Friday’s Heroes: Remembering The Fallen

Friday's Heroes - Remembering the fallen officers

 

The Graveyard Shift extends our condolences to the families of the officers who sacrificed everything to keep us safe.

Officer Colvin Georges

Virgin Islands Police Department

September 29, 2012 – Officer Colvin Georges succumbed to gunshot wounds he’d received four-months earlier, when he and another officer approached a group of men in an area where a shooting had occurred. One of the men opened fire on the two officers as they walked up. Officer Georges and his partner then engaged in a shootout with the men. During the gunfire Officer Georges received a severe gunshot wound that left him paralyzed from the neck down, and in critical condition, until his death last Monday.

Border Patrol Agent Nicholas J. Ivie, 30

Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection

October 2, 2012 – Agent Nicholas Ivie was shot and killed when he and two other agents were ambushed while investigating a ground sensor that had been activated in rough terrain near Bisbee, Arizona. He is survived by his wife and children.

Trooper First Class Blake T. Coble, 48

Pennsylvania State Police

October 4, 2012 – Trooper Blake T. Coble was killed when a tractor trailer traveling at a high rate of speed, ran a stop sign at an intersection, striking the trooper’s patrol car. He is survived by his wife and two children.

 *91 officers have died in the line of duty in 2012.

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Liz Mugavero: One Of The Best Weekends Of My Life!

Liz Mugavero

 

I spent a beautiful September weekend in North Carolina being shot at by drug dealers, shooting (and killing) fugitives and uncovering a makeshift grave.

It was one of the best weekends of my life.

But I expected nothing less from my first Writer’s Police Academy. I’d heard only great things about Lee’s event, and every one of them was true. Being immersed in the world of law enforcement, experiencing what these brave men and women experience every day, getting hands on and seeing and hearing the reality of their job was incredible and sobering and endlessly fascinating.

Crime has always drawn me (not committing it, I promise) as much as telling stories has drawn me. The first research paper I ever wrote as an 11-year-old detailed the Charles Stuart murder case in Boston. While my friends were reading Sweet Valley High books, I could be counted on to have my nose in a true crime serial killer account. Even then, I was fascinated with the “whys” of each story, a gift from my grandfather, who spent decades as a detective in Lawrence, Mass. and had the stories to prove it.

Family and friends of police officers know: a large part of police work is retelling the war stories. I was always an anomaly in my family due to my outlandish imagination and obsession with scary stories, so my grandfather’s penchant for telling these narratives — both real and embellished — was a breath of fresh air. Those stories drew me into his world, like a key to a secret club. They fed my imagination and got me asking questions and gave me yet another reason to admire him. I ate them up and imagined the days when I’d get to tell my own.

As an adult, I didn’t pursue the job. But I did the next best thing: I became a crime fiction writer. Which meant learning everything about how cops and sheriffs and FBI and DEA agents do their jobs to make it believable on the page. I read tons of books, wormed my way onto any crime story I could catch as a reporter and supplemented my interest with friends on the job. I collected stories from police captains, parole officers and corrections officers. I tried to weasel my way into ride-alongs and local police business.

And this year, I finally got to the Writer’s Police Academy.

Lee and the law enforcement professionals who gave their time and expertise to our quirky group gave us an invaluable gift. We were privy to not only their firsthand experiences, but seeing and being part of those experiences. Crashing though doors with shields and rifles and learning how to sweep an apartment potentially full of lethal enemies, feeling the adrenaline rush to discover a person actually waiting behind the door (right, Edith?) and understanding how easy it would be for something to go wrong in a split second.

Going through a firearms simulation where a mass shooter is killing innocent people and trying to gauge if and when you should shoot him. Traipsing through the woods (we were lucky the weather happened to be nice) and finding a finger in your path, and a few yards later finding the person the finger belonged to buried with leaves and twigs in a shallow hole. Imagining the insects swarming, the smells, the aftermath.

