessian. Over a quarter century before, the police had found the twenty-four-yearold victim’s body in a trailer behind a Salt Lake City Probation Halfway House. An autopsy showed that she had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death. The case, though, then went cold. However, based on a 2004 DNA analysis of evidence left at the crime scene, the police arrested twice-convicted rapist Gayle G. Benavidez. How powerful is DNA analysis? Are the incidents above only isolated cases? Hardly. According to a December 2005 article in USA Today, “Working mostly with local funds, Florida and Virginia, two leaders in DNA testing, have solved nearly 1,000 rape cases by comparing genetic evidence from crime scenes with the DNA profiles of convicted criminals in databases kept by all 50 states and the U.S. government.”12 This result above, incidentally, is only for two states. Actually, the power of DNA analysis is so great, according to the article, that over two dozen states have extended or eliminated the statute of limitations for crimes where DNA evidence is involved.13 Also now, because of the power of DNA analysis, evidence that in previous years would have been seen as useless can suddenly be the key that solves crimes. Cigarette butts are a good example. In May 2006, Sumter County (Florida) police made an arrest on a nineteen-year-old murder based on DNA taken from the saliva on cigarette butts found at the crime scene. In Crothersville, Indiana, in March 2006, Anthony Ray Stockelman pled guilty to the sexual assault and murder of ten-year-old Katie Coleman. When the police found Katie’s body, they had no suspects. However, DNA from cigarette butts found near the girl’s body pointed the police toward Stockelman. Sometimes though, all the police have as evidence is a shaft of hair, and not the root, where the nuclear DNA would be. Or the police may have human remains in which the nuclear DNA has degraded beyond use. Fortunately, scientists can still often extract Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). While not as

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definitive as nuclear DNA, mtDNA, which is inherited from the mother, can still trace an ancestral line through the mother to her children. According to an article in The Arizona Republic, “The analysis isn’t a unique identification like nuclear DNA, but it can identify an ancestral line since a mother, her siblings, her children and her daughter’s children will have identical mtDNA.”14 As noted above, mtDNA cannot make a positive identification because multiple people can carry the same mtDNA. However, it can show that a person is a member of a certain family, which can be very useful for identifying unknown remains. DNA analysis, as we talked about above, though becoming a force in law enforcement in the twenty-first century, actually began being used by the police in the mid-1980s. However, like most new technology, it took some time to be accepted by the courts and to become sophisticated enough to pinpoint one person as the owner of the DNA. Its use by the police in the United States began in Florida in 1987 when the police finally caught a man named Tommie Lee Andrews, who they believed was responsible for almost two dozen rapes in six months. Even though they had recovered his fingerprints from a crime scene window and had a positive identification from one of his victims, the police wanted to make sure the court held Andrews responsible for all of his crimes. To do this, the prosecution attempted to introduce DNA evidence. Semen samples from the rapes had been tested against blood samples from Andrews, and the laboratory had found a positive match. This was the first time DNA evidence had been used in a criminal case in the United States, and so consequently it had to pass some very stringent tests that the courts have set up before they will allow new technology to be introduced as evidence. New technology must be scientifically sound and accepted as valid by the scientific community. After a long, involved pre-trial hearing, the court finally admitted the DNA evidence, and after a couple of trials Andrews eventually received a 115-year sentence. Since then, the use of DNA analysis in criminal cases has literally exploded. Of course, a serious, yet not totally unexpected, problem has developed because of the success of DNA analysis. Due to its success, the police are submitting thousands and thousands of samples every year for analysis. This has led to a huge backlog, sometimes measured in years, before a DNA analysis can be completed. For example, a 2001 survey of public DNA laboratories by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that between 1997 and 2000 these laboratories experienced a 73 percent increase in their case work and a 135 percent increase in their case backlog.15 As might be imagined, this caseload and backlog only continues to increase each year. The National Institute of Justice estimates that there are presently between 200,000 and 300,000 convicted offender samples taken but not yet tested.16 Also, it is

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estimated that nationwide 180,000 rape kits (containing evidence recovered from rape victims) have not yet been analyzed for DNA.17 “There is a logjam in the lab system,” said Christopher Asplen, executive director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.18 Lawmakers and scientists have consequently been searching for ways to speed up the process of DNA analysis. For example, presently researchers are developing DNA chip technology, which would use nanotechnology to speed up DNA analysis. Also, researchers have developed technology that combines robotics and computer software in a process that greatly increases the speed of DNA analysis. Systems using this technology are already in place in Florida and Illinois. On the political side, President Bush proposed spending $232.6 million to improve the handling of DNA evidence, and then to continue this funding level for five years. Congress agreed and passed the “Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology” bill.19 Still, the backlog for DNA analysis has gotten so bad that some crime victims elect to pay with their own money to have the DNA from their crimes sent to private laboratories, which have a much faster turnaround time. Of course, if science can find a way to speed up DNA analysis so that it can be used as much as needed, the police will greatly increase their solution rate for many crimes. For example, burglars and auto thieves often leave DNA evidence behind, but because their crimes don’t compare in magnitude with murder and rape, they fall far down on the priority list for DNA analysis. According to a November 2004 report from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Property crime offenders have high recidivism rates, their crimes and violence can escalate, and property crime cases often go unsolved.” However, this report goes on to say, “When they analyze DNA from a burglary, they get evidence that often solves several other cases as well.”20 In Oregon, which has over 71,000 DNA profiles in its DNA database, almost half of the nearly 1,000 hits that have been made from this database are linked to burglary cases.21 In addition though to identifying criminals, DNA can also be used to identify bodies found by the police. Often, I found when I headed the Indianapolis Police Department Homicide Branch, the victims of murder would have a sample in the DNA bank. In addition, events like 9/11 have demonstrated how important matching DNA from unrecognizable remains to family members can be. In furtherance of this, the FBI presently maintains the Missing Person DNA Database, which contains the DNA of recovered, but unidentifiable, human remains. Interestingly, while DNA evidence can be used to positively identify a suspect in a crime, it can also be used to draw the picture of a suspect whose DNA may not be on file. For example, in the anecdote at the beginning of

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this chapter involving Derrick Todd Lee, the police at first believed they were hunting for a white male. However, that changed when a DNA analysis of evidence left at the crime scenes showed that the perpetrator was instead 85 percent Sub-Saharan African and 15 percent Native American. A company named DNAPrint Genomics, Inc., which did the analysis in the Lee case, was able to tell a person’s ancestry with 100 percent accuracy in tests with blind DNA samples from two police departments. To obtain this ability, the company reportedly examined over 25,000 genetic markers to find 176 that designate a person’s ancestry. They now also claim to have the means to detect to a 92 percent accuracy a person’s eye color through DNA analysis.22 As might be imagined, if the police can get a picture of the major physical characteristics of a suspect from his or her DNA, this information, along with narrowing down their search, can also narrow down the number of mug shots a victim would need to view. Computerized mug shot systems used by police departments today are able to pull up pictures of individuals with only certain physical characteristics. Of course, while DNA analysis can be used to point the police toward a suspect, and also help convict him or her later in court, it can also do the opposite. It can eliminate certain suspects for the police, allowing them to then concentrate their efforts on more likely suspects. For example, recently in Portland, Oregon, the police felt certain they had the right man in a robbery case. They were ready to close in and arrest him when the crime lab reported back on the DNA analysis of evidence left at a crime scene by the robber. “They had the case all ready to go,” said Brian Ostrom, DNA unit supervisor. “But we had to tell them, ‘Sorry, you’ve got the wrong man.’” The DNA evidence instead identified another man who the police hadn’t even suspected.23 Also, along with pinpointing the correct suspect, DNA analysis can also be used to exonerate those already convicted of a crime before DNA analysis became available. Or maybe not. a a a Death penalty opponents have for some time been searching for a recent execution in which the person’s innocence could be proven beyond a doubt. They have been hunting for an executed person who could be totally exonerated by scientific testing. DNA analysis, they thought, could do this. In 1992, the state of Virginia executed Roger Keith Coleman for the 1981 rape and near-decapitation murder of his sister-in-law Wanda Fay McCoy. From the time of his arrest until his execution in the electric chair, Coleman steadfastly maintained his innocence. His apparent sincerity in proclaiming that he had nothing at all to do with his sister-in-law’s death convinced many

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people to believe in him. So naturally, death penalty opponents were elated when the state of Virginia, at the urging of a group called the Centurion Ministries, agreed to do DNA tests, which weren’t available at Coleman’s trial. Much to the dismay of these death penalty opponents, however, the tests conclusively proved that Coleman had indeed committed the crimes for which the state executed him. “We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the Commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction,” said Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner. “The confirmation that Roger Coleman’s DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and sanction. Again, my prayers are with the family of Wanda McCoy at this time.”24 a a a A fact that many people who do not regularly deal with psychopaths fail to understand is that many of these individuals are accomplished con men and liars. They can often convincingly make themselves appear to be very likeable, friendly, and basically harmless. This is how they are able to get away with so much crime before finally being caught and forced to face justice. In the anecdote about John E. Robinson, in Chapter Six, readers will remember that Robinson stayed out of jail for many years, even though continuing to victimize people, through his ability to persuade those he came in contact with that he was either innocent or truly repentant for what he had done. Psychopaths like Robinson and Coleman can often convince individuals who don’t know them that they are a totally different type of person than they really are. While the Coleman case above shows how DNA analysis can work for the prosecution, in truth it has also been a very powerful weapon for defense attorneys. Since sophisticated DNA analysis has become available in the last decade or so, dozens of individuals convicted of crimes and serving time in prison have been freed because DNA analysis showed that they didn’t commit the crime. The following is just such a case. a a a Kirk Bloodsworth sat on Death Row for two years, waiting to be executed for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl near Baltimore, Maryland, in 1984. He had lived close to the crime scene, had been seen walking near it before the crime, and reportedly resembled the sketch the police had of a suspect in the case. Also, Bloodsworth left the Baltimore area soon after the crime, though later the police found that he did this because of a failing marriage, rather than being on the run from a crime. While the police said that Bloodsworth matched the description of the man they were looking for: six feet five inches tall, thin, and blond; Bloodsworth is

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six feet tall, has red hair, and is heavy set. However, two young boys testified that Bloodsworth was the man they saw walking out of the woods where the crime occurred. Bloodsworth though, knowing he was innocent, felt confident he would be turned loose at his trial. Instead, the court convicted him and a judge sentenced him to death. Fortunately for Bloodsworth, the police kept the evidence in the case. Bloodsworth spent several years writing letters from prison, trying to convince people of his innocence. Finally, he got someone to listen, and after DNA testing showed that semen on the panties of the victim did not come from Bloodsworth, the state of Maryland finally released him in June 1993. “This is a very perplexing case because it makes you come to grips with how fallible the criminal justice system is,” said Bloodsworth’s attorney Robert E. Morin. “I think our jury system is a great system, but it does not mean they are right all the time.”25 In 2003, a laboratory technician identified the semen stain on the nineyear-old murder victim’s panties as actually belonging to a man named Ruffner, who was at that time serving a forty-five-year prison sentence for sexual assault. “My God! I know him,” Bloodsworth was reported to have said when told of Ruffner’s identification as the real rapist and murderer.26 As it turned out, Bloodsworth and Ruffner had had cells close to each other in Maryland’s maximum-security prison. Since his release from prison, Bloodsworth has married and become a commercial fisherman. The state of Maryland paid him $300,000 for his wrongful imprisonment. a a a An organization called the Innocence Project helped obtain the release of Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person to have been on Death Row to be exonerated by DNA analysis. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by two defense attorneys, is an advocate for individuals who the group believes have been falsely convicted of crimes. As of January 2007, they have had 188 individuals who have been found guilty of crimes, and most still serving their prison sentences, exonerated and released through DNA testing. Just as DNA analysis has been a boon for police officers, obviously it has also been a boon for those who want to help wrongly convicted individuals. From my experience as a police officer for thirty-eight years, do I think this 188 is a large number of wrongly convicted people? Yes, I certainly do. While I have never been so na¨ıve as to believe that there were no innocent people in prison, I never imagined the number would be so high. Obviously, 188 is only a small percentage of the true number. No one knows how many people, before DNA, served a sentence and were paroled, even though innocent. No

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one knows how many innocent people are now in prison, but don’t have DNA evidence available or the evidence has been destroyed, which can often happen when police departments clean their property rooms. However, as a guide to this number, Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner, in September 2004, ordered that a random sample of old DNA from closed criminal cases be reviewed. Out of thirty-one cases reviewed, crime laboratory technicians found that two men convicted of rape, who had served their sentences and been paroled, were actually innocent. In December 2005, Governor Warner presented these two men with absolute pardons, which means the Commonwealth of Virginia declares the individuals totally innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. Does this mean that 6 percent of all individuals convicted of rape are actually innocent? No one knows. The first question many people will have after reading the above is how could this happen? How could juries convict so many innocent people? The following anecdote will show one of the reasons. a a a The state of Wisconsin, on September 9, 2003, released Steven Avery after he had served seventeen years of a thirty-two-year prison sentence for beating and sexually assaulting a woman. They released him because DNA testing of hairs found on the victim, brought about by the Wisconsin Innocence Project, conclusively proved that Avery didn’t commit the crime. He had been sentenced in 1986, despite the fact he had sixteen witnesses at his trial testify as to his alibi. The DNA test, in fact, pinpointed another man, Gregory Allen, as the actual rapist. Allen was at that time serving a sixty-year prison sentence for the sexual assault of another woman. “I’m out!” Avery exclaimed upon being released. “Feels wonderful.”27 Once released, Steven Avery returned home and went back to work at his family’s auto salvage yard. This should have been the happy ending to a very sad tale. Instead though, it became the beginning of a grisly tale of sexual assault and murder. On October 31, 2005, twenty-five-year-old Teresa Halbach, who worked as a photographer for Auto Trader Magazine, drove to Avery Auto Salvage in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, to photograph a minivan Avery wanted to sell. She was not heard from again. Four days later, Teresa’s mother notified the police of her disappearance. A group of volunteers began scouring the countryside around Avery Auto Salvage, looking for any clue as to what might have happened to Teresa. Finally, on November 5, 2005, they asked Steven Avery for permission to look around the salvage yard, which held almost 4,000 vehicles in various states of repair. He told them to go ahead.

