“Touch DNA” Used To Solve Burglaries
Crime fighting has a new focus in Central Florida. Eyewitness News has been reporting the violent crime rate is down in the area.
However, property crimes, like car burglaries, are up.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) is using the same technology to solve burglaries as it uses to solve murders.
It’s called,” touch DNA.” When a criminal grabs the handle of car to break in, he often leaves behind skin cells that can be tested for DNA. Criminals who break into cars or homes often leave their DNA behind on clothes and drinks.”
They took all of my shifter knobs and stole the sub woofer out of the back,” said victim Kersey Pickels.
Pickels’ Jeep was parked in front of his Apopka home and was broken into Wednesday. Crooks stole expensive speakers, slashed his back window and ripped out the dash.
“It doesn’t make me happy,” he said.
By chance, a neighbor saw it happen and called deputies who arrested five teenagers for the crime. But it’s usually not that easy to recover stolen items.
According to new numbers released by the FDLE, $776 million worth of property was stolen in Florida in the last six months. Only $175 million worth of the property was recovered.
“Our case load is really increasing because of property crimes,” said Deputy Richard Negron.
Technicians say in the past, most of their DNA samples were from violent crimes. But with that down and local car break-ins up, that’s changed. They are now processing more burglaries and property crimes.
But Deputy Richard Negron says even when they catch the crooks and find stolen items, they are rarely returned to the owner.”
About 75 percent of the time the property we recover goes unaccounted for and it goes to the lack of inventory, not writing down serial numbers,” he explained.
Investigators say a serial number is often the only distinct feature on high-end electronics that can match the stolen item to its owner. So they say write them down or even photograph them.
LINK/VIDEO
The Art of Perception
|
At New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amy Herman schools police in the fine art of deductive observation |
Amy Herman at the Metropolitan Museum (with Sargent’s Madame X) asks her class of cops, “How would you describe this woman in one sentence?”
Early one morning a bunch of New York City police officers, guns concealed, trooped into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Inside a conference room, Amy Herman, a tall 43-year-old art historian and lawyer, apologized that she hadn’t been able to provide the customary stimulant. “I usually try to give you coffee with plenty of sugar to make you talk more,” she said.
The officers, all captains or higher in rank, were attending “The Art of Perception,” a course designed to fine-tune their attention to visual details, some of which might prove critical in solving or preventing a crime. Herman laid out the ground rules. “First, there are two words that are not allowed—’obviously’ and ‘clearly’—since what’s obvious to you may not be obvious to someone else. Second, no reading of labels. For purposes of this exercise, we are not focusing on who the artist was, the title of the work or even when it was created. Third, I want hands back, no pointing. If you want to communicate something, you have to say, ‘Up in the left-hand corner, you can see…’ “
Herman did not want to talk about brush strokes, palettes, texture, light, shadow or depth. Schools of painting and historical context were moot. Suspecting that some of the cops were first-timers to the Met, she tried to ease the pressure. “Remember,” she said, “there are no judgments and no wrong answers.”
She showed slides of paintings by James Tissot and Georges de La Tour. There was an Edward Hopper in which a hatted, forlorn-looking woman sits alone at a table, sipping from a cup.
“OK, what do we see here?” she said.
“A woman having a cup of coffee,” answered one of the cops.
“Unlike us,” another said.
Herman said, “Do we know it’s coffee?”
“If it was tea, there would be a spoon.”
“Or a pot, like in England.”
A Caravaggio appeared on the screen. In it, five men in 17th-century dress are seated around a table. Two others stand nearby, and one of them, barely discernible in shadow, points a finger—accusingly?—at a young man at the table with some coins.
Among the officers a discussion arose about who robbed whom, but they soon learned there could be no verdict. No one was being accused or arrested, Herman said. The painting was The Calling of St. Matthew, and the man in the shadow was Jesus Christ. The cops fell silent.
Later, Deputy Inspector Donna Allen said, “I can see where this would be useful in sizing up the big picture.”
Herman led the students upstairs into a gallery. The cops split into two- and three-person surveillance teams, each assigned to a particular artwork.
One team huddled in front of an enormous painting in which a heavily muscled man with close-cropped hair was being manhandled by a throng of armored ruffians and a buxom woman who was tearing off his shirt.