Watching a live police chase and seeing what could happen when a traffic stop turns into something much more menacing. Learning how someone could slip out of their handcuffs and give a cop a really bad night.

And the stories. As much as I loved being “shot at” by drug dealers and shooting bad people and everything else Lee had in store for us, what really grabbed me were the stories. Every officer and agent there let us into their lives. Some of the stories were funny, others were tragic, some were downright terrifying. But they were all real. I could’ve sat there for weeks and just listened, whether it was tales of a killer sighting his or her prey, the realities of gang violence, or how undercover cops avoid a drug dealer’s request to prove themselves by taking drugs. My grandfather would have been in his glory.

Everything I did, saw and heard that weekend gave new meaning to the phrase “putting your life on the line,” and that’s what these people do every day. I was already grateful for the law enforcement officers who work so hard to keep us safe. Now, I’m indebted.

Lee and all our instructors—thank you. I’ll see you next year, as long as you’ll have us.

Liz Mugavero is a former journalist presently navigating the world of corporate America. Her first series, the Pawsitively Organic Gourmet Pet Food Mysteries, will debut next May. She presently resides in Connecticut but is Massachusetts born and bred. Connect with her on Facebook, http://facebook.com/liz.mugavero  and Twitter, @lizmugavero or at lizmugavero.com.

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Josh Moulin: What Information Is In Your Digital Images?

Josh Moulin: before blue lights

 

Josh Moulin

Digital pictures and video have transformed our lives.  I have so many pictures and videos of my kids that by the time they are in college, I’ll have Terabytes of data.  It is so easy these days to capture anything with a digital image.  There is no need to worry about having film developed, or being careful to only take good pictures since you only have a limited amount of pictures left on the roll in your camera.  Now, we’re only limited by the amount of storage space our digital devices have.  As an example, the MicroSD card in most of our smartphones can contain over 18,000 pictures.

MicroSD cards now have a capacity of up to 64 GB

Often, digital images are involved in criminal investigations.  Imagine the treasure-trove of information that can be obtained from a cell phone, tablet, or digital camera when it is seized from a suspect.  In my experience, those involved in criminal activity just can’t help themselves when it comes to documenting their criminal activity in pictures or video.  In literally hundreds of cases, I found suspects taking pictures of themselves using drugs, vandalizing property, committing arson, abusing children, and in some cases, even murder.

While having picture or video evidence of a suspect actually committing a crime is the type of evidence that makes a prosecutor excited about a case, the digital image is just the beginning of the story.  Imagine if we could tell what camera was used to take a certain picture that was found on the Internet, or could link an image found on a suspect’s computer with their personal phone or digital camera found at their home?  This is all possible thanks to something called metadata.

Metadata is simply extra information about a file, or some people refer to it as “data about data”.  You are probably familiar with metadata but maybe not with the term itself.  Have you ever right-clicked on a computer file and seen the properties?  Dates, times, who was the author, when the file was last printed, etc., are all examples of metadata.  For digital pictures and videos there is a specific kind of metadata that exists known as EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data.  EXIF data is information embedded in the image or video that can contain all or some of the information below (what is actually in the image depends on the camera manufacturer):

Make of the camera that took the picture/video

Model of the camera

Serial number of the camera

Date / time the image was taken (according to the camera’s clock)

Filename

Flash settings

Aperture settings

Image resolution

Software

And more…

A forensic computer examiner can examine a picture or video for evidence of EXIF data and use special programs to interpret the information.  There are many free programs available on the Internet to do this and many photographers use EXIF data to improve their photographs.  In fact, EXIF data was originally created for photographers so they could look at their camera settings stored within the EXIF data to find out what settings worked or didn’t work when taking pictures under different conditions.