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Several hours into the search, the volunteers discovered a Toyota Rav4, the type of car Teresa had driven, hidden under some tree limbs and car parts. They immediately notified the sheriff’s department, who obtained a search warrant for the salvage yard. Sheriff’s deputies impounded the Toyota, whose vehicle identification number matched Teresa’s car. Avery claimed to have never seen the car before. Sheriff’s deputies searching a trailer on the Avery property, where Steven Avery lived, found splotches of blood and several sets of handcuffs and leg irons. In Steven Avery’s bedroom, they also discovered a .22 caliber rifle and the ignition key to Teresa’s Toyota. On the floor of a nearby garage sheriff’s deputies found eleven spent .22 caliber shell casings. Crime scene technicians, in addition to all of this, also discovered traces of blood in the ignition area of the Toyota and in the rear cargo area. The search by sheriff’s deputies of the Avery property, taking several days, finally turned up the license plate to Teresa’s Toyota hidden in another vehicle in the salvage yard. The deputies, however, also made a much more grisly discovery. In a fire pit near Avery’s trailer they found burned bone fragments and teeth, which a forensic anthropologist determined came from an adult female. In a “burn barrel” sheriff’s deputies discovered charred clothing, a cell phone, and a camera. Performing a DNA analysis on the blood found in the Toyota’s ignition area, the crime lab discovered it belonged to Steven Avery, as did the blood traces on the ignition key found in Avery’s bedroom. The blood discovered in the Toyota’s rear cargo area matched Teresa’s DNA, as did the bone fragments and teeth found in the fire pit. When questioned, Avery denied that the blood in Teresa’s car could be his because he had never seen the car before and had certainly never been in it. Detectives, however, noticed that Avery had a large cut on one of his fingers and burn marks on his arms. On November 15, 2005, the sheriff’s department charged Avery with the murder of Teresa Halbach. Avery, however, pleaded innocent and claimed that the government was setting him up because he had a $36 million lawsuit pending over his wrongful incarceration. “Planted evidence,” said Avery. “How else could it be there?”28 Avery’s story about being set up soon began to unravel. In March 2006, the police arrested Brendan R. Dassey, the sixteen-year-old nephew of Avery, and charged him with assisting his uncle in the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach. Upon questioning, Dassey broke down and told about how, at his uncle’s urging, he had sexually assaulted Halbach, who had pleaded and begged for him not to as she lay shackled to the bed in the trailer. Afterward,

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he said, he and his uncle watched television and his uncle told him how proud he was of him. During the questioning, Dassey also told the police how he and his uncle had stabbed Halbach with kitchen knives as she pleaded for her life and then carried her to a garage, where they shot her ten or eleven times with a .22 caliber rifle. The nephew said that a fire was already burning in the fire pit on the property and that they threw Teresa’s body into it. They then tossed some tires into it to make it hot. He also told the police how he and his uncle had tried to hide her car under some tree limbs. “There is a substantial amount of physical evidence that now makes sense (and) fits a lot of the pieces together,” said District Attorney Ken Kratz.29 At an initial court hearing for Dassey, his attorney told the court that his client had been threatened by his uncle into horrible behavior. “Brendan Dassey essentially has been victimized by Mr. Avery,” said attorney Ralph Sczygelski. “This was a result in large part of being threatened by Mr. Avery.”30 On March 18, 2007, a jury found Steven Avery guilty of Teresa Halbach’s murder. He faces a mandatory life sentence. a a a The Steven Avery incident demonstrates very clearly one of the reasons why some people are wrongly convicted of rape. The police, when looking for suspects in a rape, don’t just walk down the street and grab innocent people and accuse them. Instead, they listen to the victims’ stories and their descriptions of the suspects, they look at the evidence, and then they try to decide who would have been the most likely person to have committed this act. Unfortunately, however, eyewitness accounts, and even what seem to be positive identifications of suspects, are fraught with error. Most personal crimes occur under extremely stressful conditions, which can often distort what people see or think they see. Also, many times rape victims have been so traumatized by what has happened to them that they’re not really sure about the facts of what occurred. Consequently, a persuasive police officer can often convince a victim that a certain person was the rapist. However, most of these people the police arrest are not altar boys; they are dangerous criminals like Steven Avery. This is what makes the police suspect them in the first place. For example, before his erroneous rape conviction, Avery had been convicted of burglary, cruelty to animals (for burning a cat to death), and felony gun possession (for pulling a rifle on a woman he had run off the road). But does this make his conviction and seventeen-year imprisonment for a rape he didn’t commit all right? Of course not.

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John Pray, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, had this to say about Avery’s arrest for the murder of Teresa Halbach, “We see this as a non-controversial movement; if you’re innocent of a crime, you shouldn’t be in prison.”31 Few people, I hope, could argue with that. Fortunately, with the advent of DNA analysis, miscarriages of justice, such as the ones we’ve talked about, will likely be much fewer in the future. “Our ultimate ethical duty as prosecutors is to seek the truth and ensure that justice is done in every case,” said Ramsey County (Minnesota) Prosecutor Susan Gaetner, who initiated a DNA test that released a man wrongly convicted of rape. “With DNA testing, we have a powerful new tool to ensure accuracy and truth.”32 In October 2004, President Bush signed the Justice for All Act of 2004. Among its many provisions, this law makes it easier for individuals convicted of a crime in which DNA analysis could prove their innocence to have the DNA tested. It also established the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, which will help states to defray the costs of postconviction DNA testing. In addition to this new federal law though, a majority of states have also enacted statutes providing for postconviction DNA testing. North Carolina Governor Mike Easley signed a bill on August 3, 2006 that created the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. This group will review cases of individuals who can present new evidence that hadn’t been presented during their trials. The formation of this new commission stemmed from several cases in which inmates who had been in prison for a long time had been exonerated by DNA analysis. “Its creation gives our criminal justice system yet another safeguard by helping ensure that the people in our prisons in fact belong there,” Governor Easley said upon signing the bill.33 So far in this book we have discussed many recent technological innovations that have helped the police do their jobs better. But, as we will see in the next chapter, more than any other technological innovation, computers have had the largest impact on police work. There is probably no area of police work that hasn’t been at least affected, and occasionally even completely overhauled, by computers.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Computers

By 1973, twenty-seven-year-old Dennis Rader of Wichita, Kansas, had been having disturbing sexual fantasies for many years. They had finally become so troubling and persistent that he knew if he was going to keep his sanity he had to do something. Perhaps, he told himself, if he actually carried out one of them then maybe they’d go away. He just had to do it once, he told himself; that was all. Just once. And so, on January 15, 1974, Rader finally decided to do it. On that day, between 7:00 and 7:30 A.M., Rader drove to the home of Joseph and Julie Otero. He had been watching them for some time and knew that they had an eleven-year-old daughter, Josephine. For months, Josephine had been figuring very prominently into Rader’s sexual fantasies, a tingling arousal racing through him whenever he thought about what he wanted to do to her. Cutting the telephone lines to the house, Rader slipped around to the rear. As he stood there sweating and wavering, wondering whether or not he should really go through with his plan, the Otero’s nine-year-old son, Joseph Jr., opened the back door to let the dog out. Taking a deep breath, Rader pulled out a pistol and ran into the house. Once inside though, he stopped abruptly, surprised to find Mr. Otero there. Rader had thought he would be gone. Nevertheless, Rader quickly recovered and herded the family together. Then something occurred to him: he wasn’t wearing a mask and they could identify him. He decided at that moment that he’d just have to kill the whole family. “There I realized that, you know, I didn’t have a mask on or anything, that they could ID me,” Rader would later tell authorities, “so I made the decision to go ahead and put them down, I guess, or strangle them.”1

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Rader also realized that to be able to kill the whole family without a major struggle he first needed to get their cooperation. There were too many of them. So he told the Oteros that he wouldn’t hurt them, that he was a criminal on the run, and that all he needed was food and a car. The family apparently believed him because they let him tie them up. Once they were secured though, Rader shoved a plastic bag over Mr. Otero’s head and fastened it around his neck. Mr. Otero, gasping for air, struggled violently and tore a hole in the bag. Rader shoved several more bags over his head and fastened them tightly to his neck with cord that he had brought along. Rader next turned to the panicking Mrs. Otero and strangled her until he thought she was dead. Then, he went to eleven-year-old Josephine. He strangled her only until she passed out. He wanted her alive for his fantasy. With just nine-year-old Joseph Jr. left, Rader shoved a plastic bag over his head and fastened it securely around his neck, watching the young boy gasp and struggle for breath. About this time, Mrs. Otero, who wasn’t dead after all, came to and began struggling. Rader strangled her again until this time she did die. He then carried the reviving Josephine to the basement, partially undressed her, and hung her by the neck from a pipe. As she slowly choked to death, Rader watched the death throes and masturbated, finally spraying semen onto her. Rader would later tell the police that he would often revive his victims just before they died, so he could watch them suffer some more as he masturbated. Once Josephine had died and he had ejaculated on several of the other corpses, Rader went through the house, cleaning everything he had touched. He then left, taking the family car and parking it in a store parking lot, close to where he had left his own car. While Rader had told himself that he would only need to do this once in order to satisfy the violent sexual urges he had felt for most of his life, the satisfaction actually lasted less than three months. On April 4, 1974, Rader broke into the house of Kathryn Bright. He had expected her to return home alone, and was surprised when she returned with a man, her brother, Kevin Bright. Rader decided to use the same ruse that had worked so well with the Oteros. He told the Brights that he was a wanted man, and that all he needed was a car and some money. Like the Oteros, they believed him and allowed him to tie them up. Once he had them bound, Rader took Kathryn to a separate room, then went back to strangle Kevin. Kevin, he found however, had worked himself loose from the bonds and a struggle ensued. Rader finally shot Kevin, and, thinking him dead, went back to strangle Kathryn and masturbate. However, she too had gotten loose and began struggling with him. Once Rader had subdued and re-tied Kathryn’s bonds, he heard

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Kevin, who he had thought dead, moving in the next room. Rader went back and shot him again. Returning to Kathryn, Rader found that she continued to struggle with him, and so he stabbed her several times. At that moment he heard the front door slam, and Rader knew that Kevin, obviously still not dead, had just fled from the house. His plans ruined, Rader quickly cleaned the house, and then ran out and tried to get into the Bright’s truck. Apparently though, he had grabbed the wrong keys. Panicking, Rader simply fled the area on foot. In October 1974, Don Granger, a reporter for the Wichita Eagle, received a telephone call. The caller told Granger to go to the Wichita Public Library and look inside a certain mechanical engineering book. In the book, Granger found a letter from a person who claimed to be the killer of the Otero family. The police later authenticated the letter because it contained information only the killer would know. “The writer of the letter would have had to be inside the house when the crime was committed or participated in the crime,” said Wichita Chief of Police Floyd Hannon.2 This would turn out to be the first of many letters and other forms of correspondence from the killer. He told Granger that his code name would be BTK, which stood for “bind them, torture them, kill them.” Several years later, on March 17, 1977, Rader struck again, this time killing twenty-six-year-old Shirley Vian. The police would find her partially nude body on a bed, a plastic bag over her head. Unlike the Otero family though, the police discovered that the BTK killer had locked Vian’s children in a bathroom rather than killing them right away. Fortunately, the children managed to escape out a window. Rader later told investigators that he probably would have killed them if they hadn’t escaped. On December 8, 1977, Rader made an anonymous call to the police. He gave them an address and told them that there had been a homicide there. The police rushed to the address and discovered the body of twenty-fiveyear-old Nancy Fox. She had been strangled with a nylon stocking. Again, the police found semen in several places, even though the victim had not been sexually molested. The killings then stopped, but not the contact by Rader, or BTK, with the news media. On January 31, 1978, he sent a letter to the Wichita Eagle, which contained a poem he had written about victim Shirley Vian. However, someone at the newspaper misdirected the letter to a box in the advertising department, where it sat unopened. On February 10, 1978, Rader wrote another letter, this one to a local television station, complaining because the newspaper had not mentioned his letter.

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“How many do I have to kill?” he wrote, “before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?” In his letter, Rader claimed to have killed seven people.3 While the killings may have stopped, the police didn’t. For the next two and a half decades, dozens of police officers would work on the case, but without success. The Wichita Police Department would put over 100,000 hours into the BTK investigation. Then, after over twenty-five years, on March 19, 2004, Rader sent a new letter to the Wichita Eagle, telling them about a 1986 murder that the police hadn’t attributed to the BTK killer. To authenticate his claims, Rader included photographs he had taken during the crime and the victim’s driver’s license. Later, Rader would say that the reason he resurfaced was because he was “kind of bored” now that his kids were grown up and gone. Also, he had recently seen an article in the newspaper concerning a book that would come out soon about the BTK killings, and he didn’t want anyone else getting any glory for them. As might be imagined, the residents of Wichita went into a panic. Since the BTK killer hadn’t been heard from in over twenty-five years, most had assumed he was dead or in prison. Now he was back. Few Wichita residents slept well any longer. On May 5, 2004, the BTK killer sent another letter, this one to a television station, KAKE-TV. In this letter, Rader included a word puzzle that investigators would later find included his name and street address. While some people believe he did this because he wanted to be caught, people who deal regularly with psychopaths know that this isn’t true. He was doing it because he wanted to show how smart he was and how stupid the police were. They would never catch him. “He was so used to getting away, literally, with murder that he thought, ‘They’re never going to catch me,’” said former FBI agent and criminal profiler Clint Van Zandt.4 Another FBI agent and criminal profiler, Greg McCrary, adds, “If he had been incommunicado and had not reached out, this case may have never been solved.”5 However, anyone who has dealt at any length with psychopathic killers knows that this is not likely to happen. These individuals kill because of the power, and not just the power that comes from the killing itself, but also the power that comes from all of the media attention they receive. Holding a community hostage to terror can be intoxicatingly powerful. Also, many serial killers, like Rader, revel in the publicity about their crimes because they feel it is their moment in the sun, a time when they believe everyone in the world is stopping and thinking about them. In an interview with a

