Officer Phillip Meacham, 38

Hopkinsville Kentucky Police Department

March 29, 2018 – Officer Phillip Meacham was shot and killed by a man who was impersonating a police officer. The man then stole a truck and fled to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where he was was shot and killed during a confrontation with local officers and United States Marshals as they attempted to take him into custody.

Officer Meacham is survived by his wife and two young children.


Trooper First Class Kevin Miller, 49

Connecticut State Police

March 29, 2018 – Trooper Kevin Miller was killed when his patrol car collided with a tractor-trailer.

 

 

 


Special Agent Melissa S. Morrow, 48

United States Department of Justice – Federal Bureau of Investigation

March 22, 2018 – Special Agent Melissa Morrow, a 22-year veteran of the FBI, died as the result of brain cancer that she developed after participating in the search and recovery efforts at the Pentagon following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks. She  spent ten weeks there recovering and processing evidence.

Agent Morrow is survived by her parents and sister.


*Image of the Connecticut State Police Badge is from the agency’s Facebook page.

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) is the study of the shapes, sizes, and locations of bloodstains. The study also determines how the patterns and stains came to be distributed in the manner in which they’re found.

Here, for your CSI library, are a few terms to help the characters in your books sound as if they’ve attended The Graveyard Shift’s …

Homicide School

So sharpen your pencils, take a sip of coffee, and let’s begin …

Accompanying Drop– small blood droplet produced as a by-product when other drops strike a surface (potions of larger drops).

Altered Stain – bloodstain that changed since its original formation.

Angle of Impact – degree of incline/angle at which a blood drop strikes a surface.

Arterial Spurting Pattern – bloodstain pattern(s) caused as blood streams from the body due to pressure from a severed or punctured artery. Blood squirts from the wound with each beat of the heart.

Backspatter Pattern – a result of blood drops traveling in the opposite direction of the force applied, such as when a person is struck with a blunt object, or when flesh is penetrated by a bullet or other projectile.

Bloodstain – deposit of blood on any surface.

Bloodstain pattern – the grouping of bloodstains/droplets/smears, etc., that indicate the manner in which the blood was deposited.

Bubble Ring – circles, or rings, formed when blood containing air bubbles dries and retains the circular shape of those bubbles.

Cast-off Pattern – a bloodstain pattern that occurs when blood-drops are thrown from a blood-bearing object, such as when a killer repeatedly swings a bloody hammer.

Directionality – indicates the direction blood was moving at the time it struck a surface. The shape of the drops are good indicators of direction of travel.

Draw-Back Effect – blood in the barrel of a firearm that has been pulled/sprayed backward into the muzzle.

Drip Pattern – formed when blood drips into other blood.

Drip Stain – a free-falling drop that formed due to gravity.

Drip Trail – bloodstain pattern formed due to the movement of a source of drip stains (a bleeder, a bloody baseball bat that’s dripping blood, etc.).

Edge Characteristic – features of the perimeter of a bloodstain.

Expiration Pattern – bloodstain pattern caused when blood is forced, by air, from the nose, mouth, or a wound.

Forward Spatter Pattern – pattern formed by blood drops traveling in the same direction as the force that caused the spatter.

Bloodstain pattern investigation workshop – 2017 Writers’ Police Academy ~ RJ Beam, instructor

High Velocity Impact Spatter (HVIS) – pattern caused by a high velocity impact /force such as that produced by a gunshot or machinery—farm equipment, factory motors, gears, and mechanisms, etc.

Impact Pattern – bloodstain pattern caused when an object strikes liquid blood, sending smaller droplets in random directions.

Insect Stain – bloodstain resulting from insect activity.

Low Velocity Impact Spatter (LVIS) – bloodstain pattern caused by a low impact/force to a blood source.

Mist Pattern – pattern formed when blood is reduced to a fine spray of micro-drops due to the force applied.

Bloodstain pattern session …Dexter-style – 2017 Writers’ Police Academy

Parent Stain – bloodstain from which a satellite stain originated.

Point (Area) of Origin — The common point where the trajectories of several blood drops can be traced.

Pool – an accumulation of liquid blood on a surface.

Projected Pattern – pattern produced when blood is released under pressure, such as arterial bleeding.

Satellite Stain – smaller droplets that surround a parent stain as a result of blood striking a surface.

Saturation Stain – the accumulation of liquid blood in an absorbent material, such as bed linen or clothing.

Swipe Pattern – bloodstain pattern caused by the transfer of blood from a moving surface onto another, with characteristics that indicate motion/rubbing/swiping between the two surfaces.

Target – any surface onto which blood has been deposited.

