Thonie Hevron: "911, Do You Have An Emergency?"

Thonie Hevron

Born in San Francisco and raised as an Army brat, Thonie spent time in Germany, as well as army posts around the US. She lived in and attended school in Marin and college at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. A writer since the age of ten, Thonie was detoured into law enforcement in 1973 on a dare. In the thirty years since, she has been a parking enforcement officer, dispatcher, community service officer, records supervisor, and communications training officer. She is an alumnus of San Rafael PD, Petaluma PD, Sonoma County Sheriff and Bishop PD. Newly retired from Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Dispatch, Thonie is concentrating on her writing career: two crime novels completed, one in revision (the other in mothballs) and police and firefighter profile articles monthly for a local newspaper.

Thonie is married to a retired fire captain, Danny and currently lives in Northern California. Her outside interests include riding her senior citizen thoroughbred and raising a rambunctious Rottweiler puppy.

911: Busting the Myths

It drives me crazy when fiction novel, television, and movie characters use 911 incorrectly (for instance-the dispatcher dismisses a caller as a kook and doesn’t send help). The truth is usually more ordinary than portrayed but it still can be exciting. In the interest of writers’ accuracy, I was invited to explain 911 and how it applies.

For my reference, I reached out to 60 of my dispatcher friends and co-workers on Facebook. I sent an inquiry asking for media misrepresentations of 911 (9-1-1-never nine eleven) and dispatchers. I was surprised at the intensity of their responses.

Topping the list is a recent blunder. Did you see the first episode of the new series, “Trauma”? In the first scene, a paramedic–on his way to an emergency call-is “patched through” via dispatch, directly to the caller to give CPR instructions. First, there is no such thing as “patching through” from dispatch to a field unit. This was the most notable criticism from dispatchers about television and movies. “Patching through” is a common movie/TV term but in reality, it is impossible. Secondly, consider how unsafe it would be to have public safety personnel enroute to an emergency get on the phone and either answer questions or give directions to a person who could be hysterical, unable to perform, or any variation of levels of consciousness. Think about it: how much attention could a paramedic give to driving while responding code three and trying to explain CPR?

Here are a few other myths my co-workers suggested:

Call traces–the phone company does traces, not police agencies. Even if I have a suicidal caller on the phone, my partner has to call the phone company to get a trace started. Last time I did this, it took two hours to provide an address. Cell phones are not traceable yet. GPS and cell tower technology are used in lieu: latitude and longitude are provided on the 911 screen along with percentage estimate of accuracy. It follows that even if the latitude/longitude are correct, if the caller is in an apartment complex-well, you see the potential for problems locating a victim/patient. You also might note the possibilities for plot spikes. A building search would certainly amp up the tension! For cell biller information, we have to fax an emergent request to service carrier’s security department. There is no time limit on how fast they reply.

The dispatch center is portrayed as quiet, calm and soothing–well, sometimes it is. More often than not though, police radios are blaring, phones ringing, partners yelling out what needs to be done. Officers (and firefighters, paramedics, rescue units, you get the idea) are a dispatcher’s first priority. Even if it’s just plain busy-not anything critical-just busy (think firecracker complaints on the Fourth of July), there are cranky field units, radio feedback, open microphones (then no one can transmit), bad reception, and non-stop phone calls. Please note that all calls must be answered, even if they come in on business lines. It’s happened many times that in the middle of a catastrophic event another emergency call will come in. It is also common to have citizens call during an incident like a manhunt to find out why the helicopter is hovering above his neighborhood. All these calls must be answered, often all at the same time.

Chain of command-we follow it. We are directed by the lead dispatcher, dispatch supervisor, patrol sergeant, lieutenant, etc. It is rare that a chief will come into dispatch and order the dispatcher to a task. This is how paramilitary organizations work; you deviate, you get reprimanded.

Wasting my time-every weekend, Rohnert Park dispatch has a little old lady who calls 911 to ask the time. While this is technically a misuse, I don’t think any one of us has ever reprimanded her. It’s just easier to tell her. She’s happy and we get her off the phone quickly. However, in California, it is a misdemeanor to call 911 with the intent to misuse it. If a person calls because they think they have an emergency and we determine it is not, we will re-direct the caller to the business line or the appropriate agency. For instance, I had a man call saying he had bedbugs from a local hotel. Obviously, he was upset but this was not a life threatening situation so after he denied the need for an ambulance, I referred him to the health department. There are also malicious callers: the guy who used an untraceable cell phone to report a man with a gun at a local high school while he was getting ready to rob a bank across town. (We caught those guys!)

Let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts of 911–911 is a dedicated telephone system inaugurated in 1968. The three digit number was intended as an easily-remembered, coinless method of reaching public safety in an emergency. Landline and cell phones allow for 911 calls even if there is no service contract.

A 9-1-1 system is made up of two levels of service-Basic and Enhanced. Basic provides three digit dialing and intelligent routing to a communications center. Enhanced service is the current industry standard. This level of service displays the billing party’s address and telephone number, plus other technical info (such as law, medical and fire agency jurisdiction). The resident/business name is culled from the phone company billing. 911 lines are dedicated to incoming calls. This means if you hear a busy signal, all lines are busy. A fast-busy tone indicates circuits are down (as can happen in a disaster).

Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety dispatch

Dispatcher’s computer screen

Calls can be transferred to local outside agencies that include county sheriff, surrounding police departments, poison control and language translation. They can also be transferred to out of the area jurisdictions however the dispatcher will have to look up the phone number the same way you do. Law enforcement directories only list administration numbers-not a 24 hour communications center.

I work at Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety. Our county-wide protocol dictates ambulance requests be transferred to an emergency medical dispatch (EMD). EMD centers are staffed with specifically trained personnel. This is aimed at patient safety: EMD works on a very strict medical matrix. Providing the wrong treatment info can jeopardize a patient, so when EMD is done, it is by trained medical dispatchers.

Training is an ongoing process. California’s Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) mandate 120 hours of training for all new dispatchers in the form of a basic academy. It also requires 24 hours every two years to keep skills fresh and remain updated with pertinent law. Agencies often add training for legal updates, liability, sexual harassment, dealing with difficult callers and stress management.

Emotional fallout-this is a wonderful career, to be sure. It doesn’t get better than this: helping people get the help they need. But there is emotional fallout. Career dispatchers can burn out if they don’t take care of themselves. To be effective, a dispatcher must take emotion out of the equation-at least during work hours. I know of a dispatcher who took a call on her first day back from maternity leave of a five year old that shot and killed her four year old brother. We are human and feel the pain, but not when there’s a job to do. Even when we lose an officer, there’s so much to be done to finish out the incident that we cannot cry until later. Then there’s what I call the “accrued damage”. It is the graveyard shift when you didn’t get enough sleep, lack of closure on calls, and too much overtime. It’s the little unresolved things that add up, like dirt that accumulates in the corners.

My daughter, Melisa Conti, a dispatcher with CHP in Bishop, California, commented that “CSI” episodes irritate her the most. “…because they give the public some false hope about how expeditious solving a crime can be.” As the first line of contact with the public, I can tell you I often have to explain to people that the technology for solving their crime is fiction.

In short, a writer’s work exists in an imaginary world but credibility is lost (and thus an audience) when it is inaccurate. Story tension is imperative but not at the expense of authenticity. “Trauma” lost me in the first 30 minutes because a paramedic had a temper tantrum in the middle of a mass casualty incident. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but a character with that temperament would’ve been weeded out early in her career. The possibility of this kind of behavior may pump up the drama but it is unrealistic enough to “turn off” the public safety audience. Between cops, firefighters, paramedics, support staff and all their families and friends-that is the loss of a huge chunk of your audience.

So let’s write it right!

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Writers Police Academy Updates

Registration is officially open and I’m pleased with the number of people who’re taking advantage of the low early registration rate.

Our registration page has been updated. The spammers were killing us with ads.

Award winning horror author Deborah Leblanc has signed on as a Medal of Valor sponsor of the Writers’ Police Academy. Other Medal of Valor sponsors include Writers Digest Books and Just Write Sites. Thanks to each of you for your very generous donations.

A large portion of the Writers’ Police Academy proceeds will be going to the Guilford Technical Community College Criminal Justice Foundation. Without them this event would not be possible. The instructors for this event also devote a heck of a lot of their time to answering questions for writers.

Please contact us if you’d like to be a sponsor.

