[HN Gopher] What it's like to work on cold cases
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What it's like to work on cold cases
Author : samclemens
Score : 29 points
Date : 2024-08-25 13:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| brudgers wrote:
| https://archive.ph/pT0gz
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I have a lot of respect for good detectives. I really enjoyed
| "Homicide Hunter" - which is a retired detective's recollection
| of past murder cases. Who knows how much was myth vs fact, but I
| got the sense he kept good notes because he would speak to
| exacting detail about decades old cases.
|
| One of my favorite episodes was his first homicide case. A gas
| station was robbed and the clerk was killed. No video, no prints,
| etc. However there was a necklace that was dropped. It had some
| kind of pattern, so he called every. single. jeweler in the area.
| He called a lot, and eventually got a hit and found his man.
|
| It's this kind of diligence and dedication (plus technology) that
| can crack cases open, even cold ones. Like the article here, he
| found 4 untested hairs that cracked it open.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Outlier amateur detective wins are commendable, but also
| emblematic of a problem.
|
| Why aren't the real police revisiting these cases? Why are we
| arming them better and better against our own people instead of
| spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes?
|
| Every time one of these is solved by amateurs, we should be
| asking why the system is failing.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Why are we arming them better and better against our own
| people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve
| crimes?_
|
| The current party in power ran verbatim on a platform of
| "defund the police".
| LevGoldstein wrote:
| You say that as though this is a brand new problem and not
| something that's been an issue for many, many decades
| regardless of what party has majority control at the federal
| level.
| hoten wrote:
| That's hardly a supported policy you'd find in the Democratic
| party platform, or the position of the Biden administration.
| Don't confuse a few of the most left leaning members of the
| party with the whole. It's a big tent.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-b.
| ..
| altruios wrote:
| Sigh...
|
| Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military
| gear to use against the populace, while much more accurate -
| isn't as sticky...
|
| Sticky thoughts win over accurate ones. Truth needs a proper
| wrapping now a-days to even get looked at.
|
| How about this for a new phase:
|
| "pay for: effective Detectives; not toys."
|
| OR:
|
| "detectives solves cases: military toys melt faces."
| munificent wrote:
| "Demilitarize the police" would certainly have been a
| better slogan than "defund the police".
| altruios wrote:
| It was more accurate. I've heard that around the same
| time defund was going around...
|
| But humans don't select catch-phases and sound-bites by
| their truth value...
|
| Sticky truths: that's what we need.
| throwway_278314 wrote:
| That phrase was probably a bad choice of words; I believe the
| fuller intent was
|
| "Let's fund initiatives which build our community, like
| teachers and school lunch so our kids aren't hungry. That's
| more important than funding police who come from outside our
| community and have a reputation for extortion and murder of
| our citizens instead of protecting us."
|
| You may disagree with the read on the situation of the people
| involved, but I would be very surprised if you support the
| idea of you being taxed to support an armed force which was
| sent into your community and only ever acted in a hostile way
| towards you.
|
| By the way, the DOJ seems also to feel that the Minneapolis
| Police was hostile to the citizens
|
| Minneapolis Police Used Illegal, Abusive Practices for Years,
| DOJ Finds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36917349
|
| Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times
| the Rate of Whites
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23403891
|
| At urging of Minneapolis police, EMS workers subdued dozens
| with ketamine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17328770
|
| And the slogan comes as part of a larger discussion of what
| the role of police should be in society, see i.e.
|
| Minneapolis City Council looking into disbanding police
| department https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398910
|
| > We can totally reimagine what public safety means, what
| skills we're recruiting for, what tools we do and don't need.
| We can invest in cultural competency and mental health
| training, de-escalation and conflict resolution.
|
| > We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction
| without drawing a weapon, or pulling out handcuffs.
|
| > The whole world is watching, and we can declare policing as
| we know it a thing of the past, and create a compassionate,
| non-violent future. It will be hard. But so is managing a
| dysfunctional relationship with an unaccountable armed force
| in our city.
| banannaise wrote:
| That phrase got so much traction precisely because it's a
| bad choice of words. It's easy to dismiss a movement if you
| latch onto the worst framing you can find, take it
| literally to the point of bad faith, and refuse to dig any
| deeper.
| leobg wrote:
| It's not just the U.S..
|
| Here in Germany, there are several multi million Euro fraud
| cases that have been going on for decades. They get picked up
| by the media every couple of years, with hidden camera footage
| and everything. But the authorities do nothing.
|
| I suspect they are all overworked - police, judges,
| prosecutors. They are all in reactive mode, trying to reduce
| the pile of paper on their desk. And, presumably, plan their
| next holiday.
|
| The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the
| function they render to society are over, I suspect. It's work
| life balance all the way.
|
| And they may have a point. The woman who solved the Golden
| State Killer case, didn't she die quite young because of the
| stress? If you look into the abyss for too long, the abyss
| looks back into you.