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psychiatrist, Rader said, “On the other hand, I feel like I’m . . . kind of like I’m a star right now.”6 On June 17, 2004, Rader sent another letter to the news media, this one placed in a mechanical engineering book that he had slipped into the drop box at the public library. This letter, like the others, contained information about the BTK killings that only the killer would know. Following this, in his quest to show the world how much smarter he was than the police, who in his correspondence he had always referred to as “the Keystone Kops,” Rader did something incredibly stupid. In a package he sent to television station KSAS-TV, Rader placed, along with other items, a computer diskette that contained information he wanted the media to have. Not apparently computer literate, Rader didn’t know that computers mark diskettes with identifying codes whenever the diskette is used. This information is called “metadata,” or data about data. This metadata is stored out of the visible database and can contain valuable information about a computer’s usage. Also, while individuals not savvy about computers may think that they are erasing the information on a diskette when they delete a file, they really aren’t, and a deleted section can often be recovered. Yet, while Rader may not have known this, Wichita Detectives Randy Stone and Shaun Price did. The detectives discovered that the metadata codes on the diskette came back to a computer at the Christ Lutheran Church. Also on the diskette, the detectives found the name Dennis, Rader’s first name, as the last person to save a file on it. By doing a Google search and locating the church’s Web site, the detectives learned that Dennis Rader was the church council president. The police went to the church and inquired about who had access to the computer. After obtaining a list, which included Rader, the police obtained a search warrant for Rader’s home. There, in a file cabinet, detectives discovered the originals of the letters the BTK killer had sent over the years to the news media. They also recovered photographs Rader had taken during his crimes, and a number of photographs of him dressed up in women’s underwear, posing as though he was bound and terrified. Detectives arrested Rader, and later discovered that he had made plans to begin the killing again, and had even selected his next victim. While Rader would later feign remorse in court during his sentencing hearing, when he said, “And my remorse, I think—I think it’s here,” detectives said he acted very proud of what he had done when they talked with him.7 “He never implied ‘What I did was horrendous. What I did was bad.’ Not once,” said Wichita homicide captain Al Thimmesch.8 Although at first pleading not guilty, on June 27, 2005, Rader surprised everyone by confessing in court to having killed ten people. Most of the community was stunned. Not only was Rader the church council president,

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he was also a Boy Scout leader and had worked for the local government, enforcing code violations. “They’re having trouble with it; they’re feeling very confused,” said Reverend Mike Clark about the members of Rader’s church.9 Rader’s wife of thirty-four years, stunned more than most when she discovered the kind of man she had been married to, filed for and received an emergency divorce, which means the judge waived the usual sixty-day waiting period. However, some of the people who had come in contact with Rader in his job as code enforcement officer weren’t as stunned and surprised as most. They said they found he could be a mean, vindictive man. On August 18, 2005, a judge sentenced Rader to ten consecutive life sentences, to be served at the El Dorado maximum-security prison near Wichita. Under Kansas law, this means he will die in prison. At Rader’s sentencing hearing, the family members of some of his victims had harsh words for him. “This man needs to be thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot,” said the sister of one of Rader’s victims.10 Another relative called him a “walking cesspool” and “social sewage.”11 a a a As all readers know, computers have now entered almost every aspect of our daily lives. Most of us use computers regularly, from computerized sewing machines to computer chips in automobiles to shopping online to keeping in contact with family and friends through e-mail and instant messaging. Law enforcement officers are no different. Computers have entered almost every aspect of their jobs. To be effective, police officers must, like those in the incident above, not only be knowledgeable about how widespread computer use is, but also knowledgeable about how computers work. Many clues, as Dennis Rader found out, can be contained on computers, and so it becomes more important every day for police officers not to be just computer literate, but to be knowledgeable about all of the intricacies of computers. We have talked about some police computer usage in the preceding chapters, however, so far this has been just a small sampling of how much computer usage has invaded police work. Police departments use computers in dispatch, in training, in patrol, in detectives, in administration. Actually, there is probably no area of law enforcement that doesn’t use computers. In some police departments, once new police officers are sworn in, they are immediately issued a laptop computer. This includes even places as remote as North Pole, Alaska (population 1,600). But while, as mentioned above, we have already talked about some of the areas in a police department where computers are used, there are other

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areas that don’t fit in the previous chapters. For example, while computercontrolled video cameras have been in place to monitor traffic conditions on major highways for some time, now cities are also installing these cameras in high-crime neighborhoods and in areas of strategic importance to a community. Some of these video cameras can see for blocks in either direction, are able to record what they see onto a computer hard drive, and can also be accessed by the police for a real-time view of an area. The cameras in West Palm Beach, Florida, for example, can rotate 360 degrees and are able to read a license plate a half-mile away. With this technology operating in a community, when dispatchers receive the report of a crime in progress in an area covered by video cameras, they can take a real-time look at what is going on. This can be an extremely valuable resource because the dispatchers can watch events unfolding and can advise the police officers enroute of any safety concerns and the best way to approach the scene. New York City already has over 4,000 video cameras in place, while Chicago recently spent $5 million on 2,000 video cameras. In Irvine, California, the police dispatch center has a video wall on which the dispatchers can call up and watch the view from 11 video cameras simultaneously. In many communities, police officers with laptop computers can also access these video cameras. Again, this can give officers a real-time view of the area and alert them to any safety issues. Also, as talked about in a previous chapter, recently some police departments have updated their incar computers so that they can now access bank security video systems. In addition to this capability though, the police in South Sioux City, Nebraska, can pull up and view real-time video from cameras installed in public schools. It is not just large cities like New York and Chicago, however, that are installing computer-controlled video cameras in public places. Bellows Falls, Vermont; Galax, Virginia; Newnan, Georgia; St. Cloud, Minnesota; Deadwood, South Dakota; and Ripin, California, are just a few of the hundreds of small communities that have decided to upgrade their security by installing computer-controlled video cameras in public areas. And even for those crimes that the presence of these cameras don’t stop, the video can still provide evidence of the crime that can be used later in court. “It costs you virtually $100,000 to put an officer on the street versus $5,000 for a camera,” said Captain William Zbacnik of the Pittsburg (California) Police Department, which has eleven video cameras operating. “I’d put as many cameras out there as you can.”12 In Minneapolis, the police have made over 250 arrests because of their video cameras. The conviction rate for these crimes is 99 percent, with the other 1 percent still being adjudicated.13

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While some people worry that the installation of computer-controlled video cameras is an example of Big Brother mentality, which we will talk about in the next chapter, others applaud their use. “We used to have a lot of pickpockets,” said Hagie Drammel, a department store manager in the Bronx, New York. “Since the cameras went up, they haven’t been coming around.”14 Recent technology has also added other capabilities that make these video surveillance cameras even more effective. In areas where illegal dumping or the painting of graffiti is a problem, these video cameras can be equipped with motion detectors and loudspeakers that warn violators they are being photographed and will be prosecuted. In Baltimore, for example, the video cameras the city uses, upon sensing motion, will announce, “Stop. This is a restricted area. It is illegal to dump trash or spray graffiti here. We have just taken your photograph. We will use this photograph to prosecute you. Leave the area now.”15 Cities that use this technology report a significant drop in offenses. In areas where gunfire is a problem, video cameras can also be equipped with new technology that can detect which direction a gunshot came from and instruct the cameras to look in that direction. Scientists who developed these systems recorded gunfire under various conditions, and then used this data to develop a common digital pattern that fits gunfire and excludes other loud noises such as firecrackers and vehicle backfires. Some of these systems use Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping technology, and upon detecting gunfire notify the police and then pinpoint on a map the area the gunfire came from, some to within ten feet of the actual spot. The Web site for SpotShooter, Inc. says, “Our systems were instrumental in the identification and later arrest of the Columbus, Ohio-area highway sniper in late 2003 and early 2004, and have been responsible for decreases in gunfire ranging from 60 to 90 percent in areas in which systems have been deployed.”16 Gunfire detection systems can also be an important information source for the police because in some high-crime areas, either gunfire happens so often or the people are afraid to call the police, many instances of gunfire are never reported. “This will allow the police to respond in cases where people are afraid to call 911,” said Boston City Councilor Robert Consalvo, who supports installing a gunshot detection system in Boston.17 Of course, permanently placed video cameras aren’t the only way police departments and other security agencies can keep an eye on things. For example, the Department of Homeland Security has been looking into the possibility of utilizing blimps for surveillance. In October 2004, a 178-foot blimp flew over Washington, DC, testing how well the optical and infrared

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cameras worked. As another option, Helinet Aviation leases helicopters that have cameras that can read a license plate from 7,000 feet in the air. But even with all of these cameras watching certain areas, still the police need to know what to look for. To address this, computer software has recently been developed that can recognize certain activities and behaviors as suspicious. The theory behind this technology is that ordinary people will behave in predictable ways. Thieves, terrorists, and other criminals, on the other hand, don’t behave in predictable ways, and the computer software watches for this unusual activity. The system then alerts officers to review the video footage. An article about this computer software technology said, “The software can also pick out anomalies—someone walking with a large box, or a truck that keeps coming back to the same spot—in hours of video footage.”18 A similar system tested on the Capital Beltway around Washington, DC, uses a computer software program meant to recognize aggressive drivers. The software in the video system looks for vehicles speeding, unsafely changing lanes, and tailgating. Amazingly, computer video technology will soon be able to see what people are doing even if they are trying to hide out of the camera’s view. Researchers at Cornell and Stanford University are developing technology that can see what is hidden behind an object like a truck or a bus shelter by calculating how light projected into the unseen area is changed by what it encounters. Talking about a test during which the computer could read a playing card facing away from the camera, Stanford University researcher Pradeep Sen said, “When the projector shines on a red part of the card, like the heart of a suit, the light gets a red tint. The camera observes it and our algorithm determines that the projector saw something red at that position. When the projector shines on a blue part of the card, the light is blue. In this manner, we put together the projector image pixel-by-pixel and can see the card.”19 Occasionally though, the police don’t want to know what’s going on in a certain area as much as they want to know where certain individuals are at. This is especially true for sexual predators, who, despite incarceration and treatment, demonstrate a very high level of re-offending. However, it’s not just the police who want to know where these individuals are at, but also the public. Women and families with children want to know if these individuals live or work in their neighborhood. The computer has figured very prominently in this tracking of sexual predators. In the past, these individuals could have been living right next door, and citizens wouldn’t know it. Then, in the past decade, individual states began developing sex offender registry lists that citizens could access

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by computer. On July 27, 2006, President Bush signed a bill that established a national sex offender registry, so that citizens anywhere in the United States can find out if a person is a known sex offender. Like IAFIS and CODIS, this national program links the state registries rather than creating a new one. “Real-time access to public registry information can offer parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens the ability to protect children by identifying sex offenders nationwide through a single search from their home computer, or even a local library with Internet access,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General for Justice Programs Tracy Henke about the launch of the federal government’s national sex offender registry.20 To benefit from this new national program, schools in some states are now installing computers that check the identification of visitors against this database. As of July 2005, almost 550,000 registered sex offenders lived in the United States.21 Although this registry system works fine for identifying who the sexual predators are, where they live, and where they work, unfortunately the police don’t always know what these individuals are up to. For example, though some of these sexual predators, as a condition of their release from prison, are forbidden to visit certain locations, such as schools and playgrounds, the police can’t do anything unless they actually catch them there. However, as the following anecdote illustrates, computer technology has now given the police a new tool with which they can monitor the movement of these extremely dangerous individuals. a a a On October 27, 2005, twenty-five-year-old Seth Chamberlain, a man with a long record of failure, finally became a first at something, though probably not to his liking. Convicted of numerous sex crimes since 1998, Chamberlain had been released from prison in California as a high-risk offender. Because of this, in mid-October 2005, he had been selected to take part in a new sex offender tracking program. This program required him to wear a GPS tracking device attached to his ankle. As a part of the condition of his release, Chamberlain was forbidden from being near any school grounds. However, just six days after Chamberlain had been outfitted with the GPS device, officers tracking his movements on a computer found that he had visited a high school and the campus of the University of Redlands. Chamberlain became the first person arrested in California for violating his parole based on computer GPS tracking. “It couldn’t be more of a textbook example of technology as a tool,” said Kurt Smith of the Redlands Police Department.22

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In some states, such as Florida, where anyone convicted of sex crimes against children eleven and younger faces lifetime GPS tracking, the authorities use real-time monitoring with these devices that sets off an alarm if the person enters a forbidden zone. “We have someone that’s designated 24 hours a day to be on call and monitor these offenders,” said Shawn Satterfield of the Florida Department of Corrections.23 Studies done in Florida show that parolees on real-time monitoring re-offend at a lower rate than do parolees monitored by other means, 31 percent versus 44 percent.24 a a a Thanks to similar new technology, computers can now also monitor another very dangerous individual, the drunk driver. Worn like the GPS monitors of sex offenders, a device called a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor (SCRAM) can detect the consumption of alcohol by measuring ethanol gas secreted through the skin. As a part of their sentence, individuals convicted of DUI or other alcohol-related offenses can be ordered by a judge to wear a SCRAM device, which transmits hourly reports to a monitoring computer. Some of these devices can also be equipped with GPS technology that will alert the authorities if someone wearing a SCRAM device enters a restricted area, such as a bar or an ex-spouse’s home. As of August 2006, 7,500 SCRAM devices were in use in the United States. “We use these devices in any situation the judge determines that alcohol is the underlying reason why bad behavior is occurring,” said Cuyahoga Falls (Ohio) court administrator Rick Klinger.25 The computer technology talked about above, while useful for keeping track of sex offenders and drunk drivers, can also help the police track down other criminals. The following incident illustrates just such a case. a a a Just minutes after thirty-eight-year-old Thomas R. Fricks robbed a bank in Spokane, Washington, the police arrested him and recovered a duffle bag filled with $37,920 in currency. Unknown to Fricks, a bank teller had given him a packet of bills with a GPS tracking device hidden inside. At 5:20 P.M. on January 4, 2006, Fricks, wearing a mask, had entered the Washington Trust Bank. He announced a holdup and began herding the bank employees toward the vault. However, a teller who was on the telephone with her husband when the robbery occurred told him to call the police. Fricks tossed the duffle bag to one of the bank employees and told her to fill it with $40,000. She did, but also put in the bill packet with the GPS device. Fricks ran out and jumped into a Dodge minivan and sped away.