Levels of Sponsorship

Medal of Valor – $1,000 and above
Commissioner – $500 – $999
Sheriff’s Star – $400 -$499 or Chief’s Shield $400 – $499 (Donor’s option)
Chief of Detectives – $300 – $399
Major – $200 – $299
Captain – $100 – $199
Lieutenant – $75 – $99
Sergeant – $50 – $74
Corporal – $25 – $49
Officer – $10 – $24

Please visit us at www.writerspoliceacademy.com to reserve your spot at this unique event now.

* Space for the FATS training is limited to the first 100 people who sign up for it and we’re rapidly approaching that number!

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Psychologist Richard Helms: The Zoloft Made Me Do It

Richard Helms retired after a nearly quarter-century career as a professional psychologist in 2002 to teach at a college in Charlotte, NC. He has been nominated three times for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award (Juicy Watusi, 2003; Wet Debt, 2004; and Cordite Wine, 2006). He is also the only author ever to win two Short Mystery Fiction Society Derringer Awards in the same year (2008). His next novel, Six Mile Creek, will be released in March 2010, from Five Star Mysteries.

THE ZOLOFT MADE ME DO IT
Dissecting the Strange and Sad Case of Christopher Pittman

I spent almost sixteen years working directly with the courts as a psychologist in North Carolina-first as the clinical director in a facility for the most violent and dangerous teenagers in the state, and later as the Court Psychologist for Cabarrus, Stanly, Rowan, and Union Counties. Over those years, as is the case for most forensic shrinks, I spent most of my time preparing pre-sentencing evaluations for District Court cases and pre-dispositional evaluations for juvenile court cases. The courts depend heavily on guidance from outside agents because, when all is said and done, judges really don’t like making unilateral decisions. They tend to prefer strong suggestions as to how they should act, which is why-especially toward the end of my active practice, before I retired in 2002-most of my dispositional recommendations tended to find their way verbatim into the court orders.

Because of the role I played in the court process, I tended to feel a strong affinity toward the District Attorney’s Office, and as a result tended to regard defense attorneys in general as regrettably necessary scumbags devoted to keeping on the streets people who rightfully should have had a standing reservation for a spot under the jail.

By the way, we call this condition ‘burnout’ and it contributed strongly to my decision to retire from active practice.

Seven years in academia may have mellowed me a bit, but some things that happen in the hallowed halls still arch my spine and make my back hair prickly. The most recent involves the ongoing attempts by a bunch of attorneys in South Carolina to reduce (or even eliminate) Christopher Pittman’s prison sentence for inverting his sleeping grandparents’ faces with a .410 shotgun back in 2001.

Christopher Pittman – Buzzle.com photo

Pittman, who was 12 years old at the time of the killings, had a lengthy history of family disruption, aggressive behaviors, abandonment by both his mother and father, and commitment to mental hospitals for suicidal and destructive behaviors. In the year prior to the killings, he was placed in a Florida hospital, where he was prescribed Paxil, an antidepressant medication, as a result of suicidal threats after he was rejected by his mother. His father, overwhelmed by the kid’s problems, sent him to live in South Carolina with his grandparents, Frank Pittman and Joy Roberts. Just a week before the killings, Christopher’s father gave him a present-a nice, shiny new .410 shotgun-and showed him how to use it.

In the interim, because Paxil was not available at the local pharmacies (according to most sources on the case), Pittman’s doctor changed his medication from Paxil to Zoloft (generic name: sertraline). Pittman reported negative side effects to the Zoloft, mostly involving somatic symptoms such as a burning sensation on his right side. Pittman’s sister claimed that he displayed ‘manic’ behaviors. His doctor increased the dosage.

In the day or so leading up to the killings, Pittman got into a fight on the school bus, made threats to other children, and disrupted a church service. In response, Frank Pittman whipped Christopher with a belt and sent him to bed.

Reports from forensic evidence and interviews indicate that Christopher waited in bed with the shotgun until he knew his grandparents were asleep, and then entered their bedroom, shot his grandfather in the mouth, and shot his grandmother in the side of the head. He then set fire to the house, took the shotgun and his grandparents other guns, his dog and some money, and fled to the next county in his grandparents’ car.

When stopped two counties over a couple of days later, Christopher claimed that a ‘large black man’ had invaded his grandparents’ home, killed them, and that he-Christopher-had managed to escape. Authorities immediately suspected the story to be false. When confronted with his fabricated story, Pittman admitted the killings, and added, “They deserved it.”

At his trial, the prosecution portrayed Pittman as the troubled youth that he likely was. They cited a lengthy history of resentment over being disciplined, possibly as a result of his general feelings of resentment toward his parents, who had repeatedly rejected and abandoned him. They had Pittman tested by a psychiatrist, Dr. Pamela Crawford, who testified in the case that Pittman was competent, and that he did understand the difference between right and wrong-thereby fulfilling the requirements to proceed in the case.

Dr. Julian Sharman, a psychiatrist for the South Carolina Division of Juvenile Services, testified that Pittman had put a lot of time into making a plan to “get rid of” his grandfather, and that-in retrospect-he felt no remorse for his acts, and felt that his grandparents “…had asked for it.”

More importantly, two hunters who encountered Pittman in the woods on the day following the shootings reported that he had been “…quiet and calm, and they could understand everything that he said to them.”

All of these findings are important, since the defense attorneys in Christopher Pittman’s case attempted to depict him as manic, nearly psychotic at the time of the shootings, and even driven by Zoloft-fueled voices in his head to kill his grandparents, burn their house, steal their weapons, dog, and car, and flee potential capture.

The jury found Pittman guilty, and the judge in the case sentenced him to 30 years in prison for the killings.

After he was placed in the Youth Prison System in South Carolina following his conviction, Pittman is reported to have continued a pattern of aggressive and violent behavior-despite being either removed from medication or being appropriately medicated-which included racial slurs made toward other inmates, creating and secreting homemade weapons in his cell, and making threats to rape other inmates.

Christopher Pittman’s case has become notorious for several reasons. First, he is among the youngest men (he’s now 21) serving time in prison after committing murder as a child. In fact, South Carolina is one of only nine states in the US where a child of 12 can be bound over for trial as an adult for capital crimes. (In my own state of North Carolina, you can be bound over for trial in adult court if you commit your crime on or after your 13th birthday.)

The second reason for this case’s notoriety is Pittman’s attorney’s use of the so-called ‘Zoloft Defense’, as a means of explaining, excusing, and perhaps exonerating Pittman of responsibility for his behavior.

The appellate court has already addressed the first factor, finding that the sentence was entirely within the authority of the court and, in fact-when compared to other cases-seems particularly lenient.

The so-called Zoloft Defense, however, is particularly interesting from a psychological point of view. Zoloft (sertraline) is one of a number of different drugs that are included in a class called serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors. I typically take over an hour in my classes to describe the action of the neuron (the basic building block of the central nervous system), and I certainly don’t want to do so here, for fear of rendering Lee’s readers comatose. However, to put it as simply as possible, the entire nervous system runs on an electrochemical basis, communicating by specific molecules called neurotransmitters, which flow between the most basic neural cells (neurons) to send messages. The neurons themselves stimulate the release of these neurotransmitters using an electrical charge created by mixing two primary elements of opposite charges (potassium and sodium).

One of the neurotransmitters is serotonin, which is sort of a ‘feel-good’ chemical. It tends to be manufactured in the midbrain, and then is distributed throughout the cerebral cortex (that part of the brain we tend to see most often in pictures). There are over 100 billion neurons in the cortex, and a huge number of them run on this neurotransmitter called serotonin.

When there is too little serotonin in the neurons that distribute it, we tend to feel depressed. When there is too much, we may have symptoms of mania (feeling extremely stimulated, irritabe, having lots of uncontrollable thoughts or ideas, angering easily, and perhaps even having delusions or hallucinations).
Serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s )like Zoloft (sertraline) act to regulate the amount of serotonin flowing between neurons, and by doing this they make us feel better-happier if we are depressed, and more mellow if we are manic.

Please note that this is a very simplistic description of the process by which both neurons and SSRI medications work, but I don’t have pages and pages of space to use to explain in detail.

Most psychiatrists or pediatricians do not prescribe these medications lightly. There should be significant symptoms of a psychological disorder present before such meds are offered, and his history indicates that this was certainly the case with Christopher Pittman.