Transfer Stain – bloodstain resulting from contact between a wet blood-bearing surface and another. Sometimes it’s possible to see a recognizable imprint/shape of the bloody object on the second surface.

Void – absence of blood in an otherwise continuous bloodstain or bloodstain pattern. Perhaps an object was there, in the area of the void, when the blood was deposited, blocking it from landing in that spot. Then someone moved the item afterward, leaving the clean section.

Wipe Pattern – created when an object moves through an existing wet bloodstain, altering its appearance.


** Attention Writers, Sponsors, Readers, and Fans **

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Writers’ Police Academy. That’s 10 years of helping writers “get it right” with actual hands-on police training.

We appreciate all the support over the years and we’re looking forward to the most thrilling and exciting event we’ve ever produced – #2018WPA. If you’ve ever wanted to attend the WPA, I STRONGLY urge you to do so this year. Openings are available.

Readers and fans are welcome to attend and train along with their favorite authors. Past attendees include Jeffery Deaver(2018 Guest of Honor), Michael Connelly, Lisa Gardner, Tami D Hoag, Karin Slaughter, Kathy Reichs, Christopher Reich, Lee Child, Lee Goldberg, Marsha Clark, Kendra Elliot-Boucher, Melinda Leigh, Katherine Ramsland and many, many more!

Again, If you’ve ever wanted to attend the WPA, I STRONGLY, WHOLEHEARTEDLY, urge you to do so this year. Openings are available … this year. Could be your last chance. I’m just saying …

Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel said they’d placed buckets filled with river stones in all classrooms. Their purpose? To allow students a chance to defend themselves in the event of a school shooting.

The Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania official said the idea to arm kids with rocks came to him when he pictured river stones as a comfortable size for the hands of children. The theory was to have the rock bucket on standby in case an armed shooter burst in the classroom while firing a semi-automatic AR-15 or similar rifle. Or even a pistol or two (far more people are killed with handguns than long guns).

Shooter Seung-Hui Cho killed 25 students and five faculty members at Virginia Tech. Cho fired 174 rounds from two handguns.

So let’s picture this for a moment. The alarm sounds (this is not the actual message) … “Emergency! There is an active shooter inside the building. No time to evacuate. Lock all doors and shelter in place. The police are on the way!”

Teachers and children hustle to a rear section of the classroom and use whatever they can find to use as barricades. The gunfire is intense. People are screaming. The shooter is yelling. Police sirens are wailing outside in the distance. Some of the kids are crying and sobbing. Others are using cell phones to call their parents. The teacher is trembling, but trying to be brave. More gunfire and the sound of glass breaking.

Front and center of the group is a plastic bucket filled with lemon-size, smooth and pretty river stones. Everyone grabs three or four. They’re ready to clobber the guy who’s coming down the hallway. Then …

The classroom door bursts open and the barrel of an AR-15 pokes through the opening. Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets begin to spew from the muzzle at a speed of somewhere around at 3,350 fps, and they’re peppering the walls, desks, ceiling, windows, barricades, teachers, children, and the rock bucket, as fast as the killer can pull the trigger.

An AR-15 style rifle is a lightweight semi-automatic rifle.

During the blast of intense gunfire, there is simply no way on this earth that children would have the time to grab a rock and throw it with enough accuracy to stop a crazed killer who’s intent on carrying out the act. Typically, these guys are not afraid of dying and may kill themselves at the end of the shooting. So someone tossing river stones at a gun-toting madman? No way.

This would be more realistic …

Fortunately, officials came to their senses and are now stepping up school security by hiring security armed with guns. I think the rocks still remain, but …

Kevlar Blankets

By the way, why not equip classrooms with large “blankets” made of Kevlar? Kids and teachers could hide behind them and, who knows, the shields could give them the chance to survive an attack.

#neverbringarocktoagunfight

#kevlarblankets

#kevlarbuckets


I’d love to hear your thoughts on adding a bucket of rocks in classrooms as a means of defense against an armed shooter. Also, who knows what the “AR” in AR-15 stands for? Hint. It’s not Assault Rifle.

*As always, please, no comments about politics, gun control, race, religion, or any of the other hot button whatever-no-one-can-discuss-rationally topics. Thanks!

 

RILEY TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A 73-year-old woman was in her kitchen doing what everyone does in their kitchen—cooking, cleaning, eating, washing dishes, hanging out, having coffee, etc. You know, “kitchen things.” Her husband was nearby.

The woman’s husband says he heard a loud “crack” and suddenly his wonderful wife of many years collapsed to the floor. She was dead.