|
| To do good work means risking divorce, lowering your per hour
| wage, becoming a target for the bad guys, watching your lazier
| colleagues pass you by, and putting your health in jeopardy.
| This was seen as heroic in the 80s. Today it is seen as dumb,
| naive and futile.
| extr wrote:
| This is the exact same dilemma that you face in any other
| job. Working extremely hard and burning yourself out does
| nothing except cover up the problem that the function you are
| providing is under-resourced.
| linotype wrote:
| > The days where a cop, judge or prosecutor identified as the
| function they render to society are over, I suspect. It's
| work life balance all the way.
|
| This is terrifying and also true in many other industries,
| including software.
| jayofdoom wrote:
| I'm really confused as to why it's bad we identify people
| by their preferences and the content of their character
| instead of by the role they play in our capitalist economy.
| blargey wrote:
| People not giving a shit about their jobs means their
| jobs don't get done well - if at all.
|
| We're quite dependent on the fastidiousness and
| conscientiousness of our peers, at least if you want life
| to be pleasant. People don't have the ability to
| contractually enforce and codify good work ethic (see:
| people just trying to define SLOs for machines).
|
| Especially with "public servant" type jobs which the
| comment was referring to.
| devjab wrote:
| I worked a decade in the public sector in Denmark and I
| think it's sort of natural when MBAs enter and flood the
| work with pseudo work. A nurse went from maybe filling out
| paperwork a few hours a week to two full days a week. What
| was "fun" about that is that I worked on the data, and I
| may have been the only one to ever come hear 99% or it as
| it was only ever audited after someone did something bad.
| They didn't even use the data for anything analytical
| because it tended to show just how bad their budget cuts
| were hurting the area and that the best way to improve
| quality was through more resources and less administration.
|
| Add to this that most public servants make very little
| money and that nobody in the chain of command actually
| listens to the people on the floor... Well why would they
| care?
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's not enough cops to handle crimes committed today, so
| why is it a question on why cold cases are just sitting there
| getting colder? How does the budget for that get approved when
| current cases aren't getting solved? It's really not a hard
| thing to understand when you compare it to software teams that
| get shuttered because managers are scared that it is not
| revenue positive.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Better armed police act as a deterrent though . I don't think
| these are mutually exclusive: police are better-armed, yet more
| funding for the FBI for investigating more complex crimes.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| Detectives. You want more detectives. Cops do not solve crimes.
| They're the foot soldiers -- enforcers -- of domestic politics.
| Detectives have to get a college degree and actually know the
| law! At best, cops will cordon off a crime scene and protect it
| until detectives and CSI arrive.
| philwelch wrote:
| Detectives are sworn law enforcement officers employed by a
| law enforcement agency such as a city police department, and
| in many places they are required to have prior experience as
| uniformed officers. They _are_ cops.
| levocardia wrote:
| Isn't the answer simple? Most cold cases have a very low
| probability of ever being solved. The rare exceptions make
| headlines, but I'd rather police dedicate finite resources to
| the hot cases with a better chance of getting solved. Those are
| also the ones where solving them actually helps protect public
| safety. Solving cold cases appeals to a more vague notion of
| justice, which is fine, but you're not likely to get robbed by
| the killer from a cold case in 1987.
| paulpauper wrote:
| This is why stats that purport a low clearance rate for murders
| in the US are misleading. Cases never expire until either someone
| is convicted or the perp can be presumed dead. The file is always
| open, someone is always investigating.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Just this morning, there was a story on CNN about a cold case
| hit and run from 1989 being solved because of DNA on a joint
| left in the stolen car.
|
| It wasn't even solved because detectives were actively looking
| at it - they received an (incorrect) tip, and decided to just
| check out what else was in the case, and ended up sequencing
| some DNA left in the vehicle. I imagine there are hundreds of
| thousands of such cases out there like that.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/us/charlotte-nc-cold-case-sol...
| philwelch wrote:
| If it takes over thirty years to clear a homicide case,
| that's a failure by any reasonable standard.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| ...or a success for a serial killer.
|
| i mention this becaues the golden state killer was a police
| officer _and_ serial killer, and took advantage of the
| delay to kill over a great span of time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
| bsder wrote:
| Almost all of these cases are being cleared because DNA got
| shoved into a large enough private database that
| practically everybody now coughs up a correlation.
|
| This has very little to do with diligence and more with
| technology advancing.
|
| And, while clearing murders is nice, wait until the
| equivalent RealPage gets hold of that database and starts
| discriminating based on your DNA.
| julienchastang wrote:
| > there remain hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides across
| the country
|
| Wow.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| If you want to be horrified, look up how many african american
| women go missing every year without a trace - it is truly
| insane.
|
| https://naacp.org/resources/missing-african-american-women-a...
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