There is some scientific evidence that might have fueled (even if it doesn’t substantiate) the allegations of

Pittman’s attorneys that the Zoloft he took caused him to kill his grandparents. They seem to base their assertions on research findings that indicate that suddenly ceasing a daily dosage (without ‘weaning off’ the drug) can result in manic behaviors and increase the potential for suicidal thoughts and acts. One expert witness at trial in this case, Dr. Ronald Maris, testified that “…the same mechanisms that could trigger a child taking Zoloft to commit suicide could also trigger one to harm another person.”

Triggering behavior, however, does not constitute causing that behavior. You can pull the trigger on a pistol, but nothing is going to happen if the gun is not first loaded. Christopher Pittman, based on the social history that is available to us, was a loaded gun already endowed with a hair trigger long before he was given psychotropic medications.

Invariably, when I discuss in my college courses the positive role that SSRI medications play in the treatment of various disorders, my students ask some variation of the same question: “But why does it cause people to commit suicide, then?”

The notion that SSRIs cause suicide is based largely on anecdotal data that was printed in the popular press almost twenty years ago, mostly involving another SSRI called Prozac (fluoxetine). There appeared to be a correlation between the number of adolescents prescribed Prozac, and the number of adolescents to attempted or actually committed suicide. The factor that was ignored in these reports was that a very large number of those adolescents were already depressed, and already at high risk for suicide, before they took the medications.

Depression is largely a biochemical event, marked by decreased levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain at key sites associated with mood. It is diagnosed inferentially, which means that we don’t measure the level of neurotransmitters in the brain, but rather we observe the behavior of the client and infer from that behavior that he/she is depressed.

There are basically three symptoms we look for to make a diagnosis of depression: dysphoria, anhedonia, and psychomotor retardation. Dysphoria is an overall sense of sadness or despondency. Anhedonia is a lack of enjoyment in most presumably enjoyable activities. Psychomotor retardation refers to a reduced amount of physical activity, and reductions in measures such as reaction time, reflexes, and the like, which indicate reduced response time in the central and peripheral nervous systems.

Many adolescents who are diagnosed with depression are already having suicidal thoughts, but they don’t act on those thoughts because they don’t have the physical energy or motivation to do so. Now, here is the part where SSRI medications come in. SSRIs aren’t like valium or amphetamines. They don’t go to work as soon as you take them. In general, it takes about two to three weeks for these medications to build up to therapeutic levels in the bloodstream before you begin to see an appreciable overall effect on mood and behavior.

Here’s the problem, though: SSRI medications-like Zoloft-appear to impact psychomotor retardation before they impact dysphoria and anhedonia. After as little as a few days of taking these medications, people begin to feel a lot more energetic, but they still have dysphoric feelings, which may include thoughts of suicide. We have, in effect, taken a lethargic suicide who does not have the energy to act on his impulses, and turned him into an energetic suicide who is all too willing to give in to those impulses.

In cases like this, we say that the psychomotor retardation is inhibiting the suicidal impulse. When the potentially suicidal adolescent becomes more energetic, because he has taken Zoloft (or any SSRI), the most damning thing we can say about the medication is that it has disinhibited an impulse that was already there.
That’s why good clinicians and psychiatrists clearly advise parents of children and adolescents who are taking these medications not to allow them out of sight for several weeks after beginning the meds, to help reduce the likelihood of suicidal acts.

So, let’s go back to the statement made by Dr. Ronald Maris, in which he said that “..the same mechanisms that could trigger a child taking Zoloft to commit suicide could also trigger one to harm another person.”

I’m going to submit that the word ‘trigger’ here is a bad choice. A better statement might have been that, “The same mechanisms that could disinhibit suicidal behavior in a child taking Zoloft, could also disinhibit harmful behavior in another person who already has a predisposition to harm others.”

In other words, the Zoloft was not responsible for Christopher Pittman killing his grandparents. He likely already possessed all the psychological dysfunctions necessary and sufficient to enable him to carry out such an act. The Zoloft might have made it easier for him to commit the murders, by disinhibiting the notion he already had to kill them. It cannot be said, however, that Zoloft caused the murders. Zoloft-or any SSRI, for that matter-can’t make you do something that you wouldn’t do otherwise, given sufficient motivation and provocation.

So, seven years after Christopher Pittman was tried and convicted for the murders of his grandparents, his new attorneys appear ready to go to the well yet one more time, and at least this time they appear not to be doing so behind the boogeyman of the Zoloft Defense.

Pittman’s original defense team half a decade ago was comprised largely of civil attorneys who specialized in suing pharmaceutical companies, and it appears that they had anticipated that they would be able to convince a South Carolina jury of their claim that-in Pittman’s case-‘the Zoloft made me do it’.

After they failed, they filed appeals that addressed virtually every possible error the court might have made in its administration of the prosecution and defense of the case. The three-judge panel rejected their appeals in 2006, presumably ending the Pittman case.

Now, a new set of attorneys are looking into filing a new appeal, based on questionable reports that the prosecution in the Pittman case did not allow the original defense team adequate time to field a reported plea agreement. In his most recent court appearance, Pittman stated that, if he had been given the opportunity , he would have agreed to a deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter, in return for a sentence between 2 and 30 years, with opportunity for parole.

Note, in this hearing he never stated in any way that he was innocent of the charges. He simply stated unequivocally that he would have been happy to cop a plea on them.

The problem? The original prosecutors in the case have steadfastly maintained that they never offered any such plea, and in fact never intended to do so!

I don’t know at this point whether Pittman will get a new trial. I didn’t work with Christopher Pittman. I had no connection with his infamous case. However, I did work over the years with my share of teenaged murderers, some of whom committed their crimes as young as Pittman was when he discharged his shotgun into his grandparents’ sleeping faces. I’ve evaluated, interviewed, and treated dozens of Christopher Pittman’s in my time. My experience has been that each and every one of them had little trouble finding convenient excuses for committing their horrible acts. Not one of them sat across from me-even once-and said, “You know, I did a really bad thing. I was completely responsible, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret the pain, suffering, and horror that I inflicted on my victims. I will have to live with this guilt for the rest of my days.”

That would have been nice. Hearing something like that would have given me a little hope for my clients. Unfortunately, it never happened. Instead, they kept providing excuses for their criminal behavior-any explanation that didn’t put them squarely in the wrong.

What happened in Christopher Pittman’s life that helped shape him into a pre-teen monster that could commit the crimes he did was regrettable. No child should have to endure the neglect and abandonment that he did. But, in the end, we are responsible for ourselves. We have to shoulder the blame for the things we do in life. Nobody is deprived of free will by their past. Pittman’s father and mother didn’t pull the trigger on that shotgun. Zoloft didn’t pull the trigger on that shotgun. Christopher Pittman pulled it. Then he did it again. Then he set fire to the house, drove off into the night with his dog and his grandparents’ money in his grandfather’s car, and when he was caught two days later he told the authorities that his grandparents deserved what they got.

I tend to believe that Christopher Pittman deserves what he’s gotten, too. I tend to believe that the state of South Carolina is a little safer tonight without Pittman roaming around it. I think it’s time to put this case to bed.

Visit Richard Helms here.

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Lisa Black: Forensics, Lightning, and Missing Persons

Lisa Black

Lisa Black spent the happiest five years of her life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist she analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, paint, glass, hairs, fibers, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence. Now she’s a latent print examiner and CSI for the Cape Coral police department, working with fingerprints and crime scenes. She has been published in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK and Japan.

Forensics, Lightning, and Missing Persons

Something about the phrase ‘missing person’ will always get our attention. There’s an air of deep mystery, of myriad possibilities. Is the person dead? Kidnapped? Or did they simply decide to walk away from their personal, financial or philosophical entanglements? We can’t help but ask questions. (Provided, of course, we’re not related to the person, in which case it’s a nerve-wracking tragedy instead of an intriguing puzzle.)

I’ve worked very few missing person cases in my 15 years in forensics. Usually I know exactly where my victim is: in the hospital, in their homes, or in the morgue. Now that I’m in a usually sleepy jurisdiction, the few missing people we do have tend to turn up. At the house of an elderly man afflicted with several physical problems we found so much blood, I figured him for a goner. Since he eschewed doctors, I thought he had taken himself somewhere to die under his own terms. Nope. He had gone to Wal-Mart. A little blood loss wasn’t going to spell his doom.

We had the tragic tale of a bright, sweet but somewhat troubled 17 year old girl gone missing. I learned a lesson in this case about jumping to conclusions-because mom was not in the picture in any significant way, I assumed dad had been up to no good with his own daughter and she had fled. I could not have been more wrong. Dad had been doing the best he could, and his daughter had been kidnapped and murdered not by a stranger, but by a boy her own age, someone she considered a friend, someone she had no reason in the world not to trust.