The sharp sound was gunfire. The woman had been shot to death by a neighbor who was target practicing on his property, firing at a dirt berm.

Apparently, at least one of the shooter’s rounds missed its mark and traveled through the air, across his property and then across his neighbor’s land, through their walls, into their kitchen, where it came to rest inside the body of an elderly woman who was doing nothing more than enjoying a day at home with her husband. Now she’s gone, forever.

Police say the shooter is cooperating with authorities.

I bring up this tragedy because, first, it’s horrible, and next it reminds me of an incident that occurred just last year in the state of North Carolina. Onslow County, North Carolina, to be exact, and it involves my daughter, her family, their home, their neighbors, and me, in a roundabout way.

Our daughter’s home was struck by gunfire.

The initial round broke a window and penetrated an interior wall of a laundry room.

Thinking it may have been a freak accident, the window was replaced and all was well … for a short while. Then more sounds of gunfire were heard in the area, and those gunshots sounded extremely close with additional rounds striking the house. One lodged in the wood trim next to the front door.

The front door. The door most often used by my daughter, her husband, and our grandson, Tyler. The round hit less than a foot to the right of where a person would stand when unlocking the door, turning the knob to go inside, or to stand watching as Tyler’s school bus arrived, something Ellen liked to do until cancer arrived and made it too difficult for her to enjoy many of the things she enjoyed.

Ellen, our daughter, called the sheriff’s office to report that someone was shooting at her house. In the meantime, she contacted a next-door neighbor who also discovered rounds lodged in the exterior of their home. Also near the front door.

Here’s how the sheriff’s office responded to someone firing live rounds into the homes of human beings.

Day One

  • Ellen called the sheriff’s office the first day/time at 1552 (if nothing else, the daughter of a police detective knows to keep record of everything). The call lasted 1 minute and 12 seconds. She called back at 1606 because the shooting was still going on in the neighborhood. The second call lasted 2 minutes and 26 seconds.
  • No one responded and the sheriff’s office denied she’d called, in spite of her having the records stored in her phone.

Day Two 

  • No response – shooting continues. More contact with the sheriff’s office. Nothing.

Day Three

  • No response – shooting continues

Day Four

  • Ellen tells me about the incident and the lack of response and concern by the sheriff’s office. I bypassed the folks on the front lines and contacted the county sheriff directly and “politely” urged him to do something about the situation. Last year was election year, by the way. A major contacted me immediately. He said he’d follow up.

This is the point where I totally and absolutely lost it

One official wrote me to say, “Not sure why you think we did not respond…..?”

Well, maybe it’s because NO ONE RESPONDED!!

In fairness, I feel sort of confident the official was relying on the “word” of the deputy who reported that he’d handled the incident. But …

Finally, it comes out, sort of …

The deputy who was assigned the original call, four days earlier, told his boss that he’d been too busy that day to actually show up. Instead, he claimed he’d tried several times to call Ellen on the phone, using his cell phone, and that he left messages on her voicemail. There are no such records. They do not exist. No one called.

Next, I was told that the sheriff’s office has records of all calls made by the deputy. However, they could not produce them when I requested them (I knew they didn’t exist).

Sheriff’s officials again claimed Ellen did not call, asking me, “What is the address? Is your daughter a minor? Who are you calling when you call?”

Keep in mind, the person who asked these questions was the same person I’d spoken with about the issue. The same person who took the information from me—name, address, phone number, nature of complaint— after the sheriff had him contact me. AFTER the deputy said he’d been too busy to respond to the call made by Ellen. After Ellen called several times. After neighbors called.

It was within the same written message to me, the official made the “Not sure why you think we did not respond…..?” statement. Just seconds earlier, remember, he/she claimed Ellen had not called. Why would someone respond to a call that hadn’t happened? Curious, I know. 🙂

But … if there was a record of Ellen calling, why did they not know her name, address, age, the number she called? Puhleeze. I made up better excuses when I didn’t do my homework in elementary school. Anyway …

Convoluted, huh? But wait, it gets better!

Okay, back to the deputy. The major sent him out to speak with the shooters (by this time, everyone knew who was pulling the trigger) but he opted to merely drive by—he didn’t stop—reporting that the activity had ceased—he didn’t hear gunfire as he drove through the area (like people shoot nonstop, without eating, drinking, tending to needs, and /or sleeping, 24/7).

Four days later, the posse arrives

Anyway, the deputy finally showed up at Ellen’s house four days after her initial call to the sheriff’s office. While there, like in a Perry Mason episode, he used a knife to dig the rounds from the house.

