Police sketch day....

A new follower remarked that she didn't know where to find my old forensic and police sketches and that reminded me that I haven't posted one for a while. [ Most of them are in January and February if you're wondering]

This guy robbed a bank if I recall correctly and then stole a car. Most cops would think that if a crook was wearing sunglasses and a cap, there is no way a composite could be done. Thank goodness this cop took the extra time to ask if there were things about this guy that would set him apart. As you can see there were many and the witness met with me and we came up with this sketch.

This caught crook ended up having a blue ball cap with the yellow letters of "CAL" on the front. Black sunglasses with bright blue lenses, scar and tattoos.

I would have to give this witness a gold star.

An Eye Witness Case Study

This is  not necessarily a composite success but an answer to a question I received recently about eye witnesses.  It's true that some eye witness accounts can be skewed and unrelieable but there are many things to help people lock in a memory.

I was asked to work with a victim who had been attacked.  She was living in an apartment alone and was probably being cased by a sexual predator.

He had taken off the screen windows of her apartment and forced open a sliding window.  He confronted her while she lay in bed and commanded her to "Shut up and roll over."  while he brandished a crowbar.  She screamed where upon he hit her on the head with the crowbar and fled after doing so.

The detective on the case had got leads on a possible suspect and arranged for the victim to look at a photo line-up.  This included a photo of the suspect that was on file from a mug shot taken  a month after the incident.  She was not able to pick him out of the line-up.

The detective, undaunted found out there was an earlier booking photo of the suspect closer to the time of the incident.   A month of starchy jail food had not been able to have their affect on his facial features yet.   

He showed a line-up of photos with this image and she was able to pick him out from the group of six photos and then later was able to do the same with a stand-up line-up in jail.  

A detective's perseverence was able to convict this suspect and give the victim a little peace of mind.

I don't know how I would be able to remember a face in the middle of the night, awakened from sleep, in the dark with someone ordering me with the threat of a crowbar but I think she did pretty well remembering his thin eye brows, average nose and prominent chin.  His eyes are a little bigger in the composite probably because of his state of excitement during the incident.  

Another Composite

Time for another blast from the past. [plus I don't have any new work to post today] 

If you read the Police Bulletin,[just click to enlarge] you can see this guy climbed into a young girl's room.  He removed some of his clothing and it was obvious what he intended to do to the sleeping girl.

Fortunately, the father heard something and was able to confront and chase the guy out of the room before anything happened.  

I believe the father described this picture.  Which is pretty good for the circumstances and for the little time he was able to see his face.  His identification was later confirmed by the DNA he had left matching to his on file.

The sketch is not great because the detective Xeroxed the sketch instead of scanning it like I recommended but this is the actual bulletin distributed for the suspect.

Another Blast from the Past

Some times the composite does not look similar to the suspect. This is one I did for a County Detective.   Fortunately there are other features that make the suspect unique.  The suspect's arrest cleared 6 robberies.  

So the moral is, if you're going to commit a crime, stick with the traditional hairstyles. 

Another Composite / Sexual Assault

Okay, so I'm "copping" out by posting another piece from the past because I don't have anything completed to post today.

This man attacked a woman while she walked alone along a relatively desolate street in a neighboring city. He tackled her from behind, threw her into a clump of bushes to sexually assault her.

What I always have is deep admiration for a victim willing to force herself to revisit that event in order to help the police catch the guy and prevent him from doing the same to others. It is not a pleasant experience and we both are emotionally drained after the session.

As you may or may not know there are people who chose not to help with a composite. I found that the most reluctant were not sexual assault victims but bank robbery tellers. For some reason tellers were most reluctant to sit and provide a description when cameras had failed during the hold-up. Most cited that they were afraid of retaliation [ which never occurred during my 26 years experience] and trauma from the incident.

BART ( not Simpson )

Bay Area Rapid Transit or BART has been the source of riots and controversy after the killing of a detainee during his arrest by a BART officer.

This saddened me immensely. There are so many losses. For the family of the deceased, for the officer who resigned after the incident, for the community and department involved.

I've worked with BART police in many capacities. As an officer responding to the Station to assist a lone BART officer fighting with suspects, with the Administration and commanders as a Press Information Officer and Internal Affairs Investigator and at the receiving end for requests for assistance.

Click to enlarge if you wish

They are a fine group of men and women working in a very challenging environment.

There is nothing that will replace the loss of the young man who was killed but I have a difficult time understanding why people have gone to the extent of of threatening the officer's wife and infant girl at their home. That is why the family was out of state when he was arrested.

This is a composite I did for BART when a murder occurred on one of the trains. The witness was a passenger [ a business man in his 40's] and he was able to calmly describe the horrific scene of the suspect stabbing and killing another young man while they were in transit. The composite aided in the arrest of a then 17 year old suspect for the crime.

Another Composite

Okay, one more composite story to get my mind off my struggle with the Jefferson Memorial on DSFDF.

There was a series of burglaries in the neighborhood where the suspect was taking the glass louvers off the mounts when residents left their window cranked open. One day an apartment resident saw a man walking down the hallway carrying a television set midday. Most people would not have given this a second thought but the witness was an ex-con himself and made mental notes of the guy.



Click to enlarge image if you'd like

Sure enough when the officers knocked on his door that night to see if he had seen anything out of the ordinary because his neighbor got burglarized he was able to say yes. So I'm talking to this guy and chit chatting about his "time in the pen" and I don't know how much credibility to give to the description he gave me.

Of course I was humbled when a Parole Officer looked at the crime bulletin and said he thought he recognized the suspect as his parolee. His fingerprints matched those left on the window and he was arrested. I always remind myself never to make assumptions about people based on their past or appearances.

Composite Drawings

As mentioned before I wanted to post a composite made from 5 photo references. So there was separate photos for the hair, eyes, nose, mouth and head/jaw area. It is all in pencil but a pretty picture does not catch a crook. This was done in a class room setting with no crying victim or intimidated witness to contend with.









click on either image for a larger view





Now this composite was described to me by a 71 year old neighbor lady. She was watering her lawn when she saw this person with hair rollers and a fuzzy pink sweater go to her neighbor's front door. After knocking and not getting an answer this person went to the side gate and disappeared. The lady assumed this person was a new cleaning lady and didn't think anything more of it until later that night. A police officer informed her that he was making a check for possible witnesses because that neighbor was burglarized earlier in that day. Could the person she saw be involved? Fortunately, the officer took the chance to have a composite done on this person.

This lady was the oldest witness I had dealt with but she was sharp as a tack. She even described how the rollers were on this suspect's head. So officers and detective's "assumed" they were looking for a slightly built African American woman in her late twenties.

A couple of weeks later, another police officer was conducting a check on a Parolee for a Parole Officer. The Parolee was a male who had been incarcerated for burglary. The officer looked at the Parolee and discovered he was a transvestite and looked very similar to the composite. [down to the curls in his hair] and fingerprints later confirmed this was the "cleaning lady" burglar and was able to clear several burglaries in the neighborhood.