Saturday, August 24, 2013

Crisis of Confidence In Law Enforcement

Alex Hunter, former District Attorney of Boulder, Colorado, used passive language to report the findings of the Grand Jury saying that they had finished their work, and no arrests had been affected.

This was deliberately done to deceive the public:

The Grand Jury did finish their work.

There were no arrests effected.

Both of these sentences are true.

It is the missing information that is critical:

The Grand Jury had indicted both John and Patsy Ramsey in the child abuse death of their daughter, Jonbenet Ramsey.

Hunter, according to police, was leaking information to the high powered Ramsey attorneys, through various means, including tabloid reporting.

Question:  Why would a District Attorney sabotage a murder investigation?

Answer:  Cowardice.

When we speak of Law Enforcement, we often think only of police officers, who are, depending upon locale, required to have a high school diploma.  We have seen the steady decline in education over the last generation and so it is that police officers of higher education and intelligence, often find themselves either in the minority, or taking jobs doing insurance investigation, which pays significantly more money.

Talent goes where the money is.

What's left is sometimes under-educated and under talented.

But "Law Enforcement" includes those who's job is to take the work of police and defend it in court.  This means that when someone graduates from law school and take a job working with "the state", they have the title of "assistant district attorney" or "assistant attorney general"; impressive title, to say the least, but what about the principle that "talent goes where the money is"?

Many successful attorneys get valuable experience in prosecution, and when their performance in court is witnessed by private attorneys, the best and brightest are often offered substantial increases in pay to join the private sector.

What is left behind?

Sometimes it is those with lesser talent, who are then given the task of prosecuting cases where the defendants hire their private sector counterparts who make more money because they are significantly more talented.

When the case of Baby Lisa came to head, the details were plain for the public:  the mother, Deborah Bradley, was not above average intelligence, and was making a fool of herself with her silly story of kidnapping.

The case made national news.

The case appeared to be headed towards arrest when New York attorney Joe Tacopina jumped in, claimed to have been speaking to the FBI, who, he said, gave him the evidence in the case!

The next thing the public heard was...

nothing.

No arrest?

Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Crickets chirping back and forth in rhyme.

Question  Why would "Law Enforcement" (FBI, local) share information or even meet with Joe Tacopina?

Answer:  Lack of confidence in the prosecuting attorneys to go up against him. They likely sought a deal from Tacopina, who, in hindsight, gave them nothing.

Statement Analysis concluded that Baby Lisa was deceased and that her mother was deceptive about what happened to her.

How about the case of Baby Ayla?

The single, unemployed, uneducated father of two has a pattern of abuse of a child he wanted aborted, is dating a girl who's sister was arrested for a large whole-sale drug possession, and who was known for his bullying hot temper as well as rumors of his own low level street drug sales, bested police?

Justin DiPietro is also not above average intelligence, yet he bested Law Enforcement in the interview process?  Is this another "Misty Croslin" like situation?

In DiPietro's case, they did get him to take a polygraph, so score one for the feds, but he flunked it (or, that he "smoked" it in his own vernacular), and they were unable to get a confession in spite of the lies he told, and the DNA evidence (significant amount of blood found in various locations in the home)?

He purchased, while unemployed, a life insurance policy against, (not for) his child, while NOT purchasing it for his other child, who then just 'happens' to go missing 6 weeks later and this is not prosecuted?

The mother, Trista Reynolds, will now take her case to the public in an attempt to force the state hired attorneys to prosecute DiPietro.

The police showed weakness when they went public to say that "all three" were "withholding information" and not truthful.  This was an attempt to put public pressure on them and was a tactical error (it produced nothing), in an overall strategy that is all but indiscernible to the public (if any strategy exists).

The public has, in so many places, lost confidence in law enforcement, as more and more under-educated police investigate and interview, yet without success.

The public has seen the fruit of all the police recruiting procedures in big cities, where test scores, for 30 years plus, have been changed due to racial sensitivity scoring (cheating), and other recruitment criteria.

With the best and brightest having their scores knocked down in favor of others with lower scores, what was it that officials were expecting?

It is one thing to have the cowardly Alex Hunter refuse to fight the Ramsey attorneys, but it is quite another thing for the public to have difficult interactions with local police, and remain confident in their ability to investigate cases.

Of course there are many talented and dedicated professionals in law enforcement, up and down the line, but speak to them, and hear their frustration over how they feel, under-represented by the state attorneys, or bitter towards working with those whose own lack of intelligence in dealing with the public leaves a bad taste for all in law enforcement.

The day of the "Dirty Harry" cop mentality has long passed.  Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with being pulled over by arrogant, small minded, bullying cops, even while reading the headlines of cases remaining 'unsolved' even though the facts are abundantly clear to the casual observer.