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The police, upon being notified of the robbery, activated the GPS tracking program on their computers. They immediately knew where the money, and the robber, was, and moved in for an apprehension. “You guys are good!” Fricks exclaimed upon being stopped shortly after the robbery.26 a a a Banks, however, aren’t the only institutions to use GPS tracking technology to safeguard their property. Recently, the police recovered a truck filled with millions of dollars worth of artwork. The Budget Rental truck, enroute from Florida to New York, simply disappeared for two weeks. However, when the police discovered that the truck had been equipped with GPS technology, they accessed the company’s computers and found the truck parked, with the artwork still inside, in an abandoned shopping center. They arrested the driver nearby. “We’ve recovered more than 50 truck tractors and 75 trailers—many filled with stolen equipment and merchandise—in short order using just a few GPS/cellular integrated systems,” said Lieutenant Tim Stewart of the North Texas Auto Theft Task Force.27 Along with using GPS satellite technology for tracking, police officers also use it and aerial photography from fixed-wing aircraft for crime mapping. With this mapping information, police commanders can see patterns of crime and where extra patrol is needed. In September 2005, the U.S. Justice Department began distributing free software to police departments to help them use aerial photography for crime mapping. The program is called Geospatial Repository for Analysis and Safety Planning (GRASP). In addition to this, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney’s Office has begun providing local police departments with a software program called Project Safe Neighborhood Mapping and Analysis Program. This software program allows the agencies to pull up aerial maps of specific areas to see what crimes have occurred there. This crime mapping, incidentally, can also, with the help of a computer software program, be used for crime prediction. The Las Vegas Police Department, for example, had had twenty-two robberies committed by the same perpetrator. They knew they needed to stop him before he committed number 23, because sooner or later someone would be hurt. Dan Helms, a crime analyst for the Las Vegas Police Department, decided to try a computer software program that had been developed to predict animal movement, but which had been determined could also be applied to human movement. Helms tried the program, and soon afterward the police arrested the robber as he was casing a location for robbery number 23, the very

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location the software program had predicted as the most likely site for his next robbery. “I was sold on the technology as soon as I’d seen it in action,” said Helms. “I didn’t expect to hit one out of the park on the very first try, but it sure did sell the rest of the department on it.”28 This software program has also been used successfully in Colorado Springs to solve a string of over 200 residence burglaries by four burglars. However, the software does have one limitation. “What seems to be true is, if there are not a lot of incidents, specifically if there are fewer than 10, you don’t get good results,” said Bill Edmonds of the Colorado Springs Police Department.29 As we have talked about numerous times in this book, the police are always looking to technology for better ways to positively identify people. In the 1800s it was the Bertillon system, then came fingerprints, and next DNA. But sometimes the police don’t have the probable cause necessary to take fingerprints or DNA, yet still want to positively identity someone. Or, as often happens, a person stopped by the police will give the officers what they feel certain is a false name or identification, but the police don’t have justification to take the person’s fingerprints. Now, computers have added a new identification source that can be used without intruding on a person’s liberties: facial recognition. To utilize facial recognition, a digital camera takes a few seconds of video of a person’s face and then creates a face template. The technology does this by triangulating between facial features such as the edge of the mouth, the end of the nose, the point of the chin, and several dozen other sites. It also analyzes the texture of the skin at various locations on the face. All of these measurements become part of a digital code that is stored in the computer’s memory. Then when an officer stops someone on the street who he or she wants to positively identify, the officer simply takes a digital picture of the individual, docks the camera, and then downloads the picture into the computer, which searches its memory for the individual’s face. This doesn’t require the officer to touch the person, as would the taking of fingerprints or a DNA sample. A company named GEOMETRIX states that a system marketed by them can complete the entire procedure in less than two minutes. “It’s reduced the number of people trying to use aliases as they come in the front door,” said Lieutenant Jim Main of the Pinellas County (Florida) Sheriff’s Department, which installed a facial recognition system several years ago. “We can also ID someone who’s uncooperative, or too drunk or too high to tell us their name.”30 In addition to this method of identification, recent computer technology has added still another way to identify unknown people. While most police

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departments recommend that parents keep a set of their children’s fingerprints available in the event a child turns up missing and needs to be identified, some police departments recommend a newer technological choice for identification: computer iris scanning. An iris pattern, like a fingerprint, is unique to each individual. And while matching fingerprints can often be time consuming, iris pattern comparison can be done in seconds. Also, many police departments are going to iris scanning for children because it is so much easier to do than fingerprinting. A digital camera simply photographs the iris, and then the police store this information in a computer database or give it to the parents to keep. This technology can also be used for elderly adults with disabilities such as Alzheimer’s. “Unlike other biometric technologies, there are no lasers, strong lights or any kind of harmful beams,” said Wayne Cairns of the Richland County (Ohio) Sheriff’s Department. “By simply looking into the camera, an image of the iris is captured and placed in the national database.”31 The Department of Homeland Security is also using iris scanning for its Registered Travelers Program. Under this program, a traveler can greatly speed up his or her time through airport security by submitting to various identification procedures, including iris scanning. While, as we’ve seen in this book, police work involves many areas of specialty, almost all successful police work, no matter what area, hinges on one thing: information. The more information the police have the more likely it is that they will be able to solve a crime. However, a problem that has existed for many years is that often the crucial information a police department needs to solve a crime may be unknowingly held by a nearby or neighboring police agency. Yet, because of incompatible computer systems, police departments usually couldn’t access each other’s records. Technology is changing that. Many police departments are now in the process of converting their records to the Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (GJXML) Data Model, which was developed by the U.S. Department of Justice. This is a computer program that translates a police department’s records into a language that all other police departments can use in their computers, no matter what their original language. “It really gives us an edge when dealing with offenders,” said Gary (Indiana) Police Chief Garnett Watson, whose department uses the GJXML Data Model to share information with other police agencies. “The more information cops on the street have, the safer they are.”32 Officer Jerry Camous of the Sacramento (California) Police Department adds, “We’re judged on split-second decisions by the press, the public,

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everybody. The thing about [the computers] is that it gives you a little more information to make those decisions.”33 Another information resource that many police departments are just becoming involved in is computer data mining. What this involves is a computer search engine that can find pieces of information that by themselves appear innocent, but which, when combined with other information, can become evidence of a crime. For example, two events or people may appear to be unconnected, but data mining can find information to show that they have actually had interaction. This software will often have to search through hundreds of millions of files in order to find the data that connects people or events. “A concept chain graph will show you what’s common between two seemingly unconnected things,” said Professor Rohini Srihari of the University of Buffalo, who is helping to develop search engines for data mining.34 While so far in this book we have seen that computers have certainly been a boon to police departments, making many of their complex tasks much simpler, unfortunately criminals have also found ways to use computers. This has led to the creation of new areas of police investigation that didn’t exist twenty years ago. For instance, before computers, criminal pedophiles (people who are sexually aroused by, and molest, children) often had to go out to parks, shopping centers, and other locations in order to find their victims. This was always a risky venture. Today, with computers, these sex criminals can stay in the safety of their homes, yet still find hundreds of victims simply by visiting computer chat rooms that cater to children. To deal with this very serious problem, police departments have had to form special units, called Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) units. The officers of these units go undercover into Internet chat rooms and pose as children. Sexual predators target them and then are arrested when they come to have sex with what they believe is a child. “Anytime I go into a chat room and portray myself as a young teen,” said Officer Julie Posey of the Wellington (Kansas) Police Department, “I’ll be contacted by 20 to 40 men in the first few minutes. And they’re not saying, ‘Hi, how are you?’ They’re saying, ‘Are you naked?’”35 Anyone who has watched the “Dateline” specials about online predators has witnessed just how quickly sexual predators target a child, and how bold they are. In these television specials, dozens of men, wanting sex, showed up at a house where they believed an underaged child was, only to be filmed by the “Dateline” crew and then arrested by the police. Police departments across the United States conduct hundreds of these types of sexual predator stings every year. Interestingly though, the individuals arrested in these stings

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are not simply unemployed losers. Many are professionals with advanced degrees and high community status. For example, on April 4, 2006, the police in Florida arrested Brian J. Doyle, the deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “Law enforcement is very good at this,” Doyle said in his e-mail to what he thought was an underaged girl. “I have soooo much to lose.”36 He was right. The police charged him with seven counts of using a computer to seduce a child and sixteen counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor. Others arrested in sexual predator stings have included teachers, firefighters, preachers, corporate executives, youth counselors, and many others few would expect. For more information about sexual predators and police operations, see my book Sex Crimes Investigation (Praeger, 2006). Since, as talked about above, many sexual predators contact their victims through the use of e-mail, the police will usually confiscate predator’s computers when they arrest them. Detectives are looking not just for information about the case under investigation, but also for information about any other victims. Consequently, technicians will examine the computer’s hard drive, looking for incriminating e-mails, even deleted ones. Fortunately, technology has given the police software programs that make recovering this information much easier to do. “This is the best and easiest forensic tool when it comes to dealing with America Online,” Detective Patrick Paige of the Palm Beach County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office told me about a software program he uses called EMail Detective. “EMail Detective is an exceptionally fast and accurate way to investigate AOL email on a target’s hard-drive.”37 However, just as technology continues to change and advance, so must a police officer’s knowledge about these new developments. For example, police officers who target computer sexual predators must be aware of new Internet developments such as MySpace.com. Sexual predators regularly surf these areas looking for victims. Recently in Boulder, Colorado, seven men who a young female victim had met through MySpace.com came to her house, where they raped and robbed her. While she only knew the men’s first names, the police went to the “My Friends” section of her MySpace.com area and found pictures of the men. “Primarily, we pulled up her friends list,” said Boulder Detective Ali Bartley. “It helped us identify some of the players.”38 Sexual predators, however, aren’t the only criminals to use computers to find their victims. Similar to the criminal pedophiles talked about earlier, con artists in the past often had to go out into the world in order to find their victims. Today, however, con artists, like criminal pedophiles, can stay at home and use the Internet to find their victims. Consequently, police fraud

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units must stay up to date on computer usage so that they will be aware of what the next Internet con game will be. Although these Internet con games can include some old, long-used scams such as pyramid schemes and Nigerian bank scams, they can also include some new Internet frauds, such as “plishing.” This is an attempt, through some ruse, to get a person to divulge credit card, bank, or personal information so that the con artist can raid these accounts or steal the person’s identity. According to Government Technology magazine, in the second half of 2005, con artists made nearly 8 million e-mail plishing attempts every day, or one for every 119 e-mail transmissions.39 Unfortunately, in this chapter I have only been able to talk about a very small percentage of the computer usage by police departments. I have also, throughout this book, been able to talk about only a very small percentage of the technology that has found its way into law enforcement. The total amount would fill many volumes. In my nearly forty years as a police officer I have seen technology make major inroads in practically every area of police department operations, and I have seen it assist law enforcement greatly in its fight against crime. However, I have also become a bit alarmed by some of the things that technology has made possible. As we will discuss in the next chapter, while new technology can improve the ability of police officers to do their jobs, its use must be monitored and controlled because, though technology can be used to make the community safer, it can also be abused by the police.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Some Thoughts about Technology On December 20, 1996, twenty-one-year-old Juli Busken had just finished the fall semester at the University of Oklahoma, and was ready to drive home to spend the holidays with her parents in Arkansas. She never made it. The following day the police found her car abandoned next to a lake in Oklahoma City. Inside the car they discovered Juli, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. An autopsy would later show that she had been raped and sodomized. During their search, detectives discovered semen stains on both Juli’s panties and her pink leotards. However, while the police now had a DNA profile, they had no suspects and only a vague description of a man possibly seen with her. “When we processed the vehicle, all we found were glove prints. No fingerprints were discovered,” said Oklahoma City Police Inspector John Maddox, who headed up the investigation. “The only thing we actually had was the evidence from the rape itself, which is the semen that we have obtained DNA from.”1 In order to skirt around the statute of limitations on sex crimes (there is no statute of limitations for murder in Oklahoma), District Attorney Timothy Kuykendall filed several criminal charges involving the rape and sodomy of Juli Busken. However, since he didn’t have a name for the suspect, only his DNA profile, Kuykendall filed the charges against a John Doe with the specific DNA profile recovered from the semen. Still though, even with the DNA profile and searches of the various DNA banks, the police had no luck identifying a suspect. However, in the years following the rape/murder of Juli Busken, DNA analysis became more common, and more DNA banks formed with more

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DNA profiles added. The police, who still had the DNA profile from the semen found on Juli’s panties and leotards, simply wouldn’t give up on the case. “We’re going to solve this case,” insisted Inspector Maddox.2 Still though, the police got no match to any profiles in these DNA banks. The police decided to try another tactic. They asked 200 men who knew Juli Busken, lived close to her, or had had some contact with her to submit to voluntary DNA testing in order to eliminate them as suspects. When the crime laboratory found no match with these men, the police asked another 200 men to submit to DNA testing. None of these voluntary tests, however, found a match. At last though, the police finally did break the case through DNA matching. In 2004, twenty-seven-year-old Castillo Sanchez broke into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, waited for her to return, and then reportedly raped her when she did. At his trial, Sanchez entered into a plea bargain under which he pled guilty to burglary in exchange for having the rape charge dropped. Under Oklahoma law, however, because of his burglary conviction, the state required that Sanchez provide a DNA sample for inclusion in the state’s DNA bank. A routine computer matching of this sample came back to the Juli Busken case. The police arrested Sanchez and charged him in the rape/murder of Juli Busken. On February 15, 2006, a jury found Sanchez guilty of first-degree murder, rape, and sodomy. The jury recommended that he receive forty years in prison for the rape charge and twenty years for the sodomy charge. Two days later, after more deliberations, this same jury recommended that Sanchez receive the death penalty for Juli Busken’s murder. “There are things people do to other people, so evil, so depraved, that they forfeit their right to walk among us,” said Prosecutor Richard Sitzman.3 a a a While on the surface this case may sound like a good bit of police work that had the best possible outcome for Juli’s family and society at large, the investigation of this case also exhibits some very disturbing aspects. DNA technology has become so powerful in recent years, particularly in murder cases involving sexual assault, that by itself it can many times prove beyond any doubt that a specific person was the rapist/murderer. Often, the police don’t need any other evidence. What other explanation could there be for Sanchez’s semen to be on the clothing of a murder victim he wasn’t acquainted with? In the Juli Busken murder case, the crime laboratory technician who matched Sanchez’s DNA with the semen found on Juli’s clothing was undoubtedly the most important witness the state called during the trial.