He also finally paid a visit to the shooter. I was told that as long as the shooter was 500 feet from the nearest house there was nothing the sheriff’s office could do. They actually said it was okay to fire guns toward an occupied dwelling as long as the shooters were outside of the 500-feet-range.

Fortunately, this shooter used common sense and realized the danger and agreed to not shoot until he erected a dirt berm. Now, after hearing the tragic details from the Michigan shooting, we all know just how safe/unsafe a dirt berm can be. There’s a dead woman and her grieving husband who are proof that these berms are sometimes not safe, especially in a residential area.

I recall a well-known author posting about a similar experience in her super-nice neighborhood, and that guy was firing a fully-automatic weapon.

By the way, on the day the deputy finally spoke with Ellen and then visited the shooter, someone else from the sheriff’s office contacted me to say the matter had been resolved (case closed) several days earlier to everyone’s satisfaction. The message was extremely defensive, taking the side of a deputy without knowing the circumstances at all. No clue, but was quick to discount me, Ellen, and the shooting—case closed. This person was in no way involved in this mess, but she/he saw the correspondence and felt the need to chime in, without knowing a single detail. Not one. Four days after the fact while the situation was still fully in play.

Today, the shooting continues, with a dirt berm in place.

In the midst of all the buck-passing and possible fibbing and defensiveness of a deputy who was possibly a bit less than honest, I wrote this to the sheriff’s office command – “I know it’s none of my business how you conduct the business of your office, but this, trying to cover up after-the-fact, is part of the reason the public distrusts the police. I’ve devoted the past ten years of my life educating the public about police and that we really are the good guys and that they can trust us, and then all it takes is a few words to tear down the little progress we make. My blog alone has reached appr. 4 million people worldwide and it’s a battle each day to present positive information that’ll help build that bridge between the public and the police.”


Note – It’s a crying shame it took so long and to have so many people involved to stop a life-threatening situation. I sincerely appreciate that the top brass within the sheriff’s office handled this for me, but three or four days of someone shooting at your house before a patrol deputy could find time in his schedule to stop a potential death by shooting is, well, it’s beyond me. And why did I have to pull the “I was a cop card” before anything at all was done? Would they have eventually shown up had I not contacted the sheriff to mention I was a former detective who’s investigated more shootings into occupied dwellings than I could possibly begin to count? It’s illegal to do so, by the way.

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do know that 500 feet is not ample distance to completely prevent injury or death from a high-powered rifle round. Nor is it possible for improperly constructed dirt berms to stop rounds if the berms are too short, too narrow, or too thin. Even rocks or pieces of metal on dirt berms can cause ricochets, or lead to break apart sending shrapnel off in various directions. By the way, shrapnel is a fancy name for smaller projectiles that could also be as deadly as an intact round.

The rounds above each struck a hard surface before coming to rest. The item at the top is ejected brass from a .45.

Commonsense. Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a life. That, and not shooting toward homes.

#proactivepolicingsaveslives

#respondtocalls

#behonest

#shootresponsibly

#irresposibleshootersgiveallothersabadname

#baddeputy

#alwaysknowthepathofyourrounds


Finally, please continue to pray for our daughter, my little girl. She’s very ill.

Again, if you can help, please do. Contact me at lofland32@msn.com for contribution details. Thank you so much!

The first hours of a murder investigation are crucial to solving the crime. I say this because  as time passes memories fade, evidence can become lost or destroyed, people have the opportunity to develop excuses, stories, and alibis, and the bad guys have the time to escape arrest.

Here’s a handy list to keep on hand that could help solve the cases investigated by the detectives in your stories. Keep in mind that time is of the utmost importance! So, in no real order, off we go …

Serving a search warrant. Knock, knock!

Investigators start the search at the scene and then extend the search area as needed.

Police Public Information Officers (PIO) are the direct line of communication between departments and the public.

It’s important to keep the bosses informed. They do not like to be blindsided with questions they can’t answer.

And then it’s time for …

*Remember, no list is all inclusive since no two crimes are exactly the same. And, no two detectives operate in the exact same manner.

 

 

 

Officer Andres Laza-Caraballo, 31

Juncos Municipal Police Department, Puerto Rico

March 21, 2018 – Officer Laza-Caraballo identified himself as a police officer and attempted to intervene when several men attacked the owner of a barber shop he was visiting. Immediately after, several of the subjects entered the shop with rifles and began shooting.

Officer Laza-Caraballo was able to return fire. He killed one of the men and wounded a second before being fatally shot. The other suspects remain at large.

Officer Laza-Caraballo is survived by his two children.

If one of you guys wrote this in a book, well, I’d never believe it. Not in a million years. You couldn’t make me suspend reality to this extent.