How do the citizens of Colorado City, Texas, feel about fellow citizen murder victim Hailey Dunn's lack of justice?

Judging from comments here and on Facebook, the citizens are not happy that Billie Jean Dunn and Shawn Adkins remain free, while Hailey will never get a chance at life.

Hollywood continues to portray cops as all knowing, all powerful and all seeing, in today's movies.  The FBI can read minds and see crimes before they happen and are listening in on criminals everywhere...

yet, what happened with Baby Lisa?

There is a crisis of confidence in law enforcement, from the bottom to the top, across our country, and these few very public cases highlight this very thing.

The problem goes back to its earliest roots:  education.

Police Departments need to raise the standards for hiring, and need to better educate and train.  Police Departments need to hire the best qualified applicants, period.

When politicians stepped in to make demands on police departments hiring practices, the decline, fueled by the dropping standard of education, the end results are now being seen, day after day, by American citizens.

The frustration the public feels is shared by those dedicated and talented law enforcement officials who, in many cases, have had their hands tied.

Take a look at the fall out of careers from the investigation into Jonbenet Ramsey, in Boulder, Colorado, where feelings are still ripe and raw over that young citizen who's life was taken from her, and who's citizens did not know, for many years, that the Grand Jury indicted her parents for child abuse.

27 comments:

  1. My crisis of confidence is right here. Why won't you take a stand on the Hannah Anderson case?

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  2. ^^what's with the continued childish demands? Peter is neither LE, judge, nor jury in the Anderson case. Take your own stand and be grateful for all the information given on this blog, for free, on his own time.

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  3. What sort of "stand" is he supposed to take?
    This is a blog not court, it's for people to read, discuss, learn aboout statement analysis and come to their own conclusions.

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  4. Has anyone seen behavior analysis done on Hannah Anderson? I watched her interview and she shakes her head no when she is saying the letters were from a year ago and nothing bad in them.

    If her family was visiting DiMaggio, why would he leave his guest behind at his house to pick her up? Wouldn't the mom go get her or all of them take a ride together to go get her? Who dropped her off at camp, they would know where she was at? If mom and brother were at DiMaggio's house, why couldn't they tell him where she was if they dropped her off? So many questions I hope LE is asking because I am sure she cannot connect all the dots logically.

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  5. Part of the problem with being able to make determinations on the Hannah Anderson case is that the public is only seeing Exerpts of the interview. I would like to see exactly how a question is phrased in order to ascertain whether Hannah answers appropriately.
    The interviewers & reporters in this day and age are sorely lacking.

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  6. OT..

    Searching for Erica:

    Casey Parsons' father says he saw her abuse Erica.

    http://www.wcnc.com/news/searching-for-erica/Casey-Parsons-father-says-he-abused-Erica-220708731.html

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  7. I am not qualified as a statement analyst. However, I can analyze what doesn't add up with Hannah's statements.

    1) There was early reporting of DiMaggio telling Hannah of a crush and she was "creep-ed" out by this. Yet, she explains:

    At one point, Hannah acknowledged that DiMaggio had told her he had a crush on her, but that it was "more of a family crush like he had feelings as in he wanted nothing bad to happen to me."

    She said she didn't tell her parents because DiMaggio was her father's best friend "and I didn't want to ruin anything between them."

    Why would concern over her well being "creep" her out? Why would it ruin the friendship with her parents? Very Odd!

    2) Hannah claimed they were "tricked" into visiting. At what point did it become necessary to "trick" them into visiting the long term family friend.

    3) Hannah claims they were "tricked" into visiting to ride karts and have fun. He picked her up at gymnastics. Which was it? Did she arrive with family or Dimaggio?

    4) He said he would kill me or anyone that helped. I didn't know my family was harmed. She had known this man all her life and been in his company many times. At what point did she realize the danger was real if she was unaware of the harm?

    5) “This was a hard time,” Hannah said. “And there’s gonna be harder times in life. But if I could get through this, I’m sure I can get through a lot more.”

    A hard time? Going to be harder times? I'm not there are much more difficult events to face than the torture and murder of you mother/brother and your own abduction. So she managed to overcome it and ready to overcome the next trauma. Wow!

    The non-professional opinion is something isn't the way it seems.

    Thank you,
    Suzie

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  8. Peter,

    Thank you for this article. I agree with you on the lowering of educational standards, as well as the social engineering are disasters in L.E. - and in other sectors of society.

    When shopping for a surgeon for your beloved child would you go with the most qualified or an affirmative action choice just to be PC? This is leads me to fear the BO care bill.....what will it force on us besides ridiculously crazy high cost in merchandise and more? Will it force under qualified medical practitioners on us all?