Robert Thursland, a 52-year-old inspector who looked trim and corporate in his gray suit, gave the class the skinny. The painting appeared to depict the end of a trial, and the muscle-bound fellow was “possibly being led off to be tortured,” said Thursland. The woman tugging at his clothes was part of the lynch mob, he added.
Herman revealed that the officers had been scrutinizing a 17th-century Guercino painting of Samson after his capture by the Philistines—the woman, of course, was Samson’s lover and betrayer, Delilah. That corroborated suspicions in the room as to victims and perps, and everyone seemed to agree the case could be closed.
In another gallery, a squat Congolese power idol, embedded with nails and gouged with holes and gaping gashes, appeared to be howling in pain. “When you came through these doors,” Herman said, “what struck you about him?”
Assistant Chief George Anderson, who commands the Police Academy, said with a sigh, “First thing I thought, ‘Boy, this guy caught a lotta flack. I kinda felt it was me.’”
Back in the conference room, Herman had the group pair up and take seats. One person faced forward while the other sat with his or her back to the screen. The officers who could see the pictures described them to their partners. One slide showed the well-known 1970 photograph of a teenage girl at Kent State kneeling beside a student who has been shot by the National Guard.
Anderson told his backward-facing partner: “The woman is obviously distraught.”
Ms. Herman scolded, “Uh-oh, I heard an ‘obvious’ out there!”
“Oops!” he said. “That’s the second time I did that.”
Another photograph showed two couples standing side by side. Herman cautioned that neither should be identified by name, only by body language. The consensus was that the younger couple looked happy, playful and brimming with enthusiasm, while the older couple seemed stiff, worried and ill at ease.
Eyeballing the older couple, Thursland offered, “They don’t know where they’re gonna be living come January. “
They were George and Laura Bush; the younger couple, Barack and Michelle Obama.
Herman, who grew up in Somerset, New Jersey, and earned a master’s degree in art history as well as a law degree, began her career as an attorney in a private firm. But after a while her lifelong love of art held sway, and she went on to manage programs at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, assist the director of the Frick Collection in Manhattan and give lectures on 19th-century American and French paintings at the Met (which she still does). She’s currently the director of educational development for the New York City public television station WNET. She began teaching her three-hour “Art of Perception” course at the Frick in 2004, to medical students at first. Then, over pizza one night with a friend who wondered why Herman limited her students to future physicians, Herman recalled a harrowing experience she had had while studying law at George Washington University.
Assigned by a professor to accompany police on patrol runs, she had raced with two cops to the scene of a raucous domestic dispute. Standing on the landing below, Herman watched one officer bang on an apartment door while the other nervously fingered his handgun. What the first officer saw when the door opened—a whining child, say, or a shotgun-toting madman—and how he communicated that information to his partner could have life-or-death consequences, she realized.
The following Monday, Herman made a cold call to the New York City Police Academy to pitch her course. And four months later, she was teaching NYPD captains at the Frick. One comment she remembers was an officer’s take on Claude Lorrain’s 17th-century painting Sermon on the Mount, in which a crowd gazes up at Jesus. “If I drove up on the scene and saw all these people looking up,” the cop said, “I’d figure I had a jumper.”
Herman, speaking to the class I attended, underscored the need for precision by recounting the murder of a woman whose body was not found for more than a year, partly, according to news reports, because of a commander’s vague instructions about where to look for it.
Anderson, who is often called to crime scenes, took the lesson seriously. Instead of ordering detectives generally to “search the block” for shell casings, weapons or other evidence, he said he would now tell them specifically to start at the far end, work their way back to the near end, look under all the parked cars, behind the gated areas, in the shrubbery, in the garages and in the trash cans.
One of Herman’s graduates, Lt. Dan Hollywood, whose last name seems well-suited to his Jimmy Stewart-like demeanor, said her pointers have helped snag pickpockets, handbag snatchers and shoplifters who prowl the Times Square area. Hollywood coordinates the Grand Larceny Task Force of 24 plainclothes officers. “Instead of telling my people that the guy who keeps looking into one parked car after another is dressed in black,” he explained, “I might say he’s wearing a black wool hat, a black leather coat with black fur trim, a black hoodie sweatshirt and Timberlands.”
New York’s finest aren’t the only law-enforcement types to benefit from Herman’s teaching. Other students have included U.S. Secret Service agents and members of the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, the Strategic Studies Group of the Naval War College, the National Guard and, during a visit to London, the Metropolitan Police of Scotland Yard.