This picture is from the day we recovered the body. Shortly before it was taken I had been up in a helicopter taking aerial photographs…the joys of crime scene work in southwest Florida.

The germ of an idea for my latest book came from another missing female. This one was a grown woman, but also-we believe-kidnapped not by a stranger but by a client who had contracted for her services. She worked as an escort. Yes, an escort, but she also had a perfectly nice home in a perfectly nice suburb, a child, and a devoted live-in boyfriend. She had no reason to move on and every reason not to. The client (previously unknown to her) had arranged the date with her agency, using his real name and address. So we had him and we had plenty of suspicions, but no proof. I examined hairs and fibers and clothing and bedding and everything we could find. And got nowhere.

Her body has never been found.

I started with this idea of a working, stable escort who disappears, but then my story takes its own path. Unlike the real story, the victim’s body is quickly found. Forensic Scientist Theresa MacLean thinks she knows who did it, but she can’t figure out how, why, or how to prove it.

That’s the beauty of fiction-if loose ends won’t tie themselves up, I’ll do it for them.

Please visit Lisa here.

* Tomorrow – My review of Castle.

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Addie J. King: The Life Of A Prosecutor

Addie J. King

Addie J. King spends her days as an assistant prosecutor for Champaign County, Ohio, and has over seven years experience as a prosecutor handling adult felonies, misdemeanors, juvenile delinquency cases and appellate work. She holds a degree in criminal justice from Ohio Northern University and a law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law. She spends her spare time reading, writing fiction, playing softball, and trying to wean herself from home improvement shows, cooking shows, and videogames.

The Life of a Prosecutor

What’s it like to be a prosecutor? It’s hard to explain; it’s exciting, it’s heart-breaking, and it’s satisfying. Most people think they get it, but, like most things in life, there’s much more to the story than you get in a one hour television show.

It’s not a nine to five job.
I come in early just about every day. Most days involve paperwork over my lunch hour. While I have nights that I leave when the courthouse closes, many involve staying late or taking work home. If necessary, I come in on weekends, and law enforcement has my cell phone number. I once took a call from an officer with a question while I was standing on a ladder painting my living room on a Saturday afternoon.

Even if you leave it behind to go do other things, it’s hard sometimes to completely ignore it. I’ve lain awake at night running arguments and strategy through my head before a big hearing. I once spent a Sunday afternoon driving by myself, talking aloud through an argument for an upcoming trial. Of course, I had to run to work to type it all up and file it away before I went home.

Much like law enforcement, we have to learn to shut it off.

Many cases involve concerns over someone’s safety; I’ve had cases where people are concerned for violence but also cases where someone might be suicidal, or could overdose on drugs. I’ve learned more than I wanted to know about sex abuse and incest, especially involving children. I have to shut it off when I walk out of the office, or I would brick up my two year old nephew in an ivory tower where no one could ever go near him. That’s also why law enforcement officers and prosecutors sometimes have an interesting sense of humor. They have to, in order to deal with the things they see on a regular basis.

I wish I didn’t know some of these things. Even so, I’m glad I’m doing this job. I hope that, while I’m trying to find the truth, I can make it just a little less intimidating or frightening to someone who has already been traumatized once. For that, I’m okay with being a little less naïve than I’d like to be.

I’m not getting rich.
Lawyers accumulate massive student loan debt getting through college and law school. It’s rare for someone to make it all the way through seven years of higher education without student loans of some kind. Prosecutors don’t make a lot of money. We don’t get overtime. We have state employee benefits, which are nice, but the salary is nothing compared to what could be made in private practice. This means that many prosecutors work for more than the paycheck, which is further reduced by the big student loan payment. We’re not buying Armani suits; Target sells suits for much less.

I’m not college-student broke; I’ve got a middle class income. After seven years as a prosecutor, I have a decent house, car, and a retirement account. It’s livable. But I’m not rolling in the cash. I don’t have a vacation home. I’m not traveling the world. I shop for bargains on suits, clip coupons, and otherwise watch my money. Right now, I’m writing on a four year old laptop and watching a fourteen year old television. Sooner or later, I’ll have the cash to upgrade, but I love my job, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Just don’t offer me a trade while I’m writing the check for my student loan payment for the month. I might be tempted then.

My job isn’t to represent the victim; it’s to seek truth.
I try to make the whole process easier for someone who’s already been a victim of crime, but there’s only so much I can do. It’s a rough process, but I’m not their lawyer. I can prepare them for the whole process. I can tell them my opinion of the case, with all of its strengths and weaknesses, but I represent the State of Ohio. Society has a larger interest than individual victims do. There have been cases where a victim doesn’t want to press charges, though the state goes forward anyway because it’s in the interest of everyone to do so. It’s in the interest of all society to stop violence, despite one person’s reluctance to go forward. That doesn’t mean I ignore a victim; they have to live with the outcome. It does, however, mean that my office, not the victim, makes the final determination as to resolving cases, litigating cases, and trial strategy.

It also means that, from time to time, I have to sit down with a victim and be honest about their case, their expectations, and their testimony. My goal isn’t to make them happy. It’s to figure out what happened, protect society, and protect them if appropriate. I would much rather a defense attorney let me know if there’s information I don’t have rather than waiting until trial, because then I can try to find out if there’s merit to it, and how it impacts my case, the victim, and the interests of the State. I like trials, but not every case should go to trial, and it makes life easier for the judge, the attorneys, the victim, and the defendant if everyone knows what’s going on. There might be a reasonable solution, and going to trial is always a risk.

Jury trials are cool, but they’re stressful, and the job isn’t just being in court all day.
There’s a ton of paperwork. Being in court all day means less time that paperwork gets done. Discovery requests, responses to motions, filing, emails, reviewing police reports and returning phone calls take up a lot of time. I’d much rather be in court than doing paperwork, but then I’m behind on getting things done.

Jury trials are also stressful. They aren’t just stressful because of the work, but because of what’s on the line. Getting an acquittal (not guilty) in a big case is heartbreaking, especially with the time, effort, and energy that go into them. A prosecutor shouldn’t go to trial unless they have a reasonable belief that a crime has occurred, so failing to convict is frustrating.

Obtaining a conviction (guilty) is a good feeling, but I do have sympathy for the defendant’s family for the truth that they now face, or the hardships they’ll endure because a loved one is in prison. That person’s family will forever be changed.

On the other hand, nothing changes the fact that these bad things have happened to someone. You can’t un-rape someone. A conviction doesn’t mean that someone will come back to life after they’ve been murdered. It’s a humbling feeling that no matter the outcome, nothing fixes what’s been done.

There are cases I’ll never forget. There are people I couldn’t forget if I tried. Prosecutors aren’t saints, but hopefully they’re in their jobs because they have some belief in what they’re doing. It’s an exciting job and no two days are ever the same.

/by

Lisa Provost: Brushes With Domestic Violence

Lisa Provost: The Body

Born in August 1974, in Brooklyn, NY., Lisa Provost grew up in the Catskill and Adirondack mountains of upstate N.Y. where, from the time she was 12 – 16-years-old, she raised dairy goats.

Lisa studied Biology at RIT in Rochester, N.Y. from 1992-1994. Later, in 1998, Lisa married and moved to the Midwest when her husband enlisted in the US Air Force. The couple moved to N.C. in 2003 when his enlistment term was done. In August 2007, Lisa began studying Forensic Biology at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Lisa is an avid knitter and lover of four legged mammals.

Brushes With Domestic Assault

My home is one without violence. It is a place of safety and retreat for me. I can’t imagine being afraid to go home but I’ve had the opportunity to meet many people who are afraid to go home.

Domestic assault like any other crime just makes me tilt my head on its side like a confused puppy. I just don’t get it. Sure you can be upset or angry with someone but angry enough to cause pain, bruising and bodily harm to someone you supposedly love? I just don’t understand it. And being the victim of an assault, I just don’t understand how someone can stay/keep going back. My time in the two crime labs I interned with allowed me to see plenty of domestic violence scenes against adults and even children.

The first one I had the opportunity to work was at the home of a single mother of two. She was leaving him. He was not happy with that.

From my notebook:

1. White female, two children
2. Broken in twice in the last week.
3. Thinks its ex (a few lines later) confirmed ex
4. Stole AC unit in prior B&E
5. House trashed, litter, CD’s pictures all over floor.
6. Front windows, side windows, back windows all smashed in.
7. Stove on, all the way.
8. Back door opened from inside. Front door kicked in.