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  9. Can it, Apple. No one's talking to you.

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  10. This is Peter's blog so it contains Peter's opinions. If you don't like them, go elsewhere. Start your own blog for people to read and critisize YOU on. I read this blog for statement analysis and have learned quite a lot. I generally ignore the "ignorant" "uneducated" "idiot" comments and read the ones that are informative. I don't live in America but i can see why so many lack confidence in LE. Dylan Redwine comes to mind.

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  11. Did she shed a tear at the funeral? I saw it was open to the public...

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  12. If not seeing a particular case covered on a random blog on the interwebs causes a 'crisis of confidence', you've got a bigger issues than PH. I suggest Googling "Hannah Anderson", choosing one of the many links, and commenting there. You're comments would be welcomed.

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  13. Cowardace is just one possability. It is the most generous assumption. However, there are a full range of possible motives -- he may have even been one of the adults in the community who witnessed/participated in the abuse of the victim for his own pleasure. Thereby he may have something to hide of his own wrongdoing, and/or John Ramsey may have specific leverage - be it financial, social, job security related, or more personal -- that made Hunter's motive much more grounded and specific than mere cowardess. Whatver his motive -- given the emence pressure to solve the crime -- and that his move to nullify the grand jury finding was so unpresdented -- he must have had a motive that was stronger than all those forces that would have compelled him to take just action. I think cowardess is too vague and general to explain it.

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  14. haileigh cummings too.

    imo, keep in mind that 20 years ago these cases would have never been touched. now with modern day use of unconstitutional tactics, profiling, illegal tapping, and other.... LE has been able to attempt to solve these cases where as back in the day they would have just said "oh well" and went to the donut shop.

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  15. Suzie, I agree with your post on Hanna. Does anyone else think it's odd that Hanna's dad has a fund raiser so soon. I haven't heard dad speak too much on his wife and son. I might have missed it though. If so, please let me know. Is Hanna's dad the boys dad also?

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  16. "The right questions may not be asked by law enforcement that could provide key clues or identification data for those.."

    This is what happened in the kidnapping of Hannah Anderson.

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  17. If LE is SO terrible at being LE they should subcontract out the really intellectually challenging cases..

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  18. without an ally to champion the recovery effort. Law enforcement agencies vary greatly in response effectiveness, due to a lack of training, experience or operating budget.

    The right questions may not be asked by law enforcement that could provide key CLUES

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  19. GLOUCESTER – A group of retired law enforcement officials who assist families in missing children cases concluded today that Caleigh Harrison, the 2-year-old girl who disappeared on a Rockport beach on April 19, was swept out to sea and drowned.

    The group ruled out the possibility that Caleigh may have been abducted.

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  20. AVA -- Utica Police searched a section of the Ava Landfill Thursday morning in connection to 11-month-old Levon Wameling, who was reported missing in June.

    Sgt. Hauck says trash can be tracked within landfills to specific areas. Utica Police received help from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children on how to best focus in on the area to look at.

    "From a day after Levon was missing, the area that would be our focus here has been roped off, it has been isolated," said Sgt. Steve Hauck.

    Hauck also acknowledged it is unlikely Levon Wameling is still alive.

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  21. Investigators closely monitored Billie Dunn's nightly appearances and read the Statement Analysis here each morning, confirming the accuracy of the analysis.

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  22. unconstitutional tactics, profiling, illegal tapping, and other.... LE has been able to attempt to solve

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  23. Bears repeating
    unconstitutional tactics, profiling, illegal tapping, and other.... LE has been able to attempt to solve

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  24. unconstitutional tactics, profiling, illegal tapping, and other.... LE has been able to attempt to solve

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  25. "CRIsis OF CONfidence IN LAW Enforcement"

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  26. JonBenet's case screamed for justice, but the DA didn't want to listen. It angers me still. And so many other cases that are obvious and nothing happens. The killers go on with their lived and there's no justice for the victims.

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  27. Then there are the surveillance cameras that News 8 spotted just this week at the Mountain Top Market in Boulevard, located a 1 1/2 miles west of DiMaggio's burned-out home. They likely captured DiMaggio and Hannah driving past on Highway 80 on August 3rd, but we'll never know what the video showed. The owner of the market said detectives never came by to get the footage, and it was automatically erased two weeks after the murders.
    Detectives also overlooked a surveillance camera at the Golden Acorn Casino in Boulevard, and another one across the street from Sweetwater High School, where DiMaggio picked up Hannah from cheer camp August 3.
    In addition, the principal of Sweetwater High School said detectives never approached the school with questions about Hannah Anderson, DiMaggio, or potential surveillance video recorded on campus.http://www.cbs8.com/story/23283594/missed-clues-in-hannah-anderson-kidnapping-case

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