But this tale is, unfortunately, very true, and here goes. Please allow me to first set the stage. Close your eyes and picture this (and have a puke bucket on standby).

Chicago. It’s March and it’s cold and it’s cloudy and there’s fog and there’s a bit of light snow falling. Again, it’s Chicago.

As the snow flies … On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’ ~ Elvis

Officers pick up a man for a misdemeanor offense and dutifully carted him to jail.

Okay, the sentence above, the one about officers carrying a man to jail, is the single normal thing that occurred in this entire story. So buckle-up, this gets ugly (and gross).

During booking, the arrested man began to speak of suicide, that he wanted to die.
Therefore, officials had no choice but to transport the suicidal offender to an area hospital for evaluation. By the way, this sort of thing happens quite a bit, arrested offenders faking illnesses of various types to stall going to lockup.

Officer Carlyle Calhoun, 46, a 10-year-veteran of the police department, and another officer were tasked with taking the prisoner to see a doctor/professional.

Once at the hospital, the medical staff had the prisoner change from his clothing into a hospital gown. The officers handcuffed the man to the bed—one wrist and one foot.

Calhoun’s partner decides he’s hungry so he goes out to forage for food, leaving his partner to stand watch over the prisoner. Now alone with the shackled man, Calhoun begins to make small talk about the guy’s charges and offering relationship advice and something about pressure points. Then he, the 10-year veteran police officer who was in full uniform wearing a badge and gun, suddenly began sucking on the prisoner’s bare toes while massaging his feet.

Next, and as quick as a flash, Calhoun reached up, grabbed the man’s (well, you know), and used his cell phone to snap a photo of the “item in hand.” The astonished prisoner asked the officer to stop. To further his goal of cease and desist, the prisoner requested to use the restroom. He’d hoped the move would throw the officer off course. Well …

Officer #2 and a Belly Full of Cafeteria Food

Officer #2, with belly full of hospital cafeteria delicacies, returned to the room and Calhoun then escorted the prisoner down the hallway to the restroom. Once inside, Calhoun dropped to his knees and performed a sex act on the prisoner who, by the way, was still protesting the sexual assaults.

Calhoun returned his prisoner to the hospital room where he quietly told the man he’d contact him on Facebook in a few days. Then Calhoun and his partner left the hospital.

Meanwhile, the prisoner, and now sexual assault victim, reported what has just taken place. Medical personnel collected the appropriate physical evidence (They administered a sexual assault evidence kit). Later, prosecutors said a saliva swab taken from Calhoun matched the DNA found on the victim.

Chicago PD’s Internal Affairs Division  found the photos of the victim’s “you know what” on Calhoun’s cell phone.

Carlyle Calhoun was arrested and ordered held on a $200,000 bond. He was formally charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and official misconduct.


FYI – the eyes in the featured photo at the top of the page belong to Carlyle Calhoun. The prisoner/victim will probably never forget them.

Chicago Police Department photo – Carlyle Calhoun


Let’s examine one last sickening aspect of this scenario at the hospital. Keep in mind that the victim of Calhoun’s assaults had just been arrested and had not had a shower prior to all of this “activity.” No shower. Hot, sweaty feet … and …

Yeah, yuck.

 

I. Ah Killer approached his first victim as the unsuspecting man exited a barber shop at the corner of One-Foot and Inagrave. He fired two shots, both to the head.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Killer gunned down Mabel Jenkins the moment she stepped from a city bus at the stop one block from the Hall of Justice.

Mr. Killer policed his brass, therefore not a single clue was left behind. His disguise and the silencer also helped see to that.

Hours later, detectives were baffled. It was almost as if the killer vanished into thin air. However, they had one really big clue, even without the killer’s identity. The two victims were scheduled to testify against Ronald Morphine, a local drug dealer who’d murdered a rival gang member. They’d witnessed the killing. The problem facing the police was that Morphine was currently in jail awaiting trial. So he couldn’t have done it.

After a few days of head-scratching and door-knocking, one of the detectives assigned to the case remembered an odd twist to a nursery rhyme he’d heard it while attending the police academy. One of his instructors, Lieutenant Lit R. Airy, read it to the class on the first morning of Crime Scene 101: The Importance of Evidence. The little poem went something like this.

One, two,
Google Mr. Shoe;
Three, four,
Knock at his door;
Five, six,
Double-click;
Seven, eight,
Confiscate:
Nine, ten,
Cellphone from den;
Eleven, twelve,
Dig and delve;
Thirteen, fourteen,
Behind locked screen;
Fifteen, sixteen,
To place at crime scene;
Seventeen, eighteen,
Jail’s a-waiting
Nineteen, twenty,
One cell’s empty

And just like that, they had the solution to their problem. They’d ask Google for help.