Screenshot from an EXIF data parsing tool

To illustrate how EXIF data can be used to solve a crime, imagine this scenario.   I was investigating a case where an adult male was suspected of having a sexually explicit conversation with a 14-year-old female via the Internet.  This adult male was sending explicit text messages and it gradually escalated to him sending images of…well, you can image, to the victim.  When the victim reported this to a teacher at school, our unit became involved and we forensically analyzed the victim’s cell phone.

When reviewing the pictures on the victim’s phone, we found the pictures of the suspect.  None of the images showed his face and all of them were obviously taken from inside of a residence.  Since he sent the messages from his cell phone, we were able to trace the phone number they came from and identify the sender.  When we reviewed the pictures sent from the suspect, each image contained EXIF data.  The EXIF data showed that the pictures were all taken from a Samsung cellular phone and since he had his geotagging feature enabled on this phone, each image contained the latitude and longitude of exactly where the phone was when the image was taken.  This allowed me to create a Google Earth map, which happened to place a big red dot right over the suspect’s apartment.

Just from the EXIF information we could prove that the particular sexually explicit image was taken by the suspect’s phone, from the suspect’s home, at a certain date/time (since phone’s clocks are generally set by the cell phone network, they are reliable).  Another critical element to prove in a crime is that of venue (proving the crime happened within a certain jurisdiction).  With EXIF data, it is not difficult to prove this at all, since we know the exact GPS coordinates of the crime scene.

EXIF data has also been used to locate victims or suspects of crimes from images and videos posted on the Internet.  Imagine watching a video that was uploaded to the Internet which depicted the racially motivated assault of a person.  If the camera used to create the video is capable of embedding EXIF data and the website the video was uploaded to doesn’t remove EXIF data, investigators can download the video and examine the EXIF data to potentially find out more information to lead to a suspect.

While EXIF data has proven itself to be an amazing tool for law enforcement, it has also been exploited by criminals.  If you have used any of the geotagging features of your favorite social media sites (Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Facebook, Foursquare, etc.) then you are aware that you can share your location with your posts and pictures.  This technology is similar to EXIF data by utilizing the devices internal GPS functionality to embed your longitude and latitude into your post.

Criminals have begun using this technology as another tool for cyberstalking.  By downloading images and videos that people post to their personal websites or social media sites, tech-savvy criminals can do the same technique law enforcement employs to locate where someone was at when they created the image.  If you are a victim of stalking or have been threatened by someone in the past and have gone to great lengths to hide from them, all it would take is them getting ahold of one image placed on a social network site taken by your cell phone or high-end digital camera with built-in GPS.  If that picture was taken at your home, work, child’s school, etc. that’s all they would need to find you.  It’s a scary thought and one that people must consider when using this kind of technology that is generally turned on by default.

Josh Moulin

Josh has a long history of public service, beginning in 1993 as a Firefighter and EMT. After eight years of various assignments, Josh left the fire service with the rank of Lieutenant when he was hired as a police officer.

Josh spent the next eleven years in law enforcement working various assignments. Josh worked as a patrol officer, field training officer, arson investigator, detective, forensic computer examiner, sergeant, lieutenant, and task force commander.

The last seven years of Josh’s law enforcement career was spent as the commander of a regional, multi-jurisdictional, federal cyber crime task force. Josh oversaw cyber crime investigations and digital forensic examinations for over 50 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Under Josh’s leadership, the forensics lab was accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors / Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) in 2009.

Josh has been recognized as a national expert in the field of digital evidence and cyber crime and frequently speaks across the nation on various topics. He has testified as an expert witness in digital forensics and cyber crime in both state and federal court on several occasions. He also holds a variety of digital forensic and law enforcement certifications, has an associate’s degree and graduated summa cum laude with his bachelor’s degree.

In 2012 Josh left law enforcement to pursue a full-time career in cyber security, incident response, and forensics supporting a federal agency. Josh now leads the Monitor and Control Team of a Cyber Security Office and his team is responsible for daily cyber security operations such as; incident response, digital forensics, network monitoring, log review, network perimeter protection, and firewall management.