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Consequently, because of the power technology has given DNA, the police know that in cases such as the Busken rape/murder, if they can just find a match to the DNA then the case is solved. Unfortunately, this has led to some overly aggressive, and even heavy-handed, tactics by the police in order to get the DNA match they need. And that is what I find disturbing in the Busken case and a number of other similar cases that have occurred the last few years across our country. While the police said that in their attempt to solve the Busken case they were asking for “voluntary” DNA samples from men in the community, these samples weren’t really voluntary. Reportedly, individuals who refused to “volunteer” were told that they would then become suspects, and that a court order would be obtained to forcibly take the DNA sample. “It’s inherently coercive when a policeman comes to your door and says ‘Give us a sample of your blood and if you don’t give it to us, you’re a suspect,’” said attorney Barry Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project, a group we talked about in a previous chapter.4 In other police “DNA dragnets,” some individuals who have refused to voluntarily give a DNA sample have been identified by the news media as being “uncooperative,” and therefore possibly a suspect. Unfortunately, over the last few years this has happened to a number of people who, after refusing to “voluntarily” give DNA samples, have lost jobs, have been asked to move from their homes, and have been viewed by the public as likely being guilty of some heinous crime. “This is just horrendous, appalling,” said Doug Parr, a board member of the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, talking about the taking of coerced DNA samples. “It smacks of the kind of police state tactics that this country has gone to war against.”5 The Juli Busken case, as I’ve said, isn’t the only time in the last few years that the police have conducted DNA dragnets in their attempt to find a suspect in some horrendous crime. As we talked about in a previous chapter, the police in Louisiana did just such a DNA dragnet in their search for the Baton Rouge Serial Killer. In addition, I have found at least two dozen other cases in recent years in which the police have gone out into the community and asked individuals who they had no incriminating information about to voluntarily submit to DNA tests in order to exclude themselves as suspects. As a police officer with many years of experience, I find this trend frightening. America is founded on the belief that a person is innocent until a court rules otherwise. This recent “innovation” in police procedure, however, assumes just the opposite, that individuals are suspects until they prove

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themselves not to be. In the Busken case, District Attorney Timothy Kuykendall stated, “I think law enforcement just looks at this from a standpoint of no one is eliminated until DNA has eliminated them.”6 In a DNA dragnet conducted in Truro, Massachusetts, in 2005, during which the police asked 800 men to voluntarily submit to DNA testing, one man asked, “Are they going to chase down everyone who didn’t give a sample? It kind of sounds like Stalin’s secret police.”7 Being a police officer for many years, I can certainly understand the motivation behind these new tactics. The crimes the police are attempting to solve through DNA dragnets are usually extremely violent ones, in which innocent people have been horribly brutalized. Yet, we still can’t let this desire to solve crimes erode our liberties. During my career I have seen many such campaigns, all of which were begun to solve a particularly brutal crime or to stop a particularly brutal crime spree. While these campaigns always begin with the very best of intentions, they almost always end up violating individual rights. The officers, feeling an almost religious duty to solve the crime or to stop the crime spree, will go to whatever lengths they must, and this almost always results in trampling on personal rights. While there’s no doubt that crime solution and maintaining the public safety would be much easier in a total police state, the price is much, much too high. However, as if these DNA dragnets weren’t frightening enough, recently advocates for law and order have been calling for something just as frightening, but on a much larger scale. They have been calling for a national registry of every American’s DNA. “This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street,” said Chris Asplen, former director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.8 While I can certainly see how having every citizen in the United States report to the local police department to give a DNA sample would dramatically increase the rate of crime solution in our country, and likely discourage many crimes from even occurring, the idea is fraught with dangerous possibilities. Besides the fact that this idea goes against everything our country stands for, some serious questions arise. Who would have access to this information? Could insurance companies use it to screen for people with the likelihood of diseases or disabilities? Could it be used to try to identify future criminals, and then target them? Could it be used to find out who will be the most likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and consequently watch these people closer? And of course, guarantees about the security of any such national DNA database really mean nothing when readers recall how often they’ve seen news accounts about hackers managing to get into “secure” computer databases or about sensitive information such as this being on laptop computers that were stolen or lost.

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The searches for DNA matches, though, aren’t the only erosions of personal rights that technology has brought about. In a previous chapter we talked about the use of computer-controlled surveillance cameras by numerous communities. Many people see this trend as conjuring up images of the George Orwell novel 1984, a book about a government that watched every citizen’s move by camera. And yet, while the courts have held that citizens have no expectation of privacy when out in public, and I have no problem with public video cameras per se, I do have a problem with some of the uses of these cameras. Software has recently been developed that allows these video cameras to flag individuals simply because they are doing something that the software identifies as unusual. According to an article about this software, “For example, pickpockets have a very strange behavior pattern on a bus compared to most people,” said Professor Barney Glover of Curtin University of Technology, who is working on developing technology that spots unusual behavior. “They generally move around from seat to seat to find a mark, while most people sit down and then depart.”9 Chris Scott is the research director of National ICT Australia. This organization is presently working on facial recognition technology that doesn’t just recognize specific people, but also threats. “There is technology available to alert people when, say a briefcase is left unattended in a public place,” he said, “but we are working on algorithms not just to search for a person based on facial recognition but to analyze the level of threat based on their actual behavior, to gather preliminary information to see if anything unusual is happening that would increase the probability of detecting an actual threat.”10 While this could certainly be a useful tool, and I believe that the police should investigate any actions that appear to be illegal, a problem could develop because far too often the police and others depend too much on technology and believe it is infallible. Consequently, if the computer says the person has done something unusual, police officers (particularly newer ones) could assume that this means the person is a criminal, and they will treat him or her as such. “They [citizens] shouldn’t have to worry about being on Candid Camera, watched by the government everywhere they go in a public place,” said Joe Cook, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana. “The cameras are a reckless gamble with our privacy rights, which are becoming an endangered species in our country. Add to this the Patriot Act. It adds up to an Orwellian society going berserk.”11 However, it’s not just me, but many others working within the Criminal Justice System also have serious reservations about surveillance cameras. Andre Davis, a U.S. District Court Judge, asked, “Do we really want to live

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in a society where every moment of a person’s public waking life can be observed and recorded? We’re going to have to work all this out.”12 A further area of concern I see with evolving technology involves the development of facial recognition software. Not too far in the future, a computer will be able to analyze the face of every person a surveillance camera sees walking down the street. The program will then match the face with those stored in its database, and check for outstanding warrants or other wanted statuses. While this technology could be a fantastic tool for catching wanted individuals, it must be remembered that the computer will also contain a record of the movements of millions of innocent people, people that the computer matched but who weren’t wanted—a very frightening Orwellian possibility. I also find concern in another area of technology where aggressive police work can run afoul of individual rights, and that is in the use of GPS tracking equipment. Recently, a federal judge ruled that the police don’t need to have court approval in order to attach a GPS tracking device to a citizen’s vehicle, because this act is no different than the police physically following the vehicle.13 Could we extrapolate on this and say that the police also have the right to know where all citizens go whenever they leave their homes? Along with GPS, it should be remembered that it is also possible to track a person’s movements through his or her cell phone, which is always sending out signals searching for the nearest tower. Since individuals are out in public with their cell phones, do the authorities then have the right to track the movement of citizens through their cell phones, just like the police do when attaching a GPS device to a car? While some judges have held that the police need court approval to do this kind of surveillance, all police officers know an easy judge who will sign whatever they need. Even for a police officer the possibility of this type of surveillance has frightening implications. Along with GPS, another tracking device recently coming into common use is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). These devices often look like simple paper labels, but can be used to track wherever an object containing one goes. Active models contain a tiny computer chip, a power source, and an antenna. Passive models only respond when activated by an RFID tracking device. RFIDs can be valuable, of course, for tracking expensive equipment being shipped, or to recover expensive items stolen. But, like GPS, these can be abused by overly aggressive government officials. For example, RFID tags sewn into clothing for inventory purposes can also be used to track the movements of the wearer of the clothing. On the other hand, having RFID technology implanted in something common that practically everyone carries, such as a driver’s license, would allow the government to track the movement of anyone it wanted. This is a possibility not too far in the future.

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In October 2004, the Commonwealth of Virginia held hearings into the possibility of issuing RFID-equipped driver’s licenses.14 Although much of the technology we’ve talked about so far in this chapter involves devices that record a person’s actions while out in public, government agencies also often want to know private information about citizens. While most law enforcement agencies are prohibited from collecting information or compiling dossiers on citizens not suspected of criminal activity, police agencies still do this by going around the law. An article in Wired magazine stated, “Although laws prohibit the government from building dossiers on individuals, they don’t prohibit the government from buying information from commercial data aggregators like Acxiom, ChoicePoint, and LexisNexis, which collect information about citizens’ web surfing, bank transactions, doctor visits and travel itineraries. And there are no laws governing how federal agencies can use the data.”15 Almost everything we do in life, from buying a home to having children to opening a bank account, is recorded somewhere on a computer database. With new computer technology, data aggregation companies can now quickly search through billions of computer databases and collect this information on individuals, then make it available for sale. When I was in charge of the Indianapolis Police Department’s Homicide Branch a data aggregation company contacted me, wanting our department to contract for their services. To entice us, the company offered a free trial. I tried it, and just by giving the company my name, age, and city of residence I got back page after page of very accurate personal information about myself. Needless to say, this was very disconcerting. And so, since it isn’t illegal for government or police agencies to buy personal information from companies that collect it, although you may not know it, several government or police agencies may have very extensive files on your personal life. In 2004, the FBI reportedly paid $75 million for information from data aggregation companies.16 Of course, while collecting personal information about non-criminal citizens is bad enough, it gets worse. Technology is now making it possible to actually see what is going on in a person’s mind. In the chapter on lie detection we discussed the use of an fMRI and brain fingerprinting to see what’s happening in a person’s mind. How long will it be before a person’s very thoughts are exposed? Not very long according to individuals working in the area. “Unlike perusing your mail or tapping your phone, this is looking inside your brain,” said Professor Hank Greely of Stanford University. “It does seem to me to be a significant change in our ability . . . to invade what has been the

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last untouchable sanctuary, the contents of your own mind. It should make us stop and think to what extent we should allow this to be done.”17 As readers will recall, in the chapter on uniformed police officers I talked about the newest less-than-lethal weaponry becoming available to police officers. While these devices can be extremely useful, and even lifesaving, since they give police officers a choice before having to resort to deadly force, unfortunately abuse of them is also possible. For example, many cities found after issuing Tasers to their officers that these weapons seemed to be used much too often. Officials looking into this found that officers were using the Tasers, not because a person had become aggressive, but simply because a person they encountered was uncooperative. Consequently, these cities had to set down new guidelines concerning when Tasers could be used. Along with Tasers, I also worry about the misuse of other less-than-lethal weapons presently being developed that can cause intense pain. While again these devices can be lifesaving, they can also be abused since they leave no permanent damage that could substantiate their misuse. Officials of the Red Cross and Amnesty International report that they fear this developing technology could be used as instruments of torture or indiscriminately on both targets and innocent bystanders.18 One of the biggest problems I’ve found though with much of new technology is that if it works well, solving several spectacular cases, then police officers start to think of it as infallible and begin to depend on it too much, at the expense of old-fashioned police work. This can lead to some serious miscarriages of justice, because technology is only as good as the people who use it, both in input and in interpreting the output. For example, software is presently in use that can predict the likelihood that a person convicted of a crime will re-offend. This type of technology must be used cautiously because a likelihood, no matter how high, is not a certainty. But most important of all, I worry that technology will be used too often in the place of old-fashioned police work. I worry that officers will depend on technology rather than sharpening their police skills. Old-fashioned police work is about finding the right people to talk to and getting these people to talk to you. Old-fashioned police work is about seeing the relationship between various pieces of evidence and how they point to a specific person as the perpetrator. Old-fashioned police work is about seeing connections that aren’t apparent at first glance. While technology can assist a police officer in some of this, it can never do the total job all of the time. The National Institute of Justice had this to say about technology and police work: “Technology cannot make up for poor judgment, compensate for inadequate or nonexistent training, substitute for poor officer screening

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and selection processes, replace competent leadership, or usurp the basic skills and street smarts of seasoned police officers.”19 While I may sound cautionary in this chapter about the use of technology, and I certainly am, I am by no means opposed to technology. The changes I have seen in police work since I began as an officer in the late 1960s, changes brought about through technology, have been both startling and impressive. The police of today are much more effective because of technology, and we must continue to look for new ways to allow technology to improve police work. However, we must not do this at the expense of personal liberties. The freedoms we all enjoy have come at too high a price to allow them to be sacrificed simply to make police work more efficient. We must instead strike a balance and keep watch on the watchers.

Notes

Chapter 1 1. Leslie Berkman, “Night Stalker Case Demonstrates Effectiveness of Systems Market Developing for Fingerprint Computers,” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1985, p. 1. 2. Andy Rose, “Laser Plays Key Role in Stalker Arrest,” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1985, p. 1. 3. Lois Timnick, “Ramirez Must Die,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1989, p. 1. 4. Seaskate, Inc., The Evolution and Development of Police Technology (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1, 1998), p. 52. 5. Cord A. Scott, “Calling All Cars, Calling All Cars: Technological Innovations of the Chicago Police Department,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2004, www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi qa3945/is 200407/ai n9408871/print. 6. Seaskate, Inc., The Evolution and Development of Police Technology, p. 12. 7. Scott Harris, “LAPD Wants to Tie into Print Computer,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1985, p. 4. 8. Ibid. 9. Interview by author, October 23, 2006. 10. “Massachusetts Panel Favors Technology,” Crime Control Digest, April 9, 2004. 11. “Cost of Crime Estimated at $428 Billion a Year,” Law Enforcement Technology, November 2005, p. 95.

Chapter 2 1. Margaret Wertheim, “I Think, Therefore I Am—Sorta,” LAWeekly, July 21, 2005, p. 11. 2. Sandy Mazza, “Disaster Response Device Tested,” Whittier Daily News, August 31, 2006, p. 1.

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3. Tim Bos, “Using Virtual Reality Technology for Critical Incident Training,” Police Futurist, Vol. 14, No. 1, Winter 2006, p. 4. 4. Paul H. Johnson, “Video Game to Teach Lessons about Racial Profiling,” North Jersey.com, April 8, 2005, www.bergen.com. 5. “Police Using Hallucination Machine as Training Tool,” Associated Press, March 25, 2006. 6. Jaclyn O’Malley, “Sheriff Takes Turn behind Virtual Wheel,” Reno GazetteJournal, January 1, 2005, p. 1. 7. Interview by author, October 16, 2006. 8. “Copcast and CopsNTech Join Together,” CopCAST.net, April 22, 2006, http://copsntech.com. 9. “Keep the Skies Friendly,” TECHbeat, Summer 2005, www.justnet.org. 10. “Columbus Cops: New MILO System Is Real Taser Training,” nbc4i.com, April 4, 2006, www.lineofduty.com/blotterstory.asp?StoryID=86890. 11. Emily Arthur, “Training System Arms Aberdeen Police,” Aberdeen News, April 23, 2006, p. 1. 12. Sam Simon, “Shooting Ranges, Delivered,” officer.com, April 2006, www. officer.com/publications/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=30421. 13. Ibid. 14. Sam Simon, “Mobile Tactical Trainers,” Law Enforcement Technology, August 2006, p. 116. 15. “Stinger Systems to Offer First Computer Based Training Program,” March 6, 2006, www.stingersystems.com/press.htm. 16. Jennifer Reeger, “Soldiers Sharpen Weapons Skills,” Pittsburgh TribuneReview, September 21, 2005, www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/ fayette/print 376303.html. 17. Pamela Mills-Senn, “Real Training, Real Results,” Law Enforcement Technology, September 2005, p. 52. 18. Ibid., p. 55.