I didn’t have many more notes because this scene was a secondary one to the prior breaking and entering the woman had suffered earlier. She still had the black eye from the last time he punched her and she walked slowly, hunched over as if in intense pain. When I mentioned ‘house trashed’ that is not strong enough description. We couldn’t see the rug because of all the debris on the floor. There were pictures of the woman, the man (the ex) and the children which had boot prints on them and/or were torn. CD’s were all over the floor, pulled from their cases. Their cases were on the floor as well. Glass was intermixed with all the debris. There was no furniture in the home since she had already removed all of it. Really it was the last few boxes of personal items and toys that were left in the home. The contents of all these boxes covered the floors. This all happened on the third day I was in the lab on my first internship. I remember leaving and thinking “Wow, that’s awful!” I didn’t realize that was the tamest domestic assault scene I would be on during my two internships.
A few days later we were called to the home of a couple and their three children. When we drove up the husband was being hoisted into the back of the patrol car. People were standing in their yards peering over fences and holding their hands over their mouths in shock and dismay.

From my notebook:

1. Hispanic female with 3 kids
2. Son, daughter, son. 3, 5 ,7.
3. Husband drinking beat wife in kitchen on table.
4. Choked hit in face
5. Three children tried to help mom, father threw them off. No injuries to children.
6. Clean home, moderate area. Lower class but clean area.
7. Husband will be held for 48 hours. This is standard operating procedure for this city.
8. Female has visible evidence of choking on neck, bubble of blood/cut on lower right eyelid.

This scene was very surreal to walk into. There was music playing and cartoons on the big TV in the front room as we walked in. When I entered the door, I had to dodge a balloon coming right at my head. When I heard the happy giggle of a child at my sudden movement I instinctively sent it bouncing back toward him. When the balloon cleared my field of vision, I saw the woman. The trails of tears were obvious on her face and her eyes were red and puffy. A welt was beginning to form on her face. I was sure that was going to be one hell of a shiner in a day or two. As the officer on the scene gave us the details of the situation and his requests for additional photographs, the children begged the other officer for another balloon to play with. He obliged and pulled one out of his shirt pocket and began to blow it up to their gleeful clapping and laughter. Through this briefing and over the scratching of my pen on my notebook I could hear the woman sniffing and trying to compose herself.

We turned and asked her to allow us to take photographs and she nodded her consent. As we moved into the other room she asked the officers if her husband would be coming back tonight. “No ma’am. It’s the law here. He will spend 48 hours in jail.” A look that I can’t quite describe crossed her face. It seemed almost like sorrow, relief, disbelief and worry. At that look the officer asked her if she would like to go to a shelter with her children. She shook her head no and then turned to us. The tech I was with was all business. She was gentle as she helped move clothing near sore areas of flesh. She was soft spoken in her requests for each and every photograph. When it was all done we turned to the children. With no warning I heard “Hey! Who wants to take a picture for me? You? You? You? Yay!” I spun and looked at the tech I was with and she was clapping her hands much like the children had been for their second balloon. The officers were smiling and clapping too. The children all readily agreed and were nearly climbing over each other to get closest to the camera. “Okay line up youngest to oldest!” They scrambled to get in the line. “Did you try to help mommy? Yeah? Good! That’s what you are supposed to do right? Right! Okay say cheese! One more… say cheese!” The harmony of “cheeeeeeese!” they sang out will stay with me for quite some time. Not even an hour prior they had been in the middle of a fight for what could have been their mother’s life. Now they were chatting excitedly with us and the officers, comparing stickers and balloons given to them by the officers and laughing with joy. As we climbed back in the truck I couldn’t help but ask “Okay what the hell was that?!” The tech I was with turned to look at me and I could see the sadness in her eyes. “In all my years doing this I have found it is best to make it as positive of an experience for the kids. See, this is probably not going to be the last time they see us here… it’s best if they think good thoughts about the arrival of the police.”

Nearly a month later we were called to another domestic assault. As we pulled up we could see the officer on scene helping the female back into the house. The other patrol car with the boyfriend in the back passed us and gave us a blip of his siren in greeting. I looked up from my notebook waved and headed inside.

From my notebook:

1. Black female
2. Has trouble walking/ moving
3. Female has injuries on neck, upper chest (above breasts) and elbow.

As I was writing these notes she interrupted us by saying “It’s not as bad as last time…” Her voice trailed off and she began walking toward the bedroom. The male officer on the scene said he would wait in the front room while we took photographs out of courtesy for the woman. We both nodded and followed her toward the back.

More from my notebook:

4. Middle class neighborhood.
5. House is dirty! Smells fine though.
6. Clothes piled everywhere in some places to ceiling. (Has “pack rat” feel.)
7. Picture of her and infant on mantle. No sign of infant.
8. Female mentions that male offender made her bathe. She states that she only washed shins down.
9. Male dragged her across lawn by hair.

I was the last one in the bedroom and carefully closed the door after nudging clothing away from the door jam with my foot. When I turned around the woman already had her shirt and bra off and was reaching for the ABFO#2 scale that is used to measure/document injuries.

The tech and I looked at each other in confusion at first until the woman asked “Do they always send girls for this sort of stuff?” I’m sure it was our look of confusion that made her continue; “I mean every time this has happened it has always been a different girl that came to take pictures.” (We confirmed over the next few weeks that all six women in the crime lab had been at this home in response to a domestic assault call. Some of them more than once.) When we were done we brought all the equipment back to the truck. As we chatted with the officer about when he could review the photographs for his report we saw the woman stumbling to a car where a male relative was waiting. As she opened the door I could hear the man telling her to “get out of that house”. She just shook her head and as she closed the door I heard “I can’t…”

One of the last scenes I had the chance to work was at the ER. We were called to document injuries of a domestic assault since “This time she’s gonna press charges.” At least that is what the officer at the ER said when we first got there. When we arrived the woman was just being rolled back into her room from radiology. Her voice was hoarse from obvious sobbing and her makeup was smeared all over her face. The running mascara couldn’t hide the blooming bruise that was forming on her cheek and the blood dripping from the side of her mouth made her pink lipstick much darker as she sucked on the blood. When we walked in, she began crying anew. She knew what we were there for since this tech had seen her before. I donned a pair of gloves and asked her if she wanted me to help her take her earrings off. One earring was nearly ripped completely through her ear and I could see where blood had dripped on her shoulder. She nodded and cried out from the pain of the movement. I tried to pull them out as gently as I could but I had to tug since scabs were forming around the posts and fresh blood began to flow anew. A tear rolled down her cheek and I apologized for hurting her. With that phrase she looked me in the eyes and fresh tears welled up. I placed the earrings in her purse for her and let her know that they were there. She tried to nod again and once more, cried out from the pain of that movement. She had old bruises and fresh bruises and cuts all over her body. As she described her injuries it was obvious we were going to have to take most of her clothing off to be able to document them all. The first was her jacket. We had been informed that her wrist or arm was possibly broken. As we held the cuff of her jacket and let her pull her arm out, the nurse came back in and said “Yes honey. He re-broke it.”

We pulled the curtain closed around her and as we undressed her to her panties and bra, the officer questioned her from the other side of the curtain. Once again this was a male officer and he felt it was best for her personal comfort that he not be able to view our photographs as we took them but later for his report. He asked his questions as we verbally documented her injuries. The one that stands out the most for me is not even the broken bone. It was what I saw as I was hunched over letting her use my back and shoulders to stabilize herself as I pulled her pants down. I was the blood on her inner thigh very close to her genitals. When she lay back on the bed, I could see the full extent of the injury. She had a tear to one of her labia. This is when the question hit me. How do we keep her privacy/dignity but get an open legged picture of her genitals? In order to get a proper angle on this injury she would need to spread her legs quite wide. The answer was simple. Use a towel or two. We laid one over her other labia and thigh, and another towel over her other thigh so only the injury was visible. She said she received that injury fully clothed. He had grabbed her so hard by the crotch of her jeans that he had caused that injury. He did this when he lifted her above his head and threw her against the wall. As we got back in the truck I felt drained and it was only 7:30 pm. I still had five hours to go. Listening to the description of the attack she sustained had taken most of the energy from my body.