 

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Castle: Cloudy with a Chance of Murder – A Good Cop/Bad Cop Review

Castle: Cloudy with a chance of murder

 

It was five years ago when TV viewers were treated to a fun new show about a mystery writer who tagged along with a police detective as research for his books. The show was funny, with bits of police work tossed in. Everyone loved it, and the program, Castle, quickly became one of the most talked-about TV shows on the air at the time. Then things went a bit askew. Castle somehow morphed into an after-school-special-like show, where the two stars, Castle and Beckett, focused on a junior high-ish “do you love me, check yes or no” type of relationship. For many viewers, the kid-like wannabe love affair was boring, and it was extremely frustrating to fans.

BUT…this season “fun Castle” is back. So far the episodes have returned to the original premise of funny with a little police work tossed in, albeit bad police work. But hokey police procedure and forensics is not what makes the show what it is, and that’s a great mix of core characters—Castle, Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito—who really know how to play off one another to deliver darn good entertainment.

And speaking of Castle and Beckett “playing,” here’s Melanie’s Good Cop take on this week’s episode.

Melanie Atkins

Before I get into the meat of my blog, I have to mention that I know Lee had to be rolling his eyes the second Lanie appeared on screen. Why? She mentioned lividity when talking about time of death. I flagged that one, and I’m sure Lee caught more things wrong with her assessment of the body. Anyway, that’s not my job.

I’m supposed to talk about the romance, and we got plenty of that right up front tonight. I loved that Rick was at Kate’s while she was getting ready for work — and then we finally got the kiss we missed last week. Squee! Kate’s little “wow” as she pulled away didn’t hurt, either. Those two have it bad, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Of course, Kate fears Captain Gate’s wrath if she learns they’re together, so they decide to hide their relationship from everyone at the precinct. I think that’s kind of silly, because as Rick pointed out, he doesn’t actually work there in any official capacity. Still, their subterfuge made for some funny scenes. Lanie almost outs them, but even with her voodoo logic she couldn’t unravel the mystery.

Kate and Rick conspire to both act as if they’re single whenever they’re out in public, and Rick takes that to heart and agrees to a date with a swarmy, bikini wearing entertainment reporter — much to Kate’s chagrin. She stays at the precinct to work when he goes on the date, but she’s jumpy and keeps checking her watch. Can you say jealous Beckett? Teehee! I love it.

Bikini woman turned out to be an octopus, with busy hands and an even busier mouth. She didn’t even give Rick a chance to meet her at the restaurant. Oh, no. She showed up at his door with oysters and chocolate covered strawberries and then jumped him before they could get the food out of the bag. Who knows what she might’ve done if  Rick hadn’t accidentally butt-dialed Kate when the reporter shoved him up against the refrigerator? That cracked me up, because I’m always butt-dialing people; it’s easy to do with an iPhone unless you lock it.

Kate hears glass break, courtesy of the woman pushing Rick into the fruit bowl and knocking it to the floor, and races to his apartment. Loud voices echo in the hallway, and she bursts in with her gun raised and finds the woman straddling Rick on the couch with her bikini clad boobs in his face. He’s not really participating in the kissing — or is he? I was surprised she didn’t shoot that slutty heifer right there on the spot. Might have been messy, but what satisfaction.

Luckily for Rick, Kate finally accepts his apology. Then the two of them agree to talk about dating other people — to act single in front of others — but promise to not actually do it. I don’t know about you, but that makes me happy. They’re obviously totally smitten with each other.

Except… Kate won’t kiss Rick right away, because she can’t get over the image of that woman’s boobs in his face. I don’t blame her! Too funny. I really enjoyed this episode. I love that they’ve brought the humor back, and I think they’re doing a great job with Kate and Rick’s relationship, too.

Can’t wait for the next episode!

