Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled the Minneapolis police bias report 10 days ago. It confirmed what hundreds of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters suspected:The Minneapolis police has a problem with explicit and implicit bias. I've written many blogs on these biases, both explicit and implicit. The report has importance since it convinced the MPD Chief, city officials, and others that the Feds should take over the MPD. This happened in Oakland, CA – a city … [Read more...]
Psychopaths in C-Suites Thrive
Nine years ago, author and psychologist Fred Kiel reported on his research about psychopaths in leadership positions at a Tedx Talk. Psychopaths in C-Suites Kiel titled his talk, "Psychos in the C-Suite." The term C-suite usually refers to a company's top management positions, where the C stands for "Chief," O for Officer). Various chief officers (e.g., CExecutiveO, CInformationO, CFinancialO, etc.) occupy the C-suite. Kiel and others suggest C-suites are overpopulated with … [Read more...]
Stanford Serial Killer murders daughter of football legend
Somebody has recently been convicted of one of the killings attributed to the Stanford Serial Killer. He's John Getreu. But before getting into the case, a few words about why the case intrigues me. (A recent blog suggests why these cases intrigue most of us.) Stanford University played a big role in my life since it strongly supported the schools and youth programs in Palo Alto, California where I grew up. I rode my bike to summer jobs at Hewlett Packard's first HQ near Sand Hill Road … [Read more...]
CRIME INVESTIGATION Tutorial III— fingerprint techniques.
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...]
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...]