Perhaps the most vivid illustration of art’s crime-fighting power involved a task force of federal, state and local officers investigating mob control of garbage collection in Connecticut. One FBI agent went undercover for 18 months, and during that time, as it happened, attended one of Herman’s classes at the Frick. According to Bill Reiner, the FBI special agent who heads the task force, Herman’s exercises helped the undercover agent sharpen his observations of office layouts, storage lockers, desks and file cabinets containing incriminating evidence. The information he provided led to detailed search warrants and ultimately resulted in 34 convictions and government seizure and sale of 26 trash-hauling companies worth $60 million to $100 million.
“Amy taught us that to be successful, you have to think outside the box,” said Reiner. “Don’t just look at a picture and see a picture. See what’s happening.”
Herman has taken her lessons to heart. When her 7-year-old son, Ian, was in preschool, his teacher worried that he wasn’t verbal enough and suggested that Herman try some of her exercises on the boy. Herman pressed him to describe in detail what he saw when they were at home or on the street. “It worked!” Herman says. “We started talking about all the things we see and why we think they look that way, and he hasn’t stopped talking since.”
She encounters frequent reminders of her pedagogy’s impact. While riding the subway not long ago, Herman noticed two burly men giving her the eye. They were unshaven and dressed in shabby attire. They made her nervous, and she got ready to get off the train at the next station.
Then one of the men tapped her on the elbow. “Hey,” he said, “we took your course. We’re cops.”
Neal Hirschfeld‘s latest book, Dancing With the Devil, the true story of a federal undercover agent, will be published next year. Photographer Amy Toensing is based in New York City.
Coping With The Dangers Of Law Enforcement
Guntersville Police Officer Jason Austin was shot in the line of duty Monday night.
Remarkably, even after suffering a shot to head, he is out of the hospital and said to be doing fine, but according to officials, part of the bullet that grazed his head is embedded behind his left ear.
Only centimeters could have made a life or death difference.
Now Guntersville police are coping with what could have been the death of a fellow officer.
The officers say they understand the dangers of their job, but when a brother of sorts comes so close to death it can take an emotional toll.
Fellow officer, Deputy Chief Thomas Bearden said, “it’s real emotional like I spoke to one of the Captains and he said the first thing he did was sent the Lord up a prayer.”
According to Bearden that prayer must have worked because Officer Austin is out of the hospital despite having a piece of the bullet still embedded in his head.
“We hope for the best and we feel that last night the Lord was riding with Jason when this occurred. It’s this faith that helps a lot of the guys, that’s how we deal with it,” said Bearden.
Bearden expects that Officer Austin will continue enforcing the law, despite being shot in the line of duty.
“He’s taking it well. Like I said, in our training and stuff we hope that something like this never happens but in the back of your mind as a police officer it’s always got to be there, that it could happen,” said Bearden.
Deputy Chief Bearden said that each of the 42 officers at the Guntersville Police Department train for the dangers of their job but anytime a fellow officer is injured they take a moment to reflect.
“Being a brother ship your heart goes out to him and your heart goes out to the family and we just hope that he’ll recover and we believe he will,” said Bearden.
Officials say that the bullet fragment will be removed in a few weeks when the swelling has reduced.
Fellow officers hope, and expect, everything to go well with Officer Austin’s surgery.
LINK
All together now… awwwwww
Wonder if any of them will grow up to be police dogs? After all they are Lab/Shepherd mix. Bet that officer got a big surprise when he came back to the cruiser…LOL!
———
Eight puppies were born in the back of a Winnipeg police car while the officers were responding to a call on Thursday.
The officers were on regular patrol when they noticed a couple of dogs wandering in traffic near Mountain Avenue and McPhillips Street around 2:30 a.m.
They were able to coax the dogs into the rear of their cruiser, luring them with food purchased at a local convenience store.
While on their way to take the dogs to an animal shelter, the officers responded to a call for assistance in regards to a man with a gun seen in the 800 block of Redwood Avenue, just a few blocks away.
The officers were on the scene of the weapons incident for about four hours while the dogs remained in the back of the cruiser.
After the incident was over, the officers returned to their car to discover the female Labrador/Shepherd cross had given birth to eight puppies.