“Hello, Google …,” said Detective Mack Aron.

“Yes, this is Google. How may I help you?”

“We’re investigating a murder and we need to know the identifiers for every cell phone within a twenty block radius of the two crime scenes. I’ve emailed a satellite photo of the area and on the image I drew a red circle. A red X marks the two locations where the bodies were discovered. We need the phone identifiers for all phones within the circle, please. One of those phones belongs to our killer.”

“We’re looking at it now. But we’ll need a search warrant—” Google was saying when Aron cut them off.

“Got it in hand and will be right over.”

“We’ll get started,” said Google.

A couple of days later, with Google’s list in hand, detectives found what they were hoping to locate … the name of Morphine’s right-hand man, Sammy “Slack Jaw” MaGoo. Magoo once served a ten year sentence for whacking a rival dealer. He’s the muscle for Morphine’s operation and his phone was identified as being at both crime scenes during the times of the murders. As they say, “BINGO!”

Google Says!

Sound silly? Impossible? Illegal? Unconstitutional? A violation against search and seizure protection provided by the 4th Amendment? Fictional, at best?

Well, this is exactly how police in Raleigh, N.C. solved a few serious crimes.

Using a satellite image, they circled the crime scenes and then convinced a Wake County judge to order Google to release identifiers on every single cell phone within the circled area during certain designated times.

Certainly, this is a unique method of crime-solving, but is it ethical to include dozens or hundreds, or even thousands of people in such a broad sweep by law enforcement?

Of course, there are two sides to the coin. On one side, critics say this is an invasion of privacy as well as a violation of our constitutional rights. They also make the claim that these types of searches are nothing more than fishing expeditions where police use them hoping to find something on somebody … an unknown. Also caught up in this “net” are scores of innocent people who just happen to possess a phone while legitimately in the very broad area in question.

The other side of the quarter says this is no different than conducting surveillance of the same area. People pass in and out of video surveillance all the time.  Again, critics say the two are not the same, with the phone data search being an illegal gathering of personal data on innocent people, while walking past the lens of a surveillance camera does not divulge a single bit of private information. That is a huge difference, they argue.

What do you think? Should these searches be permissible, or not?

*By the way, you can turn off the location service on your phone. However, if someone wants to find you using your phone as the means to do so, as long as you have it on you, it’s possible to do so.

Happy phoning!

Ah, San Francisco, the City by the Bay. The Golden Gate City. Or simply, “The City” to many locals. It’s where a beautiful but extremely dense fog rolls in to make the entire Golden Gate Bridge disappear within a matter of seconds.

It’s where tourists gather by the thousands to see the sights, hear the sounds of sea lions barking, cable car bells dinging, and music provided by numerous street performers. It’s where the delicious odors of fried and broiled seafood waft across Fisherman’s Wharf.

The scenery is gorgeous, the temperatures are in the 60s, and it’s paradise where the scent of human urine and feces permeate the air with a stench otherwise found in a construction site Porta-John in mid-July during the hottest heatwave on record.

How bad is the urine problem in San Francisco?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders explained just how bad the the problem was in a 2015 column, via the American Spectator:

“How bad is the urine situation in San Francisco? This is not a joke: Monday night, a light pole corroded by urine collapsed and crashed onto a car, narrowly missing the driver. The smell is worse than I have known since I started working for The Chronicle in 1992. It hits your nose on the BART escalator before you reach Market Street. That sour smell can bake for blocks where street people sleep wrapped in dirty blankets.”

And three years later, to make matters worse—feces. Piles and piles of human feces along with thousands of discarded used needles. All of these lovely tidbits can be readily found on the sidewalks in tourists areas, around schools, and in other public areas.

Mohammed Nuru, director of the city’s Department of Public Works, says his crews, in the month of November, 2017 alone, cleaned up a staggering amount of this …

1,498 requests to clean feces, 6,211 needles, and 51 tons of debris from homeless camps.

An NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit surveyed 153 blocks of The City. The area examined includes tourist spots like Union Square, major hotel chains, City Hall, various schools, public playgrounds, and even a police station.

During the survey, investigators witnessed a group of young school children walking and dodging discarded hypodermic needles scattered along the walkway. A child’s mother stated she often has to pull her daughter out of the way to prevent her from stepping in human waste left on the sidewalk.

This single investigation revealed 100 drug needles and more than 300 piles of feces.

Disease!!