Chapter 3 1. “Oakland Cops May Go Video,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2004, p. B-1. 2. Ibid. 3. Pete Daly, “Picture-Perfect Arrest,” The Trentonian, September 10, 2005, www.trentonian.com. 4. Ibid. 5. Seaskate, Inc., The Evolution and Development of Police Technology, p. 237. 6. Interview by author, October 7, 2006. 7. “Grant to Install Video Cameras in Chicago Police Squad Cars,” Government Technology, January 10, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/97807. 8. Tim Potter, “Police Delight in New Laptops,” The Wichita Eagle, March 28, 2006, www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/local/14202493.htm. 9. “Weston, Conn., PD Gets Secure Remote Access to Data,” Government Technology, May 10, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/93964.

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10. Mark Blumberg, “Wireless Web Connects Everett Officers,” Law Enforcement Technology, June 2005, p. 87. 11. “About Face! Recognition,” officer.com, November 22, 2005, www.officer. com/article/printer.jsp?id=25194&siteSection=20. 12. Pamela Mills-Senn, “Picking Out Plates,” Law Enforcement Technology, May 2006, p. 20. 13. Carol Robinson, “Deputies to Deploy Plate ID System,” The Birmingham News, March 24, 2006, p. 1. 14. Mills-Senn, “Picking Out Plates,” p. 20. 15. Matthew L. Wald, “Using Advanced Physics to Find Concealed Weapons,” The New York Times, April 14, 2005, www.nytimes.com. 16. “UNH’s High-Tech Police Cruiser Wins National Following,” NH Business Review, April 15, 2005. 17. Dale Stockton, “New Voice-Recognition System Helps Officers Run a Patrol Car,” Law Officer Magazine, September/October 2005, p. 20. 18. Fran Spielman, “Chicago Mayor Unveils New High-Tech Squad Cars,” Chicago Sun Times, February 13, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id= 28611&siteSection=20. 19. Trace Christenson, “Police Aren’t ‘Fueling’ Around with New Electric Patrol Car,” Battle Creek Enquirer, April 18, 2006, www.battlecreekenquirer. com. 20. Jennifer Ferris, “Police Captain Loves His Hybrid Car,” The Herald-Sun, March 24, 2006, p. 1. 21. Jason Wermers, “Cape Police, Firefighters Welcome Versatile New Mobile Unit,” The News-Press, May 5, 2006, www.news-press.com. 22. Jaclyn O’Malley, “Homeland Security Grant Adds Infrared Gear,” Reno Gazette-Journal, March 1, 2005, p. 1. 23. Sara Jean Green, “Sheriff’s Helicopter Unit May Be Model for Region,” The Seattle Times, July 3, 2005, www.seattletimes.nwsource.com. 24. Heather Ratcliffe, “Mapping Tool Assists Police Helicopters,” St. Louis PostDispatch, March 17, 2006, www.stltoday.com. 25. “Gaston County, N.C., Police Department Purchases an Aerial Surveillance Vehicle,” Government Technology, February 3, 2006, www.govtech.net/ magazine/channel story.php/98330. 26. Cyrus Farivar, “An Aerial Crime-Fighting Tool Banks on Portability,” The New York Times, January 13, 2005, www.nytimes.com. 27. Sarah Yang, “UC Berkeley Researchers Field Testing Low-Altitude Robocopters,” UC Berkeley Press Release, December 15, 2004. 28. Theresa Vargas, “County Police Buy $192,000 Boat with Grant,” Washington Post, April 13, 2006, p. PW01. 29. Rainer Sabin, “Little Rock, Arkansas to Use New Electric Bicycles to Patrol Streets,” officer.com, May 25, 2005, www.officer.com/article/article. jsp?siteSection=4&id=23863. 30. “L.A. Cops: Segways Cutting Crime,” Newsedge, May 30, 2006, www. lineofduty.com/blotterstory.asp?StoryID=89593. 31. “Nine Segway HTs on Patrol at BWI Airport,” officer.com, March 17, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=29289&siteSection=20.

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Chapter 4 1. U.S. Government, The 9/11 Commission Report, July 22, 2004, p. 298, www. gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/sec9.pdf. 2. Paul Davidson, “Compatible Radio Systems Would Cost Billions,” USA Today, December 28, 2005, www.usatoday.com. 3. Jeremy Hudson, “Prisoner Escape Illustrates Communications Gaps,” The Clarion-Ledger, February 27, 2005, www.clarionledger.com. 4. Davidson, “Compatible Radio Systems Would Cost Billions.” 5. Tim McGlone, “System May Help Cross-Jurisdictional Communication,” The Virginian-Pilot, April 18, 2006, http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/print. cfm?story=103174&ran=43952. 6. Guy Ashley, “Disparate Systems Slow East Bay Response to Disasters,” Contra Costa Times, September 5, 2004, www.contracostatimes.com. 7. William Jackson, “Technology, Training Go Hand in Hand in Improving Police Communications,” GCN, November 15, 2005, www.gcn.com/ online/vol1 no1/37559-1.html. 8. “Group of Senators Say Improved Communication among First Responders Is Key to Better Homeland Security,” Government Technology, June 30, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/94497. 9. Donna Rogers, “Talk to Me: Technology,” Law Enforcement Technology, February 2006, p. 32. 10. Ibid., p. 35. 11. Lee Howell and Ken Staab, “The Satellite Connection,” Law Enforcement Technology, January 2006, p. 74. 12. Ibid., pp. 74, 76. 13. “Rock Island County, Ill., E9-1-1 Center Connects GIS Data to Calls,” Government Technology, February 7, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/ channel story.php/93001. 14. “Is Your CAD System Ready for Wireless E911 Phase II?” officer.com, January 23, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=26334&siteSection=20. 15. “New York City Has an E911 Solution for Nomadic VoIP Telephone Subscribers,” Government Technology, September 9, 2005, www.govtech.net/ magazine/channel story.php/96576. 16. Patrick Wilson, “An Orderly View,” Winston-Salem Journal, November 17, 2005, p. 1. 17. Christian Schmidt, “New Computers Help Parish Deputies Communicate Better,” The Natchez Democrat, October 13, 2005, www.natchezdemocrat.com/ articles/2005/10/13/news/news11.txt. 18. Dan Carnevale, “Handheld Devices Help Campus Officers Coordinate Crime Response,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 27, 2006. 19. Tim Evans, “Lawmakers’ Call: Make ‘Reverse 911’ Easier to Get,” Indianapolis Star, March 4, 2006, www.indystar.com. 20. “Free Wireless AMBER Alerts Drive Kicks Off in New York City,” Government Technology, January 22, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/97990. 21. Emily Arthur, “South Dakota Department Uses ‘A Child Is Missing’ Alert to Find Girl,” officer.com, March 10, 2006, www.officer.com/article/ printer.jsp?id=29131&siteSection=1.

Notes

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Chapter 5 1. Doug Kesseli and Tim Robertson, “Police Use Stun Gun to Subdue Suspect in Assault,” Bangor Daily News, June 23, 2006, www.bangordailynews.com. 2. Interview by author, October 10, 2006. 3. Mark Sherman, “Amnesty International: US Taser Deaths Up,” March 29, 2006, www.lineofduty.com/blotterstory.asp?StoryID=86585. 4. “Commission Approves $7M in Stun Guns,” Santa Monica Daily Press, August 17, 2006, p. 5. 5. Paul Nelson, “Criminal Beware,” The Sun News, January 29, 2006, www.myrtlebeachonline.com. 6. Interview by author, October 10, 2006. 7. Sherman, “Amnesty International: US Taser Deaths Up.” 8. Lateef Mungin, “Officers Say Taser Often a Lifesaver,” The Atlanta JournalConstitution, August 22, 2005, www.ajc.com. 9. Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, British Columbia, Canada, “Taser Technology Review Final Report (File No. 2474),” June 14, 2005. 10. “New Reports Stress Taser’s Safety & Effectiveness,” Force Science News, November 12, 2005, www.policeone.com/police-products/less-lethal/taser/ articles/120718/. 11. “Information Regarding OCSO Study,” November 2005, www.taser.com/ documents/Orange Co Fl Div of Justice Study.pdf. 12. “New Reports Stress Taser’s Safety & Effectiveness.” 13. Police Executive Research Forum, “PERF Conducted Energy Device Policy and Training Guidelines for Consideration,” October 25, 2005. 14. Mike Sakal, “Sheriff’s Tasers Will Add Video,” East Valley Tribune, May 24, 2006, www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=66249. 15. David Hambling, “Sweeping Stun Guns to Target Crowds,” New Scientist, June 16, 2004, www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn6014&print=true. 16. Ibid. 17. Luke Shockman, “Keeping the Peace: Technology May Give Police New Ways to Handle Violence,” Toledo Blade, October 24, 2005, www.toledoblade. com. 18. David Hambling, “‘Safe’ Laser Weapon Comes under Fire,” New Scientist, September 8, 2002, www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn2756&print=true. 19. U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2005 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006). 20. Paul Eng, “A New Handle on Smart Gun Tech,” ABC News, February 3, 2005, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=458084. 21. Dean Scoville, “How to Buy a Ballistic Vest,” Police, March 2006, www.policemag.com/t cipick.cfm?rank=92437. 22. Second Chance Armor, Inc., product brochure. 23. Cyrus Farivar, “Car Chase Tech That’s Really Hot,” Wired, February 3, 2005, www.wired.com/news/autotech/1,66473-0.html. 24. Jacqueline Seibel, “State Patrol’s Ticket-Writing Goes High Tech,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 25, 2005, p. 1. 25. Beryl Chong, “Sparks Police Get Familiar with New GPS Equipment,” Reno Gazette-Journal, March 31, 2006, www.rgj.com.

164

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26. Lucas Wall, “Modeling Collisions,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2005, www.boston.com. 27. Del Quentin Wilber, “Car-Crash Investigators Partner with Computers,” Washington Post, July 3, 2005, p. C03. 28. Jim McKay, “Goodbye Breathalyzer,” Government Technology, January 2, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/97729. 29. “Radiation Monitors Aid in Emergency Response Efforts,” Product News Network, October 4, 2005, p. 48.

Chapter 6 1. Mark Gribben, “Liar, Cheater, Thief,” Crime Library, 2004, www.crimelibrary. com/serial killers/predators/john robinson/3.html. 2. Sue Miller Wiltz, “Internet ‘Slavemaster’ Found Guilty of Murdering Three Women,” CourtTV.com, March 9, 2006, www.courttv.com/trials/ robinson/102902 ctv.html. 3. Joel Kurth, “Victim’s Mom Eager to See Convicted Serial Killer Get Death Penalty,” The Detroit News, March 2, 2006, www.detroitnews.com. 4. Daniel J. Rinehart, “Computers vs Strings,” Crime Scene Investigator, July 25, 2000, www.crime-scene-investigator.net/computersvstrings.html. 5. King C. Brown and M. Dawn Watkins, “Blood Detection,” Evidence Technology Magazine, March/April 2006, p. 32. 6. Kathy Steck-Flynn, “It’s All in Your Head,” Law Enforcement Technology, November 2005, p. 36. 7. Elaine DeValle, “New ‘Weapons’ to Make Getting Evidence Easier,” Miami Herald, May 4, 2006, www.MiamiHerald.com. 8. “Up Close from a Distance,” TECHbeat, Spring 2003, www.justnet.org. 9. Press Release from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, December 2005. 10. Rebecca Rosen Lum, “Bill Seeks to Require Guns to Tag Ammunition,” Contra Costa Times, April 21, 2006, www.contracostatimes.com/mld/ cctimes/news/14394934.htm. 11. Press Release from Binghamton University, April 18, 2006. 12. Mark Bowes, “A Dive, a Captain’s Hunch, Technology Pay Off,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 18, 2005, p. 1. 13. Kathy Jefcoats, “Clayton Cops Get Up-to-Date Tools,” Atlanta JournalConstitution, April 13, 2006, www.ajc.com. 14. Aaron Ricadela, “New System Enhances Images in Crime Investigation,” The New York Times, March 10, 2005, www.nytimes.com. 15. Mark C. Ide, “Bringing a Crime Scene to Life,” officer.com, January 23, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=22940&siteSection=20. 16. Jim McKay, “Gaining Ground,” Government Technology, November 2005, p. 42. 17. “NYC Opens Real-Time Crime Center,” Government Technology, July 20, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/95301. 18. Alison Gendar, “Cops Getting Real Results,” New York Daily News, February 7, 2006, www.nydailynews.com/02-07-2006/news/story/389072p-330127c. html.

Notes

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19. Jeannine Heinecke, “Creating the Super Detective,” Law Enforcement Technology, August 2006, p. 61. 20. “NYPD Real-Time Crime Center Expands,” Government Technology, February 11, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/98438. 21. U.S. Department of Justice, Crime in the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005). 22. Maggie Shepard, “APD Ready to Hook Thieves in Bait Cars,” The Albuquerque Tribune, October 18, 2005, p. 1. 23. “Sharp-Dressed Man,” officer.com, April 14, 2006, www.officer.com/article/ printer.jsp?id=29916&siteSection=20. 24. Devlin M. Gualtieri, “Technology’s Assault on Privacy,” Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Fall 2004, p. 21.

Chapter 7 1. Tony Harris, et al., “I Felt Really, Really Scared,” CNN.com, March 15, 2005, www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/14/atlanta.hostage/index.html. 2. Jim McKay, “GIS Helps Gwinnett County, Ga., Police Nab Suspect in Courthouse Shootings,” Government Technology, March 21, 2005, www.govtech.net/ magazine/channel story.php/93436. 3. Ibid. 4. Wes Smith, “A Vast Bank of Aerial Photos Helps Orange Appraisers and Cops Keep on Top of Things,” Orlando Sentinel, May 5, 2006, www.orlandosentinel.com. 5. “Model Airplane Designed to Help Police Shows Promise,” Mercedsearch.com, February 6, 2006, www.mercedsearch.com/news/777.html. 6. Rob Carson and Karen Hucks, “Robot Helps Stop Standoff,” The News Tribune, August 27, 2005, www.thenewstribune.com/news/story/5134011p-4671863c.html. 7. “Remington Launches Technology Division,” Shooting Industry, June 2005, p. 44. 8. Pamela Mills-Senn, “Looking Around, Up and Down,” Law Enforcement Technology, August 2005, p. 86. 9. Donna Miles, “New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls,” American Forces Press Service, News Release, January 3, 2006. 10. Ian Sample, “Pentagon Considers Ear-Blasting Anti-Hijack Gun,” New Scientist, November 2001, www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1564. 11. Charles F. Bostwick, “Noise May Help Fight Crime,” Daily News of Los Angeles, September 2, 2005, www2.dailynews.com/news/ci 2993792. 12. Duncan Graham-Rowe, “Tuning In,” New Scientist, February 14, 2001, www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn423&print=true. 13. “Up Close from a Distance.” 14. “Bomb Components Found on TRAX Train,” Deseretnews.com, June 23, 2006, http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,640189358,00.html. 15. Sandra Yi, “Bomb-Like Device Found on TRAX Train,” ksl.com, June 22, 2006, www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=322764. 16. Amber Hunt, “Security: Technology Helps Cops Keep Downtown Safe,” Detroit Free Press, February 2, 2006, www.freep.com. 17. Brochure from Mistral Corporation, www.mistralgroup.com/SEC semi.asp.