When we got back to the PD one of the other techs was just getting in for her shift. As I described the injuries and we downloaded the photographs, this other tech looked over our shoulders. When she saw the woman’s face she sighed. “She’s gonna press charges this time right?” I looked up and nodded with a sense of justice being done. She knocked that feeling right out of me. “No she’s not” she responded, “She never does.” As if on cue, the officer from that assault walked in and slumped into one of the chairs. “She ain’t gonna press charges again!” He threw his arms in the air in obvious frustration. “Well at least we got him for two days. Maybe I can change her mind on my follow-up tomorrow.” Both techs said almost as one “Doubt it.” The other tech sat down next to the officer. “She didn’t last time. And the time before that and the time before that.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You have to try though man. You have to try. I’m just afraid that I may be pulling her body from a ditch some day.” She got up and moved back toward her computer. “Here let me give you a file from all her other assaults at this man’s hands and maybe they will help sway her to press charges this time.” She got to work on that file right away.

As the night wound down with no other calls besides the occasional drunk driver, I reviewed all the pictures from the various domestic assaults in their log book. I reviewed a series of photographs that detailed the ongoing domestic assault of one woman over a year. The one picture that sticks most out in my mind is of the body of the woman lying face up. Beaten and stabbed by her husband. A picture of them smiling on their wedding day sat above her on the shelf.

I never had the chance to go to any domestic assault scenes where a man was the victim but I did see plenty of photographs. A few were of children too. I stood up and went outside for some fresh air. It was around midnight, there was no moon and the stars sparkled. I asked the stars “Why do these people feel the need to beat the shit out of their loved ones?” I waited. The wind brought me the sound of laughter from a nearby house but the stars gave me no answers. With a sigh I went back inside to wait for the next call.

/by

Lisa Provost: My First Solo Crime Scene

Lisa Provost: The Body

Born in August 1974, in Brooklyn, NY., Lisa Provost grew up in the Catskill and Adirondack mountains of upstate N.Y. where, from the time she was 12 – 16-years-old, she raised dairy goats.

Lisa studied Biology at RIT in Rochester, N.Y. from 1992-1994. Later, in 1998, Lisa married and moved to the Midwest when her husband enlisted in the US Air Force. The couple moved to N.C. in 2003 when his enlistment term was done. In August 2007, Lisa began studying Forensic Biology at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Lisa is an avid knitter and lover of four legged mammals.

The first scene I handled myself:

Have you ever been robbed? It sucks. I’ve been robbed three times all when I was a little girl.
The last robbery I remember was in 1981. I was seven years old and wide eyed at all the people in our house. My eldest sister was eighteen at the time and distraught. I held onto her arm and cried and cried. I remember the police officers coming in, looking around, taking notes and leaving. That was it.

Fast forward to 2008. I had been on my first internship with the crime lab for about four months. Every scene the crime lab and I responded to, when I wasn’t assisting the team I had my notebook out and was scribbling notes like a woman possessed. I took notes about how they approached the scene. How they photographed the scene. Things to look for and ways to look for them. Things to make sure to do and in what order to do them in. It was the day after Thanksgiving when we got called to a breaking and entering at a residence. By now, I’d been to my fair share of breaking and entering calls so I felt pretty comfortable with the process of approaching and processing the scene.

We rolled up to the scene and as usual, my notebook was out and I was writing down my observations (from my notebook):

1. Very nice house. Well maintained front yard.
2. Nice neighborhood. Middle class.
3. Very little exterior lights/street lights. House (exterior) entirely in darkness.

We walked inside and listened as the first officer on the scene explained the situation (from my notebook):
1. Point of entry, rear kitchen window. Window smashed in.
2. Homeowners gone for a few days.
3. All games systems missing.
4. School book bag dumped.
5. No jewelry missing!
6. Tv’s and compy still there.
7. Guitars, boom box not taken.
8. 3 flash drives missing.
9. Took laptop case but not laptop.

I was still writing when I heard “Okay, this one is yours!”

*blink*

Have you ever seen a deer in headlights? Yeah… that animal is calm and has their wits about them compared to how I felt at the very moment. I stammered out a very coherent “Whaaa….?” and stared at my notebook. Remember that comfort with the process I mentioned earlier? Yeah that was shot to hell.

I took a deep breath, closed my notebook and then said “Alright. We start at the point of entry. Photograph the apparent route through the home and back to the point of exit from the home. Then we dust for prints on the point of entry, and in the areas where the items were originally as well as the point of exit.” I received a smile and a nod so I knew I was on the right track. For legal reasons, I still was not able to take the photographs so I drew my sketch of the scene along with the plan of how I wanted to process the scene and in what order. When the photographs were done, it was time to really go to work.

It was a cold night in North Carolina and to add to it, it was raining a very cold hard rain. It was the kind of rain that makes every piece of exposed flesh ache and throb. The kind of rain that no matter how much clothing you have on or in how many layers it still gets through to your bones and you feel like you will never be warm again.

The kitchen window above the sink was the point of entry to the home by our perpetrators. One clue was that the window was very small. I’m a full grown woman with very womanly hips and I’ll tell you there is no way I could have made it through that window. Even the officer with us while she was smaller than me in stature and hip width, I doubt she could have made it through that window as well. It was at about my shoulder height yet there were recycling bins and garbage bins stacked nearly to my waist in front of the window. I pointed this out and the homeowner confirmed they had not stacked them that way. The way they were stacked was very neat and orderly, like how a child would stack building blocks. Then it hit me just as hard as the rain pounding on the back of my neck… “These were a bunch of kids that did this.” I got a nod of agreement from the officer and tech on the scene. They had already made the same assumption.

My thoughts were confirmed when as I shined my flashlight against the edge of the glass I could see marks in the dust around the window frame and on the glass of small hands and small fingers. Hunched over part of the wall, cold water running down the back of my neck from the bad gutter above me, I dipped my brush in the powder and started what is now a very familiar twirling to apply the powder to the window and frame. And the prints began to appear. Yup, they were small. I wear a size 4 ½ ring on my ring finger but these were smaller than that. Yup, these were kids.

I was able to lift two prints from the exterior of the glass and then we moved inside. The way the counter and sink were situated as compared to the window it was obvious the people that climbed through that window had to have held onto the sink to get down. Unfortunately the sink offered up no usable prints. The interior of the window was the same. Nothing usable.

As we entered each room, I was quizzed how we should process the room.
Kitchen?

-Dust sink, interior window, interior and exterior of door along door knob and locks.
Living room?

-Dust the drawer handle, and interior where the thumb drives had been.
Family room?

This one was tricky. So many of the items involved were electronics and/or were made of composite plastics with a rough textured surface which is not very conducive to lifting prints. Some of the items/areas were so covered with dust from the home that it was obvious these items/areas had not been disturbed. After considering this I decided:

-Attempt to dust the textured surfaces anyway in an attempt to see if a visible print could be produced to photograph, dust the wall unit the games systems had been in as well as the game cases which had been moved.

The attempt to dust the textured surfaces yielded exactly what I thought they would… texture but nothing useful. From the game cases we were able to lift one more usable print and a few partial prints. We took sets of elimination prints of the homeowners as comparison. I could tell though, the ones we lifted would not be the homeowner’s just by the size.

Partial print

Once we were done, we packed everything up and headed out to the truck. My hands were sweating inside the nitrile gloves and yet they were freezing as well. My glasses were fogged. My ears burned and one curl had managed to free itself from my bun and was dripping water onto my cheek. Yet I stood there and stared at that house. I peeled off the gloves and put my cold fingers under my arms, shivered and thought “Could I have done more? Did I miss anything?”

The wind began to pick up and that cold wet curl whipped me in the mouth snapping me back to reality. Without a word I climbed in the truck and we drove off. As my fingers ached with cold and burned from the heat blasting out of the vents the tech with me cut the silence of the ride back to the PD. “No, you didn’t miss anything.” I hadn’t said a word. I looked up and she smiled.

As I blew on my curled fingers I couldn’t help but smile back.

/by

James O’Neal (Born): The Future of Police Work

James O'Neal

James O. Born is an award winning novelist with five crime novel published by Putnam. Under the name James O’Neal, he is published by Tor. The Human Disguise was just released and the sequel, The Double Human, will be released in 2010. He is currently a Special Agent with The Florida Department of Law Enforcement working in the area of major crimes and public corruption.

Visit his website at WWW.Jamesonealbooks.com

The Future of Police Work

The one quality most good cops share is adaptability. Many are smart. Many are tough. Some are smart and tough. But if a cop is adaptable then an officer can do a lot of good.

