Officer TenDigits* here, Welcome students, mystery writers, and true crime authors. Oh, and any others seeking info about fingerprint techniques. Whatever your reasons to master this arcane subject, be sure to check out the other fingerprint tutorials in this series. Go here and here. Another similar tutorial's coming soon. In today's class, ahem, I won't be talking about any newly-created forensics methods requiring gold and zinc that local police jurisdictions can use. … [Read more...]
CRIME INVESTIGATION Tutorial II— How the FBI used fingerprints to catch MLK’s Assassin- the climax..
As noted in my prior blog, we can learn a lot from perhaps the greatest fingerprint sleuthing effort in recent American history. That would be how the FBI used fingerprints to nab MLK's assassin in 1968, two months after the history-changing event. Besides budding criminalists, criminology students, and the general public, crime writers may be interested in how a talented writer utilized his knowledge of fingerprint ID tactics. Thus, much of this blog showcases paragraphs from … [Read more...]
CRIME INVESTIGATION Tutorial – How the FBI used fingerprint ID tactics to nab MLK’s Assassin.
As I've done from time to time, I'm starting another tutorial series. This one's for everyone, but specifically for crime writers and students of criminology, crim justice, and forensics. For writers, it's intended to help them incorporate fingerprint ID tactics in their novels. And, as they - and the teachers of students like you - know, it's a good way to introduce a topic is via a story. ID tactics So I'm starting off this series with a story. It's about how the FBI … [Read more...]
Bill Cosby’s special treatment by the justice system.
As you may've read in a former blog of mine, Bill Cosby and a few other top celebs got their just deserts over the last 25 years. But wait, suddenly it looks like Bill Cosby's special treatment finally materialized. So he joins the many other celebs who get special deals. Bill Cosby's special handling. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently sprung him from prison for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2005. The case at first ended in a mistrial but resulted in a conviction when he was … [Read more...]
Elite school bias? Surprise report.
As readers of this blog know, I write often about discrimination of various sorts. My tendency is to spotlight discrimination in crim justice institutions. But I've written about other institutions such as the US Navy, the Catholic Church, and the like. Some American researchers just released a report on elite school bias. And it seems to put to rest, at least temporarily, an ongoing debate that intensified a number of years ago. Then, a lawsuit was filed against Harvard College, … [Read more...]
Settlement in James Franco’s Sex Misconduct case
I've followed a celeb who graduated from my high school for some years now. James Franco's been impressive. He was nominated for an Oscar in 2011, and has studied and shown promise as a filmmaker, writer, and painter.** These fields, except for acting, have been fields I've explored. And Franco's been involved with three universities I've attended - UCLA, Yale, and Columbia. Needless to say, he's intrigued me. But when he got into … [Read more...]
CRIME INVESTIGATION Tutorial—How True Crime Websleuths Do It – I
This is an introductory tutorial about true crime Websleuths, an online forum that allows all of us to play detective. In prior tutorials, I've tried to help both crime writers and criminal justice students understand how, say, the FBI goes about investigations. This blog shows you the basics of how to participate in true crime Websleuths. Later blogs will get into how the popular site has evolved and some of the hiccups it's experienced. The … [Read more...]