166

Notes

18. “New Military Body Armor May Suit Police,” officer.com, April 14, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=29903&siteSection=20.

Chapter 8 1. Kevin Bonsor, “How Lie Detectors Work,” How Stuff Works, 2004, www. howstuffworks.com/lie-detector.htm. 2. Dan Eggen and Shankar Vedantam, “Polygraph Results Often in Question,” Washington Post, May 1, 2006, p. A01. 3. Ibid. 4. Linda Spice, “Device Helps Police Zero In on Suspect,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 14, 2006, p. A-1. 5. Jim McKay, “Good Science or Just Bunk?” Government Technology, June 2, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/story.print.php?id=99712. 6. Fiona Haley, “To Tell the Truth: Voice-Stress Technology Analyzes Angry Customers, Wayward Spouses, and Everyone in Between,” Black Enterprise, June 2005, p. 80. 7. McKay, “Good Science or Just Bunk?” 8. “Stomach May Act Like Lie Detector,” CBS News, October 31, 2005, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/health/webmd/main997173.shtml. 9. Mike Fench, “New, Infallible Lie Detector?” American Free Press, July 2006, www.americanfreepress.net/Censored/30 New Infallible Lie Detecto.htm. 10. Emma Young, “Brain Scans Can Reveal Liars,” New Scientist, November 12, 2001, www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1543. 11. www.cephoscorp.com. 12. Richard Willing, “MRI Tests Offer Glimpse at Brains Behind the Lies,” USAToday, June 26, 2006, www.usatoday.com. 13. “Highlights of CBS 60 Minutes Featuring Brain Fingerprinting,” December 10, 2000, www.brainwavescience.com/CBS%2060%20Min%20High.php. 14. “What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You,” officer.com, March 7, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=26454&siteSection=20. 15. Robert Jaques, “US Tests $3.5M Computerized Lie Detector,” VNU Network, September 1, 2005, www.vnunet.com/articles/print/2141685.

Chapter 9 1. Duncan Osborne, “Jersey Serial Murder Convictions,” Gay City News, November 17, 2005, www.gaycitynews.com/gcn 446/jerseyserialmurder.html. 2. Jason Riley, “Man Pleads Guilty and Receives 20-Year Sentence in ’91 Murder,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 1, 2004, p. A1. 3. Wilson P. Dizard III, “Justice, FBI to Overhaul Fingerprint and Case Management Systems,” GCN, August 29, 2005, www.gcn.com/print/24 25/36805-1.html. 4. Jim McKay, “Palm Readers,” Government Technology, February 26, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/story.php?id=92881. 5. Steve Scarborough, “A Match Made in Heaven,” Law Enforcement Technology, April 2005, p. 42.

Notes

167

6. Joel Stottrup, “County Solves Case with Use of New Technology,” Mille Lacs County Times, February 23, 2006, p. 1. 7. “Gadget Intended to Keep Kansas Inmates In,” officer.com, November 18, 2005, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=27007&siteSection=1. 8. Rebecca Kanable, “DNA from Fingerprints?” officer.com, July 2005, www.officer.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=25197. 9. Ibid.

Chapter 10 1. “Derrick Todd Lee—Suspect,” Associated Press, May 2003, www.klfy.com/ Global/story.asp?S=1294401. 2. “Darren DeSoto: ‘I Saw Her Throat Was Cut Wide Open,’” Associated Press, August 6, 2004, www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=2142622. 3. “Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Lee,” Associated Press, October 14, 2004, www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,135509,00.html. 4. “Death Penalty for Bayou Killer,” CBS News, October 14, 2004, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/27/national/main555581.shtml. 5. Katherine Ramsland, “How DNA Analysis Works,” Crime Library, 2001, www.crimelibrary.com/criminal mind/forensics/dna/3.html. 6. “Governor, Law Enforcement Push Expansion of DNA Databank,” North Country Gazette, May 9, 2006, www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/ 050906DNADatabank.html. 7. Ibid. 8. Bob Wilson, “Technology Speeds Up DNA Processing,” Law Enforcement Technology, January 2005, p. 96. 9. www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/codis/clickmap.htm. 10. Heather Hollingsworth, “Man Charged in 12 Killings of Kansas City Women, Girls,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 20, 2004, www.findarticles.com/p/ articles/mi qn4155/is 200404020/ai n12542895/ print. 11. Corydon Ireland, “DNA Points to Honeoye Woman’s Killer,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 2, 2005, p. 1. 12. Richard Willing, “Push to Solve Cold Cases Has Benefits—and Costs,” USA Today, December 27, 2005, www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-27-DNArapes x.htm. 13. Ibid. 14. Judi Villa, “Advanced DNA Tests Offering New Leads,” The Arizona Republic, November 7, 2005, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=26793&siteSection=1. 15. U.S. Department of Justice, Advancing Justice through DNA Technology, 2003, www.usdoj.gov/ag/dnapolicybook solve crimes.htm. 16. Ibid. 17. “Technology Speeds Up DNA Processing,” officer.com, January 23, 2006, www.officer.com/article/printer.jsp?id=22796&siteSection=20. 18. Joyce Howard Price, “Lab Logjam,” Insight on the News, August 27, 2001, www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi m1571/is 32 17/ai 77812355/ print. 19. Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology.

168

Notes

20. David Doege, “DNA Database Faces Backlog,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 3, 2005, p. 3. 21. Joseph Rose, “Crime Lab Keeps Cranking Out ‘Hits,’” The Oregonian, March 1, 2006, www.oregonlive.com. 22. www.dnaprint.com/welcome/productsandservices/forensics. 23. Rose, “Crime Lab Keeps Cranking Out ‘Hits’.” 24. “DNA Retesting Results Fail to Exonerate Executed Man,” Government Technology, January 12, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/97863. 25. Raju Chebium, “Kirk Bloodsworth, Twice Convicted of Rape and Murder, Exonerated by DNA Evidence,” CNN.com, June 20, 2000, http://archives.cnn.com/ 2000/LAW/06/02/bloodsworth.profile/index.html. 26. Susan Levine, “Ex-Death Row Inmate Hears Hoped-For Words: We Found Killer,” Washington Post, September 6, 2003, p. A01. 27. Tom Kertscher, “Wrongly Convicted Man Freed,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 11, 2003, www.jsonline.com/news/state/sep03/169169.asp. 28. Angela Bettis, “Evidence Could Implicate More People in Halbach’s Murder,” Channel3000.com, November 14, 2005, www.channel3000.com/print/ 5326197/detail.html. 29. Meg Jones, “Avery Nephew Charged,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 2, 2006, www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=405302. 30. Robert Imrie, “Boy a Victim of Avery, Lawyer Says,” Wisconsin State Journal, March 4, 2006, p. B1. 31. Eugene Kane, “Group Still Looking to Free the Innocent,” Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, November 17, 2005, p. A17. 32. www.co.ramsey.mn.us/attorney/SPDNA.asp. 33. Gary D. Robertson, “N.C. Inmates Have New Way to Appeal,” Indianapolis Star, August 4, 2006, p. A-5.

Chapter 11 1. “Rader’s Testimony,” The Wichita Eagle, June 28, 2005, www.kansas.com. 2. “‘BTK’ Made First Contact through Newspaper in ’74,” The Wichita Eagle, February 11, 1978, www.kansas.com. 3. Casey Scott, “City’s ‘BTK Strangler’ Claims He’s Killed 7,” The Wichita Eagle, February 11, 1978, www.kansas.com. 4. Denise Ono, “Who Is the BTK Killer?” MSNBC.com, August 17, 2005, www.msnbc.com/id/8929452/print/1/displaymode/1098. 5. “Computer Disk May Have Cracked BTK Case,” Associated Press, March 3, 2005, www.msnbc.com/id/6988048. 6. “Interview with Serial Killer,” Mob Magazine, August 16, 2005, www. mobmagazine.com. 7. “Rader’s Statement at Sentencing,” The Wichita Eagle, August 19, 2005, www.kansas.com. 8. Ron Sylvester, “DA to Reveal Graphic Details in BTK Case,” The Wichita Eagle, August 14, 2005, www.kansas.com. 9. Dan Voorhis, “News Stuns Church Where Rader Was Leader,” The Wichita Eagle, February 27, 2005, www.kansas.com.

Notes

169

10. “BTK Killer Sentenced to 10 Life Terms,” CNN.com, August 18, 2005, www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/08/18/btk.killings/index.html. 11. Ibid. 12. David A. Fahrenthold, “Surveillance Catching On in Big Way in Small Towns,” Washington Post, January 22, 2006, www.dfw.com/mld/ dfw/news/nation/13686123.htm. 13. Kari Petrie, “St. Cloud Surveillance Closer to Reality,” St. Cloud Times, March 31, 2006, www.sctimes.com. 14. Larry Celona, “505 New Cameras to Keep an Eye on Bad Guys,” New York Post, March 22, 2006, www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/ 65799.htm. 15. John Fritze, “Baltimore Installing Talking Monitors to Curb Crime,” Baltimore Sun, November 18, 2005, p. A2. 16. www.shotspotter.com/prod le.htm. 17. Suzanne Smalley, “Keeping Ear Cocked for Gunshots,” Boston Globe, February 24, 2006, www.boston.com. 18. Michael Kanellos, “Tech’s Part in Preventing Attacks,” CNET News.com, July 7, 2005, http://news.com.com/Techs+part+in+preventing+attacks/2100-7438 35778470.html. 19. Kimberly Patch, “Camera Sees behind Objects,” Technology Research News, June 1, 2005, www.trnmag.com/Stories/2005/060105/Camera sees behind objects 060105.html. 20. “U.S. Department of Justice Launches National Sex Offender Public Registry Site,” Government Technology, May 24, 2005, www.govtech.net/ magazine/channel story.php/94070. 21. Jim McKay, “Keeping Tabs,” Government Technology, July 28, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/95701. 22. Joe Nelson, “GPS Lassos First Sexual Offender,” San Bernardino Sun, April 6, 2006, www.sbsun.com. 23. Jim McKay, “Electronic Tether,” Government Technology, February 2, 2006, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/98310. 24. Ibid. 25. Aman Ali, “Bracelets Designed to Deter Drinking,” Akron Beacon Journal, July 27, 2006, www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15133587.htm. 26. “Police Use Satellite Positioning to Find Bank’s Bag of Cash,” Associated Press, January 6, 2006, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com. 27. Marty Whitford, “Thief Relief,” GPS World, October 2004, p. 99. 28. “Tracking the Predator,” TECHbeat, Fall 2004, www.justnet.org. 29. Ibid. 30. Todd Spangler, “Face Invaders,” Baseline, April 2004, p. 71. 31. Jim Konkoly, “Eye Photos Will Soon Help Sheriff Find Lost Children,” Mansfield News Journal, January 6, 2006, www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com. 32. Christa Miller, “How Law Enforcement Agencies Are Implementing GJXDM,” Law Enforcement Technology, May 2005, p. 70. 33. Jim McKay, “Cops and Computers,” Government Technology, November 30, 2002, www.govtech.net/magazine/story.php?id=3030000000027538. 34. William Knight, “New Search Engine to Help Thwart Terrorists,” Contractor UK, July 14, 2005, www.contractoruk.com/news/002194.html.

170

Notes

35. Kelly Kyrik, “Trolling for Predators,” Police, March 2006, www.policemag. com/t cipick.cfm?rank=91870. 36. Torsten Ove, “Web Cops Tighten Net on Sex Offenders,” Rocky Mountain News, July 17, 2006, www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/ 0,2777,DRMN 23910 4848932,00.html. 37. Interview by author, October 24, 2006. 38. “CO Cops Use MySpace to ID Rapists,” Associated Press, March 26, 2006, www.lineofduty.com/blotterstory.asp?StoryID=86489. 39. “Daily Plishing,” Government Technology, May 2006, p. 11.

Chapter 12 1. “DNA Dragnet,” CBS News, September 12, 2004, www.cbsnews.com/ stories/2004/09/10/60minutes/main642684.shtml. 2. Ibid. 3. Jane Glenn Cannon, “OU Ballet Student’s Killer to Die, Jury Decides,” The Daily Oklahoman, February 18, 2006, p. A1. 4. “Oklahoma Police Use Unusual DNA Dragnet to Search for Killer, Raise Privacy Concerns,” Court TV News, June 1, 2001, www.courttv.com/archive/news/ 2001/0601/dragnet ap.html. 5. Ibid. 6. “DNA Dragnet,” CBS News. 7. “DNA Dragnets,” The New Atlantis, Spring 2005, p. 104. 8. Rick Weiss, “Vast DNA Bank Puts Policing at Odds with Privacy,” Washington Post, June 3, 2006, p. A01. 9. Judy Skatssoon, “Smart Surveillance Has Alarm Bells Ringing,” News in Science, August 2, 2005, www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1428126.htm. 10. Michael Crawford, “Algorithms to Calculate Unusual Behavior,” Computer World, January 9, 2006, www.computerworld.com.au/pp.php?id= 484132779&fp=16&fpid=0. 11. Eliot Cole, “Caught in the Big Easy,” Government Technology, September 7, 2005, www.govtech.net/magazine/channel story.php/96616. 12. Michael E. Ruane, “Security Camera New Star Witness,” Washington Post, October 8, 2005, p. B01. 13. Declan McCullagh, “Snooping by Satellite,” CNET News.com, January 13, 2005, http://news.com.com/2102-1028 3-5533560.html?tag=st.util.print. 14. “Technology Primer: Radio Frequency Identification,” TECHbeat, Summer 2005, www.justnet.org. 15. Kim Zetter, “Brave New Era for Privacy Fight,” Wired, January, 17, 2005, www.wired.com/news/privacy/1,66242-0.html. 16. Florence Olsen, “Privacy in a Post-Sept. 11 World,” FCW.com, June 27, 2005, www.fcw.com/article89363-06-27-05-Print. 17. Malcolm Ritter, “It’s No Lie: MRIs May Detect Truth,” Indianapolis Star, January 30, 2006, p. A-2. 18. David Hambling, “Sweeping Stun Guns to Target Crowds,” New Scientist, June 16, 2004, www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn6014&print=true. 19. Seaskate, Inc., The Evolution and Development of Police Technology, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1, 1998, p. 24.