This adaptability must be short term as well as long term. If a cop is undercover, talking to someone about a potential hit and the bad guy suggests they go shoot the target that minute, the cop must adapt for safety and to salvage the case. If the cop shuts it down immediately then there may not be enough for a prosecution (I know it probably would be in this example but you never know). If the cop agrees to take it a little further, then the victim’s or the cop’s life might be in danger. Every undercover situation is a chess match of safety versus evidence. The key is being able to adapt. If all police operations went perfectly then there would be no reason to spend so much time planning and there would be almost no good stories. The interesting things come from what goes wrong, not what goes right. That’s goes for life in general.

Adapting to the long-term changes is another vital ability necessary for a successful career. Procedures evolve, tactics and equipment improve. From my own experience, when I graduated from the DEA academy in the mid-eighties (gulp), I was issued a Smith and Wesson model 13 revolver. A dependable, venerable weapon not much changed from the early part of the twentieth century. After a short while I was using a Beretta 92 nine millimeter, semi-automatic with fifteen rounds.

A couple of years ago my agency required us to move to the Glock .40 caliber. I resisted, having grown used to and comfortable with my Beretta. Any cop or military person will tell you their feeling for a weapon. I didn’t want to experience the separation anxiety. The Beretta had saved my life. Literally. But I was forced to adapt and now carry the sleek, hammerless Glock.

The other form of change that requires a cop to adapt has nothing to do with attitude or equipment. It slays tough and smart alike. It lays waste to morale, thins out the ranks and occasionally pushes someone until they snap. This is the governmental and administrative change that usually seep into the culture but sometimes flop on us like a Walrus with vertigo.

The best example I can think of right now is the tax crisis here in Florida. In South Florida, smaller cities can no longer afford to field their own police departments and have been contracting out the work to the Sheriff’s Offices. The state is flat broke. If it were a relative I would avoid it. Funding has been slashed in every area. And now cops must adapt again. Resources and manpower are scarce. Overtime is non-existent. But somehow criminals continue to go to jail and the lid has been kept on a pressure cooker of unemployment, disillusionment and anger directed at any target available. Cops adapt to cooperate better between agencies, use what resources they have more efficiently and focus on the few creeps who are really causing the problems.

Time marches on for all of us and so does change.

I used my experience as a cop. My love of history and status as a native Floridian to create a novel about police work set twenty years in the future. To keep from confusing anyone who had read one of my contemporary police novels, I used the pen name ( I have a hard time spelling pseudonym) of James O’Neal. The Human Disguise, just released from TOR, follows detective Tom Wilner, a detective for Florida’s Unified Police Force, the only remaining police agency in the state, as he deals with a simmering gang war. I put a lot of effort into looking at police work when I started twenty years ago and how it had changed from police work in the late 1960s, then tried to draw a realistic, reasonable line to how things might work twenty years from now.

I wrote the book over two years ago but theorized that the state’s tax structure would one day fail. I had no idea it would be so fast. In the future the population in Florida has dwindled due to factors like terror attacks, pandemics and a severe climate change. That leaves few cops over wide areas. The first issue would be manpower. That could mean conflicts of interest are a fantasy and cops have to work whatever comes down the pike.

Weapons would evolve and use propellants other than gunpowder and calibers unknown today. Fuel of cars has changed to hydrogen with poor areas using steam or whatever they can find to power crumbling Hondas and pick up trucks.

The last piece of this future puzzle would be the judicial system. Any one involved with it today knows that it cannot continue as it is for very much longer. In The Human Disguise the future justice system sentences offenders to penal units in the military. Sentences can be for conflicts (Syria until it’s conclusion) or time. The need for combatants in all the conflicts the US is fighting is so great virtually no suspect is found guilty. That gives cops too much power.

The civil court system has been completely revised to each side being allowed a short period to present a case to a single judge who can rule immediately causing the loser to pay all costs. That has lightened the burden on small businesses constantly under siege by slip and fall attorneys. But it has also insulated large corporations that can afford to pay if they lose and hurt poor individuals without much money to risk in a loss.

All these factors would cause a police agency and a cop to adapt. I know it caused this cop turned novelist to adapt. I look at everything now with an eye toward what it might look like in twenty years. If my last twenty years are any indication, look for a very heavy set, near sighted novelist signing science fiction books at a Barnes and Borders near you around 2029.

James O, Born, the cop:


James O. Born, the author:

Jim Born, the book critic:

Jim Born’s latest book, The Human Disguise is scheduled for release today!

/by

Lucienne Diver: How I Do It All and Still Manage To Sleep

Lucienne Diver

Lucienne Diver is the author of Vamped, which Wondrous Reads called, “Mean Girls with fangs,” a May 2009 trade paperback release from Flux. She’s also a sixteen year veteran of the publishing business, representing over forty authors of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, suspense and romance. She’s a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR), RWA, MWA and SFWA. Further information can be found on The Knight Agency website www.knightagency.net, her blog http://varkat.livejournal.com and her author page www.luciennediver.com.

How I do it all and still manage to sleep


I get the question all the time: “When do you relax?” I’ve heard this word, relax. I’m still trying to work out its relevance to my daily life. I’m an agent and author, wife and mother…in an ever-rotating order determined by the time and day of the week. Relaxation, well, that’s just time I’m not using to its fullest potential.

So when I hear authors say, “I need to develop a schedule” or “I need more hours in my day,” my answer to that is a resounding AMEN! Yes, the mighty schedule is all important. A schedule is sacred. And I don’t just say that because I’m a textbook type A personality with time urgency issues. They tell you in school that studying in the same time and place every day helps put your brain in the mindset to work and retain information. The same applies to writing. Personally, I’m up before the rest of my household every morning to write for an hour or so before my inner editor awakes and gets in the way of channeling my characters and story. I can plot and revise in the evenings when my logical, perfectionist self needs to be along for the ride, but I write in the mornings. Every morning. Same time (5:30 a.m., yeesh!), same place. I free hand. Unfortunately, my muse never took to typing. Until THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING becomes reality (famous novel by John D. MacDonald – boy did I want that watch as a kid!), I can’t help you with the extra hours. I carve them out of sleep.

Once I’ve written until the pen stops, I go back to sleep for an hour or so. When I wake, I hug my son, greet my husband, shower, the whole nine yards. By the end of a hot shower and copious amounts of caffeine, my agent self has awoken. She has a schedule too. A list of things that need to be done and an idea of when each of these things will be slotted into a busy day. I have an agent of my own to handle the business side of my writing because during office hours, I’m focused on my own clients. Also, as an agent with sixteen years in the business, I’m confident in what I do; as an author with my first novel , VAMPED, out under my own name just this month, I’m…um, well…neurotic.

I’d be absolutely inclined to jump on anyone offering for my work and ask them if we can sign on the dotted line before they come to their senses. I wouldn’t be at all the woman of steel I need to be as an agent. I wouldn’t be a tough negotiator. For that I need someone much less emotionally invested in my work with wonderful acumen. Now, “less emotionally invested” doesn’t mean she doesn’t care, just that she can look at things a bit more dispassionately than I can regarding my own work. Also, my agent is a great editor and I know I’ve become a better writer for working with her.

Is it weird to have another agent agent me? Not as weird as you’d think. For one, I’ve known my agent for years and knew what I was doing going to her. She’s tough, someone I respect with a good work ethic. We have similar taste, but different approaches on some things, which is good, because it means that we can come at things from different angles and perhaps achieve more together than I could on my own or with someone just like me. In fact, all of this is probably a pretty good summation of what authors get generally (or should get anyway) out of the agent/author relationship. It’s a mutually beneficial partnership, where both sides bring different but vitally important skills to the table.

Check out Lucienne’s blog for a contest closing on May 22nd for a bag of swag featuring her novel, Vamped. Also, join Shooting Stars Magazine all month long [Link: http://shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com/2009/05/party-vampire-contest-with-lucienne.html] to test your Vampire IQ and win signed books by Rachel Caine, Lucienne Diver, Rosemary Clement-Moore and other goodies.

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Shirley Jump: On Writing, Research, and Chocolate

 

I’m very pleased to welcome my good friend, New York Times/USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump, to The Graveyard Shift.  A few weeks ago, I asked Shirley if she’d mind sharing a few of her writing tips and she said yes without hesitating. In fact, she immediately put down her box of chocolates and answered my questions in a manner that was so…well, so Shirley Jumpish. You’ll see what I mean. Shirley will also be available today to answer your questions.