 

Needless to say, along with human waste and filth comes a plethora of disease. In addition to the obvious, even dried fecal matter can pose risks such as rotavirus, an intestinal infection that could be deadly for young children.

In the affected areas, city crews steam-clean the streets and walkways each day.

Poop Patrol: Slip-Slidin’ Away

Now, enter two patrol officers who are in hot foot pursuit of an armed murderer.

They catch the guy and the arrest goes to the sidewalk. They tussle with the killer, rolling around and struggling to apply cuffs. He’s as strong as an angry bull.

In the meantime, Officer One is unable to use his feet to help push and pin the suspect to the ground because his shoes are sliding and slipping in some sort of gooey mess. Officer Two feels three sharp pricks to his right arm and another to his left thigh. When they finally gain control of the suspect they realize their hands had contacted dried feces on the concrete walk. Then the stench coming from Officer One’s shoes and pants legs revealed a fresher source. And those sharp pricks to the skin … they’d fallen on an assortment of scattered needles.

Not only do SFPD officers have the typical worries of being punched, cut, stabbed, shot, etc., they now have to remain on high alert for unexpected poop bombs and needles. In fact, there is so doggone much of the stuff spattered, scattered, and delicately piled across the City by the Bay that San Francisco software engineer Jenn Wong mapped the city’s “crappiest” neighborhoods. Her project is called Human Wasteland.

The Poop Map

 

Supervisor Jane Kim recently requested an additional $2.5 million for additional street cleaning. Her request was rejected by the board. 


San Francisco Night Windows

I believe Poet Robert Penn Warren had an idea of what was to come when he wrote San Francisco Night Windows. I say this because, well, check out the last line …

San Francisco Night Windows

“I would speak honestly and of a full heart;
I would speak surely for the tale is short,
And the soul’s remorseless catalogue
Assumes its quick and piteous sum.
Think you, hungry is the city in the fog
Where now the darkened piles resume


*Source – NBC Bay Area News, and recent trips to San Francisco.

 

Imagine that you, the police detective, have just arrived at the scene of a murder. Patrol officers, after their hurried, blue-light-and-wailing-siren response, immediately secured the area and have ten potential suspects standing by to speak with you. And that’s where you shine. You’re well-known for your abilities as an interrogator. But how exactly do you begin an interview or interrogation? What are your first words? How do you know they’ll be the right words?

Well, we all know that no two people are exactly alike, right? Therefore, the ten suspects most likely have stark differences in personalities, backgrounds, physical characteristics, habits, hobbies, and likes and dislikes.

Elaborate Disguises Help to Avoid Arrest!

Image #1 – Sometimes criminals use elaborate disguises (above) to conceal their identities from authorities.

 

Image #2 – Suspect prior to donning the disguise. See how easily it is for bad guys to avoid detection! No one could possibly recognize this man as being the same guy in image #1.

Now, speaking of dislikes, you can safely assume that one of the more common hostilities will be an aversion of police officers. Yes, believe it or not, there are actually people out there who just don’t think too kindly of the men and women who wear badges and uniforms (What a surprise!). And, along with the basic hatred of the blue polyester clothing and shiny shoes comes a huge portion of distrust. I know … more surprising news, huh?

A good interviewer, though, finds ways around all that hatred and lack of trust. And, by possessing the remarkable ability to overcome those obstacles, professional interviewers/interrogators are nearly worth their weight in gold when it comes to crime-solving. How do they do it? Well, for starters, to be a really good interviewer one must be a fantastic listener. I’ll repeat that for the “motor-mouths” out there. A good interviewer must be a good listener. A Good Listener. Good listener. Listen. Shhhh ………… listen. Stop talking and what? Ah, there you go.

Good Actors!

A savvy interviewer is also a human chameleon, a person who’s able to change tactics and topics as quickly as the suspect formulates and weaves new lies and new alibis. Good interviewers are also good actors.

The successful interviewer must possess the ability to detect subtle changes in a suspect’s voice, mannerisms, and attitude. The investigator must also know to never judge a person and their capabilities by his/her appearance. After all, criminals come in all shapes and sizes, and from all walks of life.

This also works in reverse. Investigators should never assume the worst about someone. Shabby clothing and a disheveled appearance are not positive indicators of criminal behavior. Like a suit and tie are not solid indicators of success. And these differences are part of why interviews and interrogation are often extremely important aspects of police investigations.

So let’s try a little exercise to see how you measure up as an interviewer. I think most of you will find that you’re already quite good at it, and you’ll soon see why.

The Crime

The body of 26-year-old movie starlet Iona Porche was found in a walk-in closet, not far from the bathtub in her bedroom suite. She was quite dead, and most definitely squeaky clean and embarrassingly nude. Well, except for the bath towel draped across her right leg.