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Index

Accident investigation, computer-assisted, 65–66 Acoustical weapons, 61, 92 Aerial photography: for crime mapping, 142; in SWAT operations, 86–87. See also Pictometry AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System): how the system works, 110–11; introduction of, 5–6, 8; national networking of (IAFIS), 111; portable model, 112; state of Maine comes online, 108; used in correctional facilities, 113; used to identify victims, 112; used for palm prints, 111; used to solve old cases, 109–10 Alexander, Dan, 37 Amber Alert, 52 Arizona Republic, The, 122 Armitage, Darwin, 76–77 Armitage, Scott, 38 Armor plate, for police vehicle door, 62 Arpaio, Joe, 60 Asplen, Christopher, 123, 152 Automatic license plate recognition, 34–35 Auto Trader Magazine, 127 Avery, Steven, 127–29, 130

Bailey, Phillip, 80 Balaam, Dennis, 16 Ballistic blanket, 94 Baranoski, Edward, 90 Barrios, Angela, 2 Bartley, Ali, 146 Baton, used by police, 57 Bertillonage, 110 Bever, Robert, 113 Binghamton University, 78 Blagojevich, Rod R., 32 Blair, Robin, 41 Blood spatter: direction of, 74–75; meaning of, 74 Bloodsworth, Kirk, 125–26, 130 Body armor: for bomb squad members, 95; for police officers, 62 Bomb jammer, 94 Bomb mitigating trashcans, 94–95 Bos, Tim, 14 Brain fingerprinting, 104–5 Branch, Dan, 86 Brown, David, 68 Bryant, Boyd, 33 BTK killer, 133–36. See also Rader, Dennis Buskin, Juli, 149–51

184 CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch), 49–50 Cairns, Wayne, 144 Camous, Jerry, 144–45 Cannon, Tim, 88 Carns, Bill, 4 Carter, Willis, 48 Casko, Stephen, 47 Cellular telephones, finding location of when calling 911, 49–50 Centurion Ministries, 125 Chambers, Jutta, 111 Chang, Yu-Wen, 39 Chase, high-speed, 62–63; termination of, 63 Chemical spray, 56–57 Christian, Randy, 35 Clark, Mike, 136 CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), 120 Coleman, Roger Keith, 124–25 Collins, Susan, 46 Computer-generated traffic tickets, 33 Computers: data mining, 145; to detect unusual behavior, 139, 153; GJXML data model, 144–45; plishing, 147; police computer crime units, 145–46; used to catch sexual predators, 145–46; used by con artists, 146–47; used for facial recognition, 143, 154; used in iris scanning, 143–44; used in police departments, 136–37; used to predict crime patterns, 142–43; used to see behind objects, 139; used for sex offender registry, 139–40; used to watch movements of offenders, 140–41 Concrete walls, seeing through, 90 Consalvo, Robert, 138 Cook, Joe, 153 Counter Terrorism Training Center, 23 Couso-Vasquez, Garry, 14 Crime Control Digest, 9 Crime scene diagram, computer-assisted, 80 Czerwinsky, Michael, 92 Dailey, Jim, 40 Daily News of Los Angeles, 92

Index Danielson, Brian, 21 Dassey, Brendan R., 128–29 Data aggregators, used by government, 155 “Dateline,” 145–46 Daubert, Patrick, 33 Davis, Andre, 153 Digital cameras: identifying photos from, 78; used at crime scenes, 80–81 Diliberto, Joseph, 66 DNA: acceptance by courts, 122; crime lab backlog, 122–23; DNA dragnets, 151–52; finding at crime scenes, 76; locations found at crime scenes, 118; offenses collected for, 119–20; state DNA banks, 119; taken from fingerprints, 113; total population database, 152; used to free wrongly convicted people, 124–26; used to give picture of owner, 123–124; used for identifying human remains, 123; used to solve old crimes, 120–21; used to solve property crimes, 123; used in Teresa Halbach murder, 128; “voluntary” samples requested, 116, 150–52 Doyle, Brian J., 146 Drammel, Hagie, 138 Driving simulators, 16 Easley, Mike, 130 Edmonds, Bill, 143 Edmondson, David, 52 Electric bicycles, use of, 40 Electric and hybrid police vehicles, 36–37 Elevated forced entry by SWAT teams, 89 EMD (electromuscular disruption) devices, 57–61. See also Taser Endler, Bill, 102 Etchant, 79 Evidence Technology Magazine, 75 Facial recognition technology, 33–34, 143, 154. See also Computers Farmen, Dale, 20 Farrar, Bret, 89 Farwell, Larry, 104–5

Index Fingerprints, value of at crime scene, 1–2. See also AFIS Fitzpatrick, Frank, 4 Flanagan, Kevin, 67 Flashbangs, 22, 91 fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging): used to detect thoughts, 155–56; used in lie detection, 103–4 Foot and shoe prints: finding at crime scenes, 75; lifting in dust 75–76 Forgeries, found by crime lab, 79 Foster, Raymond E., 8–9 Gaetner, Susan, 130 Gallagher, Kelly, 112 Gao, Jia-Hong, 103 Garrison, Eric, 41 Garvin, Jan, 81 Gassaway, Mark, 39 Gastric slow waves, 103 Gates, Daryl, 8 Gause, Rodney, 55 GIS (Geographical Information System): used in computer crime scene diagrams, 80; used with gunshot detection technology, 138 GJXML (Global Justice Extensible Markup Language), 144–45. See also Computers Glover, Barney, 153 Government Technology magazine, 147 GPS (Global Positioning Satellites): used in firearms, 56; used to follow suspects, 154; used in locating police vehicles, 50–51; used to track alcohol offenders, 141; used to track sex offenders, 140–41; used to track stolen property, 141–42; used by undercover officers, 83–84 Greely, Hank, 155–56 Gruder, Robert, 22 Halbach, Teresa, 127–29, 130 Hampton, Jackie, 37 Hannon, Floyd, 133 Harris, Ed, 17 Hart, Sara V., 35 Hayes, Hank, 22 Heal, Sid, 61, 63, 88

185 Hedges, Tony, 18 Heliocopters: with computer mapping systems, 38–39; with Forward Looking Infrared, 38; used by police, 38–39; used by SWAT teams, 88 Helms, Dan, 143 Henke, Tracy, 140 Human transporters: used by bomb squad members, 41; used by police, 41 Hutchinson, Carolyn, 37 IAFIS. See AFIS IMPACT program, 17 Impaired drivers, measuring blood alcohol of, 67 In-car computers: connected to surveillance cameras, 32; used to file reports, 64; used by police, 32–34; used to write traffic tickets, 64 In-car video systems: with Forward Looking Infrared, 29; necessity to run full-time or not, 29; used by police, 28–32 Indianapolis City-County Building, 11–12 Indianapolis Police Department Training Academy, 11–13 Inman, Keith, 118 Innocence Project, 126, 151 “Internet Serial Killer,” 74. See also Robinson, John E. Iris scanning, 143–44 Isenhour, Jeff, 39 Jeffries, Sir Alec, 118 Jensen, Mickey, 4 Jones, David, 20 Jones, Peggy, 2 Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 7 Kaplan, Sally, 98 Kelly, Raymond W., 82 Klinger, Rick, 141 Kobilinsky, Lawrence, 113 Koretz, Paul, 78 Kratz, Ken, 129 Kuykendall, Timothy, 152

186 Langleben, Daniel, 104 Laser Decision Shooting Systems, 19–20 Laser print finder, 4 “Last Call Killer,” 107–9. See also Rogers, Richard W. LAWeekly, 14 Law Enforcement Technology, 48, 120 Lawhead, C. S., 40 Lee, Bob, 100 Lee, Derrick Todd, 115–18 Lencki, Tom, 36 LEO (Law Enforcement Online), 17 Less-than-lethal weapons: Lewinski, Bill, 59; misuse of, 156; research on, 59 Lindgren, Brent, 113 Looking for Carroll Beckwith, 97–100 Loyd, Gabrel, 58 Luminol, 73–74 Lunsford, Darrell, 25–26 Maddox, John, 149–50 Main, Jim, 143 Majeske, Randy, 52 Marino, Janet, 27–28 McCallum, Scott, 34 McCarthy, Steve, 65 McCrary, Greg, 134 McFarland, Sheila, 51 McMillin, Malcolm, 45 McNeal, Danette, 51 Medina, Pedro, 28 Mellors, Ted, 22 Mesh radio system, 48 Metadata, 135 Metaxas, Dimitris, 105 Miami Herald, 76 Mobile command posts, 37 Mobile firing ranges, 20–21 Morgan, Chris, 34 Morin, Robert E., 126 Morrison, Paul, 71 MtDNA (Mitochondrial DNA), 121–22 MTT (Mobile Tactical Trainers), 21 Murray, Ken, 22 MySpace.com, 146 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 18

Index National Crime Prevention Council, 9 National Emergency Management Institute, 23 National Institute of Justice, 156–57 National White Collar Crime Center, 18 Nelson, Terry, 33 New York Daily News, 82 NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistics Information Network), 77–78 Nichols, Brian, 85–86 Night Stalker, 1–6, 8. See also Ramirez, Richard Night vision lenses: used for surveillance, 84; used by SWAT teams, 89–90 NLECTC (National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center), 18 Nolan, Tom, 31–32 Norris, Elwood, 92 Okazaki, Dayle, 2 Onalfo, Jim, 81 Page, Sam, 90 Paige, Patrick, 146 Paintball shooting, 19 Pankaj, Pasricha, 103 Parr, Doug, 151 Pataki, George E., 119 Patton, Clarence, 109 Peters, Alfred D., 15 Pettigrew, Mack, 17–18 Pickens, Fred, 21 Pictometry, 86–87. See also Aerial photography Podcasting, 17–18 Police radio incompatibility, 44–48 Polygraph: invention of, 100; operation of, 100–101; reliability of, 101; used by police, 100–102 Posey, Julie, 145 Pray, John, 130 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 7 Pritchett, Chuck, 11–12 Project 54, 35–36

Index Quezada, Victor, 93 Rader, Dennis, 131–36 Ramirez, Richard, 1–6 Real Time Crime Center, 81–82 Reece, Michael, 62 Reverse 911, 51–52 Reyes, Eddie, 47 RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), 154–55 Richardson, Bobby, 29 Richardson, Drew, 105 Robinson, John E., 71–74, 125 Robots: used by bomb squads, 93–94; used by SWAT teams, 89 Roegner, Carol, 52 Rogers, Richard W., 108–9 Satellites, used in police communications, 48 Scheck, Barry, 151 Schlie, LaVerne, 61 Schlosberg, Mark, 27 Schultz, Ray, 83 Scott, Chris, 153 SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor), 141 Sczygelski, Ralph, 129 Seiver, Steven, 49 Sen, Pradeep, 139 Sex Crimes Investigation, 146 Sex offender registries, 139–40 Sexual psychopaths: fantasies of, 2–3; need for publicity, 134–35 Shim, David Hyunchul, 39–40 “Slavemaster,” 71. See also Robinson, John E. Sinquefield, John, 118 Sitzman, Richard, 150 Smart guns, 62 Smith, Ashley, 85–86 Smith, Ron, 94 Sommers, Scott, 38 Srihari, Rohini, 145 Starks, Dana, 36 Steed, Gary, 113 Stewart, Tim, 142 Stockton, Dale, 36

187 Surveillance: by “Eye Ball,” 89; by fixed-wing aircraft, 39; by remote control helicopter, 39–40; by SWAT teams, 88–90; through use of blimps, 138–39; by video cameras, 32 Svean, Jarle, 92 SWAT Teams, 85 n Taser, 21, 54–55, 57–60;deaths by, 58–59; misuse of, 156. See also EMD devices Terrorists, detection of weapons used by, 68 Texas Tower incident, 87–88 Thimmesch, Al, 135 Tieszen, Paul, 15 Trace evidence, finding at crime scene, 76 Training simulators, 13–15 Translators, electronic, 67–68 Trudeau, Scott, 46 Trudell, Greg, 20 Tuttle, Steve, 54, 57 Undercover officers: clothing for, 83; danger of being, 83; recording devices used by, 83–84 USA Today, 44, 104, 121 Van Zandt, Clint, 134 Vehicle theft: magnitude of problem, 82; police use of bait cars, 83; stopped by tracking devices, 82–83 Veiling Glare Laser, 61 Video cameras: installed in flashlight, 64; installed on walkie-talkie microphone, 64; used as crime prevention devices, 138; used with gunshot detection technology, 138; used in high crime areas, 137; used to record crime scenes, 81; used to record interrogations, 81; used by undercover officers, 83; worn into crime scenes, 76; worn on SWAT officers’ helmets, 92 Vincow, Jennie, 1, 4

188 Virtual Hallucination Machine, 15 Virtual reality: building interiors, 91; crime scenes, 80 Villarreal, Baldemar and Reynaldo, 25–26 Voice-activated police vehicles. See Project 54 Voice Stress Analyzer: Layered Voice Analysis, 103; used by businesses, 102; used by police, 102; used by private citizens, 102–3 VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone systems, 50 Warner, Mark R., 125, 127 Washington Post, 101 Watson, Garnett, 144 Weapons detection technology, 35

Index Wegener, Dale, 64 Welch, Don, 25–26 Westfield, Dan, 103 Wichita Eagle, 133–34 Wickham, James, 27 Wilkinson, Jeff, 80 Wired magazine, 155 World Trade Center disaster, 43–44 Wu, Harold and Jean, 3 Young, Russ, 27 Yu, Tsia-Lian, 3 Zambrano, Jesus, 25–26 Zazzara, Peter and Maxine, 3 Zbacnik, William, 137

About the Author ROBERT L. SNOW is Commander of the Homicide Branch in the Indianapolis Police Department. He is also the author of many books including Deadly Cults (Praeger, 2003), Murder 101 (Praeger, 2005), and Sex Crimes Investigation (Praeger, 2006). He also wrote The Complete Guide to Personal Home Safety, Terrorists Among Us, Looking for Carroll Beckwith, Stopping a Stalker, Family Abuse: Tough Solutions to Stop the Violence, and SWAT Teams: Explosive Face-Offs with America’s Deadliest Criminals. He has also published articles in Reader’s Digest, Playboy, National Enquirer, The Writer, and The Saint Detective Magazine.