Lee Lofland

I, too, enjoyed this week’s episode. And I’m certainly pleased to see Castle and Beckett together, in a relationship, instead of passing imaginary notes back and forth in the rear of a 6th grade classroom. So far, having the two of them together is working nicely, although, I do worry a bit about the writers putting too much focus on hiding their (Castle and Beckett) relationship. Doing so could become as tiresome as the “look, but don’t touch” song and dance we suffered through for the past few years. For now, though, it’s fun.

Okay, on to the reason I do my part of this review. And, for those of you who don’t know, this “review” started when real-life mystery writers asked me to point out the flaws in the police procedure and forensics in the show so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes in their writing. So…

First mistake…Lanie. However, her comment about lividity last night just might have been correct. Lividity, or Livor Mortis, is the pooling of blood in the lowest portions of the body. Lividity is caused by gravity, and begins immediately after death (as soon as the heart stops pumping) causing the familiar purplish discoloration of the skin. The process continues for approximately 6-12 hours, depending upon conditions, until it becomes fixed, permanently staining the tissue in the lowest parts of the body.

Therefore, if lividity was fixed when Lanie examined the body, then her statement could have meant that the victim had been dead for at least 6-12 hours. And, I believe that time-frame fit last night’s scenario. So this time Lanie’s reference to lividity could have been correct. Now, whether or not that was done on purpose…well, who knows?

However, let’s fast-forward to the scene in the morgue. Here, Lanie reverts back to her old unbelievable self. Yes, I realize the writers are using her to dump clues on us, but why don’t they do it in a manner that’s believable? For example, Lanie stated that she’d discovered makeup on the victim’s blouse, which was a good observation. But then she said the positioning of the makeup indicated that she was close to someone, like she was fighting. REALLY? FIGHTING??? Couldn’t the discovery of makeup on a blouse indicate that someone could have hugged the victim, therefore the transfer of makeup? In fact, there are several reasonable explanations for the makeup on the blouse. Then came the real “throw the remote at the TV moment,” when Lanie said the makeup was specifically formulated for high-def TV cameras. Again…REALLY? How on earth could she possibly know this? She’s a medical examiner, not a psychic chemist!

Then there was the blood spatter on the blouse, and I’ll give Lanie a pass on this one because there’s a good possibility a medical examiner would catch those details. Lanie said the spatter indicated the shirt had been ripped after the shot was fired. Spatter patterns would definitely indicate this, and, if the shirt had been ripped prior to the shooting there would have been spatter on the exposed skin.

– Anyone notice the Y-incision, and that it started at the top of the shoulder? There are no internal organs resting on top of the shoulder, therefore, the incision does not begin waayyy up there.

You can view a photo I took of an actual Y incision post autopsy here (scroll down the page). Notice where the incision starts (not at the top of the shoulder).

WARNING – GRAPHIC PHOTO OF AUTOPSY!!! Please do not click the link if this sort of thing is offensive to you.

Moving on…

– Of course, we were treated to an entry into a suspect’s apartment, an entry that was without a warrant. Shouting, “NYPD!” does not automatically grant access to a private residence.

– Ryan and Espo each receive a black eye while attempting to connect with a suspect, a suspect who just happened to employ very large security personnel. Yep, the security dudes landed a couple of hard licks to the noggins of the dynamic duo. What I found to be realistic in this scene was that Ryan and Espo did not give up. Instead, they fought the fight until the behemoths were in cuffs, and the suspect was in custody. That’s how it’s done in real life, too. Cops don’t give up. Once they commit to an arrest, they see it through until the cuffs are on and the bad guy is in their custody. The time to worry about the bruises and cuts is later.

All in all, the episode was fun. The focus was not on the case, but on the newly budding relationship between Castle and Beckett. And that’s a good thing for Castle fans.

Lanie, on the other hand, should remember my line…good fiction is believable make-believe. Unfortunately, her character is still not believable.

*ABC photo (top)

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