The canine family was taken to the city’s animal pound, where two more puppies were born.
The owner of the dogs was located, and after paying a fine for letting his dogs run loose, went home with both dogs and the new brood.
LINK
Rest in Peace, K-9 Abby, Job Well Done
"Clear Lake Police Department K-9 "Abby" died Monday after a short battle with cancer.
Clear Lake Police Officers are mourning the loss of their police dog Abby.
She spent two years working in Clear Lake. The k-9 helped officers with several drug busts and tracked some missing people.
After a short battle with cancer Abby died on Monday.
Police Chief Greg Peterson says unlike typical police dogs, she was very good around people, especially children.
“I think it will leave a hole in the community, I think the amazing thing over the last two years that I saw, just how so many people in the community loved her,” Peterson said.
Peterson says the department will hold a memorial service for Abby late next week.
He says the department will work on getting a new police dog next spring. He says they will need help from the public. He says now that they have all of the equipment it will cost about $7,000 dollars to purchase and train a new K-9.
LINK
Pet cemetery honors K-9 military heroes
A game of catch, a bowl of kibble and the undying loyalty of their handlers is the only pay police and military dogs receive for their service.In recognition of National Pet Memorial Day, the Lohman family unveiled a special memorial Friday to these four-legged heroes at its pet cemetery at Daytona Memorial Park, as bloodhounds bayed, shepherds barked and retrievers silently wagged their tails. The breeds of working police dogs came from across three counties.
Ralph Orlando, vice president of the Obedience Club of Daytona, started raising money for an organization called Support Military Working Dogs, which provides cooling vests and other protective gear to help the animals burdened with working in Iraq and Afghanistan’s extreme conditions to support U.S. forces. Not long after, he suggested to the Lohmans that they dedicate a memorial to these special dogs.
“These dogs deserve recognition,” Orlando said.
Lee Conger, a retired naval officer of 21 years and military law enforcement K-9 trainer for the past 10 years, said the dogs are truly a blessing.
“My dad fought in Vietnam, and he told me about a patrol they were on,” said the trainer who traveled from Jacksonville for the unveiling of the memorial. “They almost walked into an ambush and would have if it wasn’t for the K-9 unit alerting them. This was before he met my mother so, in a way, I owe my whole existence to these dogs.”
Besides honored dogs and handlers, about 150 people — some with their own dogs — came out to show their support.
“We just want to pay our respect to the officers and dogs who serve us,” said Corey Dickinson with his dog Clark. “We just wanted to be here for this.”
Lexy Ross, of Port Orange, had her hands full with Lily Lou, a spaniel mix, Marlin, a red-nose pitbull, and Jefferson, a pomeranian with a close-cropped hairdo.
“Of course I love dogs,” she said. “I think it’s great that everyone is out to honor them.”
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson mentioned some of the county’s first working police dogs — including Dixie, whose claim to fame was catching “the naked rapist,” and using her own special tools to ensure he’d never rape again.
Over the years, some of these working dogs have lost their lives to heat exhaustion, gunshot wounds and car crashes, Johnson said.
New Smyrna Beach officer Roy L. Nelson Jr., 36, and his dog, Ceasar, are the only K-9 team to have lost their lives in the line of duty. On Aug. 13, 2005, a car pulled out in front of them, Cmdr. Bill Drossman said.
“Roy Nelson dedicated his heart and soul to being a K-9 handler,” he said. “There is no stronger love and commitment than that of dog and handler. These dogs are warriors and always faithful.”
Conger said before the memorial that he didn’t think to bring flowers to honor his first dog, an orange sable German shepherd named Bodo.
“(Bodo) was already retired — 16 years old — and still training me,” Conger said. “I think I was his last handler and he taught me a lot.”
The best thing about him, Conger said, was his sense of humor.
“Oh, he had a sense of humor,” he said. “We were at Lackland (Air Force Base in Texas) and I put some water down for him in his bowl. He picked up my canteen and I told him to put it down. He picked it up again, and this time when I told him to put it down he tossed it about 15 feet away from me. To me, that’s a sense of humor.”
Dogs of war
The U.S. military has used working dogs since the Revolutionary War when they were used as pack animals.
· Dogs in World War I were used to kill rats in the trenches.
· In World War II more than 10,000 dogs acted as sentries, scouts, messengers and mine detectors.