 

First, a little about Shirley Jump:

Award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing romantic comedies (Doorstep Daddy, May 2009) to feed her shoe addiction and avoid cleaning the toilets. She cleverly finds writing time by feeding her kids junk food, allowing them to dress in the clothes they find on the floor and encouraging the dogs to double as vacuum cleaners. Visit her website at www.shirleyjump.com or read recipes and life adventures at www.shirleyjump.blogspot.com.

She also writes horror young adult under the pen name AJ Whitten with her teen daughter.

 

The first of these books, The Well, will be released in fall of 2009 under Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Graphia imprint. When Shirley’s daughter first read the premise for The Well, the story of a boy whose mother is trying to kill him, she asked her mother if there was anything she should know. Shirley claims it’s all fiction. Learn more about AJ Whitten at www.ajwhitten.com

The Interview:

Shirley, what time of day you prefer to write?

Whenever no one is going to bother me. But honestly, I have kids and just when I think I’m going to get two or three uninterrupted hours to write, someone calls home with a dire emergency, like a forgotten trombone or misplaced lunch money, and before I know it, my writing day is sucked into the ether. So I write whenever I can grab uninterrupted time 😉

Your daily word count?

Ha. Did you read the above? 😉 I don’t strive for any kind of daily word count. The pressure would mean I’d have some goal I’d have to meet, and then if I didn’t meet it, I’d feel like a failure, which would necessitate massive amounts of chocolate. Eventually, the sugar high would wear off and I’d need a nap, meaning more hours would be wasted…and I’d really be missing my goal. Back to the chocolate bowl again. It’s a vicious cycle. Better to not set a goal at all and reward myself with chocolate when I accomplish anything more than hit POWER.

Do you listen to music when you write (what kind)?

I’d love to tell you I’m so disciplined and intellectual that I throw some Bach into the CD player and hum along with a concerto, but honestly, I usually have the TV going because when you’re writing all day, you’re usually missing something good, so why not try and do both? ;-). I got used to writing with kids around, and actually missed the noise, which is why I turn on the TV-for company.

Do you conduct a lot of research before you write the first word?

I write the first three chapters before I start researching. I’d like to know what I need to know, if that makes sense, before I start digging for facts. Otherwise, I’ll spend all day reading and not a moment writing.

How long does it take you write a 100,000 word novel?

As long as they give me ;-). If I have a year to write it, it takes a year. If I have six months, it takes six months. I aim to please-and make my deadlines.

Finally, what is your favorite food and drink?

I have to pick one?

If I HAD to choose, my favorite food is macaroni and cheese (I know, but who said I had to eat healthy?) and my favorite drink is a mojito. Or a margarita. Or a martini. If it has alcohol in it, and it doesn’t taste like battery acid, it’s usually on my favorites list 😉

Shirley picks up a few forensics facts from Butler County Ohio coroner’s investigator, Andy Willis and Butler County coroner, Dr. Richard Burkhardt during the Writers Police Academy.

*Shirley’s latest book is The Well, which is scheduled for release in September 2009.

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Lisa Provost: CSI In Training

Lisa Provost: The Body

Born in August 1974, in Brooklyn, NY., Lisa Provost grew up in the Catskill and Adirondack mountains of upstate N.Y. where, from the time she was 12 – 16-years-old, she raised dairy goats.

Lisa studied Biology at RIT in Rochester, N.Y. from 1992-1994. Later, in 1998, Lisa married and moved to the Midwest when her husband enlisted in the US Air Force. The couple moved to N.C. in 2003 when his enlistment term was done. In August 2007, Lisa began studying Forensic Biology at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Lisa is an avid knitter and lover of four legged mammals.

My First Day as an Intern

In August 2007 I became a college student again at the age of 32. I’m majoring in Forensic Biology with a minor in Criminal Justice at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.

When I entered my sophomore year (Fall 2008) I decided to give an internship a try because I was starting to doubt myself. Surrounded by other adult students, I was still the “odd man out” because of my major and interests. No I don’t watch CSI on TV, but I am training to be a real one. When asked if I watch CSI I tell them “no” and when they seem to ignore that answer and ask if it’s just like on TV I say “no.” The first time I answered that question I was asked “Well if you’re not doing the job right now how do you know it’s not like on TV?” I hated to admit it but she had a point. How did I know? Common sense told me TV was not like real life but hey, I couldn’t answer her completely and truthfully. Then she asked me “Are you sure you could even do that? I mean… it all seems so gross!” The only way to be sure that I could do it was to actually do the job, so for one semester I interned with a local police department’s crime lab. Every Saturday I was in the lab waiting for a call from 3 pm to 1 am.

Lisa had been fingerprinting bags of cocaine for hours when this photo was taken.

My very first day at the lab we got called to a double shooting. It was an intensely sunny August day in North Carolina. There was no wind, the air was thick, heavy, and hard to breathe. It was approximately 6:30pm when we arrived on the scene and just my luck it was actually two scenes, in total approximately 200 yards long. The first was where the victims were initially shot and one was run over by a car. The other scene was where the vehicle, with the injured driver, had come to rest.

At first I was not allowed into the scene because we were unsure if the victims had survived their injuries. When we arrived EMS was leaving with the victims and officers were putting up crime scene tape. The only information we had was a male and female had been shot and that the female had been run over by the male with the vehicle in his attempt to get away from the shooter(s). So until I got the all clear to enter the scene, I stood on the edges and made some sketches of the scene along with notes of what I wanted to ask Shannon (the technician I was with). About ten minutes after our arrival I was waved into the scene. Thankfully the victims would live and my first day as a CSI truly began. An hour later I was on one knee, holding one end of a measuring tape in my hand and calling out measurements. An hour after that, I was jotting down information in a logbook regarding the pictures that were being taken. An hour after that, I was jogging back to the truck for more evidence bags and swabs.

At approximately 9:30 pm we arrived at the hospital to photograph the victim’s injuries and perform GSR (gunshot residue) tests on the victim’s hands. When we walked into the emergency room it looked like complete chaos even though I knew everything was under control. I’ve never liked emergency rooms. They are a location of pain. The only time people are in there is when they, or someone they care about, are in pain. I’ve had my fair share of time on that side of the emergency room so it was a very enlightening experience to be on the other side of it. Both victims readily agreed to being photographed and having GSR tests performed on them. Shannon was swift, professional, polite, and to the numbers. Even though she knew the procedure to perform a GSR test backwards and forwards, she referred to the instructions on the kit because it was part of her procedure when performing the test. She reminded me that the job is all about procedure. “Remember to follow procedure like your life depends on it, because someone else’s life very well might.” I have since burned that phrase into my memory.

When we left the hospital at approximately 11:30 pm Shannon turned to me in the truck and asked “Are you hungry?” It was only then I realized just how hungry I actually was. Before I could answer her my stomach did with a resounding growl. “Wendy’s Drive-thru it is” she said and off we went. I had eaten my first Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger before we even made it out of the drive-thru. She laughed and told me that I was destined for the field of Forensics since I could eat fast food that fast.

On our way back to the PD she told me stories of scenes she had worked as we drove past the locations. One of them was truly tragic; a restaurant owner beaten to brain death with his body on a life support machine over $30 worth of food. It appeared that the suspects had been bored and wanted something to do so they called and ordered some food to be delivered. When the man arrived they attacked him with their bare hands, feet, and whatever else they had on hand. They never even ate the food. My fries no longer garnered as much attention as they had in just the previous moment. She told me she would show me those photos when we got back to the PD. She said she wanted me to see them because it was a good example of why she does the job.

When we arrived at the PD it was nearly midnight. Shannon pulled up the photographs and I sipped my soda as I looked through them. I remember foremost the anger building up in me as I scrolled through them on the computer screen. I spun around in my chair and said “You do the job because you know you can, and thus you must. It’s not the blood or the gore. It’s because of the inhumanity isn’t it? You want the people that could do that out of our communities am I right?” She smiled, nodded and said “Remind me to show you some more when you are done with that batch.” I nodded and before I could turn back to the computer an officer walked in the room and said something that I know now to be a 10-code. At the time I had no idea what it signified. I know now that it meant he had taken one person into custody from the very crime scene I was viewing and he needed her to take his mugshots and fingerprints. He was a very polite, clean cut young man of 18. I held his crucifix while they took his photograph. Watching him sign his arrest warrant I knew I had made the right decision.

I can’t wait until I am in the field.

 

 

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