Ms. Porche’s personal assistant told you that she’d been concerned about the assortment of “weirdos” hanging around her boss in recent weeks. The assistant also stated that Ms. Porche was extremely naive, and that perhaps some of the odd folks had been taking advantage of her boss’s generosity.

The really odd thing, she’d said, was that she’d overheard Ms. Porche involved in what sounded like a bitter argument with at least two males and one female (it was, after all, difficult to make out the voices with her ear tightly pressed to the wall). And, for the life of her, the assistant couldn’t understand why on earth Ms. Porche would allow those people in the room with her while she was taking a bath. “That sort of thing should be kept private,” were her exact words.

Iona Porche on the set of her latest hit movie, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Attend Psycho Serial Killer Camp for Dumb Teens Who Can’t Outrun Men With Chainsaws and Machetes”

After thanking the assistant for what was basically a gossip-fest, you begin the interviews of the ten suspects. You know it’s important to first establish that you’re in charge, but you’ve also got to make the suspect feel comfortable with you. In other words, you’ve got to be the boss while assuming the role of best friend, mother, father, brother, cousin, and even their drunk uncle, if that’s what it takes to solve the case.

Yes, good investigators must have the ability to “walk the walk and talk the talk.” Finding common ground can definitely help start the dialog flowing. In fact, it’s a must in most instances.

If the suspect is a green lizard-like man with horns, bumps under the skin where eyebrows should be, head to toe tattoos, and a forked tongue, then the good detective could possibly begin to build rapport by speaking about the silly Bugs Bunny tattoo he’d gotten on his right butt cheek after drinking one too many tequila shots the night of his twenty-first birthday. Doing so could be the ice-breaker needed to start the wagging of Mr. Lizard’s tongue.

Now, with a conversation underway, the detective can ease into the real purpose of the meeting by asking simple questions, such as, “How did you know the victim? Was she your friend? A lover? A co-worker?” The idea is to establish a connection between the victim and the suspect, if there is one.

Okay, you have the basic concept. So what could you say to this next suspect that could be the start of a trust-building conversation?

Common Courtesy Goes a Long Way

Did you offer him a soft drink and candy bar because his breath smelled like root beer and chocolate? Sure, that’s a start. And please do look for the little things, not just an overall survey of the person seated in the interview room. There always more than meets the eye. Always. Don’t allow your detective to become mired in tunnel vision..

What you probably wouldn’t want to say to the suspect in the above photo is that you own a plaid cover for your motor home that’s practically the same size as his shirt. Besides, common courtesy goes a long way in police work, and in life in general. A badge is not a license to be mean. If a man, or woman, is thirsty … let them drink. If you’ve held them for many hours without food or drink, send someone to the nearest fast food joint for a burger. Get them some water or a soft drink. Besides, a simple act of human kindness could go a long way to building a rapport. And, well, it’s the decent thing to do. I know, the guy just butchered his neighbor’s grandpa. Still …

A little Fib Here or There

How about this next suspect? How do you get inside his head? Hmm … maybe that was a poor choice of words, but you know what I mean.

A great ice-breaker could be telling him about your cousin Sammy “The Nose” who used to entertain the neighborhood kids by shoving sewer rats up his nostrils. And yes, it is okay to tell a fib at this stage of the game—“I used to have a pet snake who looked just like yours. I named him ‘Slim’ after my dad. His nickname was Slim Jim.”

All of this is solid and basic information for a police detective, but did you notice that it’s also a great tool that could help writers add depth and personality to their characters? Readers want a personal connection to the people who live inside your books. They want to know them. To know what makes them tick. Why do they do what they do? When do they do it? Is it a compulsion? Are they obsessed? And it is the writer’s job to deliver answers to those questions by allowing the reader to follow the characters as they travel their daily journeys throughout a normal and believable world.

Sit the Character Across From You

So, try it for yourself. Have your characters “sit” in a chair across from you and then find that one big thing that defines them—the forked tongue or the candy bar and root beer. Then continue to question your “suspect” until you “know” them as a person. You’ll soon find that with each question comes another layer, until soon you have a very real but fictional character sitting across from you. Of course, you may want to do this when no one else is at home to avoid being carted off by the net-wielding folks who run Nervous Hospitals.

For now, you can practice your interviewing skills with this next potential suspect. Oh, I almost forgot, always remember to watch the eyes. They tell 70% of the suspect’s story. 10% is up to you. The other 20% lives in the imaginations of your readers. It’s up to you, though, to set those minds in motion.