· Hundreds of dogs serve with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as patrol dogs and explosives and drug detectors. Another 2,000 or so provide similar services at U.S. bases and operating posts around the world.
· Before Sept. 11, 2001, security forces trained about 200 dogs a year for the Defense Department, but that number is up to more than 500, with most being trained as sentries and bomb-sniffers.
SOURCE: American Forces Press Service
LINK
Sheriff’s scholarship available
Scott County Sheriff Kevin Studnicka is one of 87 sheriffs across the state promoting the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association Scholarship Program for 2009.
The association has established a scholarship fund of $9,000 to award 15 scholarships of $600 each this year.
The members of the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association give special recognition to the financial needs of students attending the mandated peace officers skills course or two- or four-year law enforcement degree school.
Studnicka said the scholarship committee hopes to have representation from all geographical areas of the state in making its selections. Applications will be received until Nov. 1 and the scholarships will be awarded by Dec. 31.
Application forms and a statement of procedures are available at the Scott County Sheriff’s Office in the Scott County Law Enforcement Center, 301 Fuller St., Shakopee. Scholarships are only available to students in one of the four categories: Mandated Skills Program; Two-Year Law Enforcement Program; Vocational-Technical Police Program; and Four-Year College Criminal Justice Course.
LINK
New chief reinstates officers’ promotions
Seven Chula Vista police officers whose controversial promotions were rescinded two months ago have been reinstated to their higher ranks by new Police Chief David Bejarano.
Police Department officials announced the promotions yesterday, and police union president Buddy Magor confirmed that they are the same officers who were elevated in rank in July by former Chief Rick Emerson and demoted by City Manager Jim Sandoval the same week.
At the time, Sandoval said he had given express orders that the new chief should be the one to make promotions and that, as city manager, he had to personally approve any new hires or changes in pay because of budget constraints.
Emerson, who had announced his retirement in April, said he followed protocol in making the promotions. He quit rather than rescind them, and the police union later filed a grievance with the Human Resources Department objecting to the demotions.
Magor said he is pleased with Bejarano’s decision.
“We obviously support his decision,” Magor said. “Our dismay is still with the city manager.”
Sandoval said he also supports Bejarano’s decision.
“I’m happy for all the individuals,” he said. “I’m sure they deserved it. I always thought the new chief should be the one to make decisions on promotions.”
Officers Dan Peak, Martin Bolger and Chris Kelley were promoted to the rank of sergeant. Bartt Benjamin, Brandi Winslow and David Beatty were promoted to detective.
LINK
Policeman deserves applause
A Monterey police officer who went the extra mile deserves special Professor Toro attention this week.According to James Maxon, the city’s park attendant at Veterans Memorial Park, Officer Larry Siville was summoned to the park to check on a young man and his 17-month-old baby, who had been camping in the park’s hiking area off and on for several weeks.
After spending time with the two earlier this month, Siville found the child was clean, well-fed and happy. The father has no job, very little food or money and is living out of a tent.
On the other hand, Siville also found that the man is a devoted father, sober and attentive to his son. Unfortunately, the man is also on probation, he is not eligible for city or county services, and the situation they were living in could not continue for long.
Maxon said the man’s mother had offered to pay the airfare to bring the man and his infant to Ohio, where she could assist in raising the child. But the man was unable to leave the county because of his probation status.
‘Best possible outcome’
“I will never know all that Officer Siville did, but I do know the result,” Maxon said. After working directly with the Monterey County Probation Department on behalf of the man, Siville managed to get the young man’s probation either revoked or transferred, and the man was able to fly back to Ohio with his son.
“Officer Siville responded with humanitarian compassion for a very difficult situation,” Maxon said.
“Officer Siville went beyond just doing his duty to secure the best possible outcome.”At a time when peace officers have often come under harsh criticism for their actions, The Professor is happy to share examples of the quiet and good things police do for people.
LINK
Another Officer Resource Give-Away
Officer Resource is having another great give-a-way. The beauty of our give-a-ways is that there is no catch and you don’t have to purchase anything. To enter the give-a-way simply visit our forums and click on the thread titled Give-a-way or follow this link http://officerresource.com/forums/f4/give-way-9-22-09-a-37901/
This month we are giving away two great prizes sponsored by EarphoneGuy.com
Good Luck
Share this Blog
