law enforcement

KN, p. 169 “WitSec and the US Marshal Service”

 

USMarshalSeal-300

The Witness Security Program (WitSec), was started by US Marshal, Gerald Shur, in the late 60s as a way to get witnesses to testify against high-ranking mobsters and still stay alive. While controversial at the outset, there were enough resulting convictions by 1970 to convince government officials to put money into a formal program to help get dangerous criminals off the streets and disrupt their criminal ventures. As WitSec evolved, the safety of family members became part of the package as well.

 

Why get protection?

In general:

  • The kinds of cases that would need to have witness protection attached are those where the defendants are so dangerous that the lives of the witness and his/her family would definitely be in jeopardy if testimony were even considered.

 

  • The prosecutor is fairly certain that a conviction cannot be guaranteed unless the particular witness testifies.

 

  • The witness(es) may have seen a murder or other criminal activity and be reluctant to testify against the suspect unless they can be guaranteed protection.

 

  • Before WitSec came along, “finks’ or ‘rats’ would wind up dismembered and very dead, in retribution for speaking up against powerful mob bosses.

 

  • More than 80% of the witnesses have been criminals themselves, and are testifying in order to stay alive or to get back at a boss they no longer trust/like.

 

  • Some of the witnesses have been ordinary citizens that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw something horrific. The criminal knows he/she has been spotted and WitSec is the only protection the witness has.

 

 

What happens to the witness and the family?

 

Once the witness has agreed to testify, he/she and the family might be placed in the custody of the Marshal service until the trial comes up – sometimes many months – but this may be the only way to keep the witness alive until the court date.

 

For high profile cases, the U.S. Marshal Service handles 24 hour protection right up until the testimony, then provides new identities and moves everyone involved to an undisclosed location. This location is known only by a handful of government people. If the location is compromised for whatever reason, the US Marshals will find a new location for the family and begin the process again with new identities and jobs.

 

Once in the new location, average housing is provided, along with job prospects. The monthly stipends continue until the family can support themselves, usually only a few months. Early in the program, there were few monetary limits which led to abuses of the program by seasoned criminals, but that has changed.

 

Over 19,000 people have been relocated since WitSec began.

 

Some have left the program voluntarily, finding it too restrictive, and some of those people lost their lives as a result. It’s not a bad deal for some, because they get a truly fresh start away from a bad neighborhood, but for most, it is a drastic change.

 

It is possible to get kicked out of the program and it has happened. Returning to a life of crime is cause to get booted out, but the rate of recidivism while in WitSec is less than half that of the rest of the formerly incarcerated population. Less than half.

 

Interesting note: for criminals that testify and are in jail (or about to go there) when they testify, there is a parallel prison system. If they went into the general population, it would be easy to find them and they wouldn’t last long.

 

A few States (California, Illinois, New York, and Texas) have Witness Protection Systems of their own, but the protections and benefits are limited and less broad in scope.

 

Nobody who has followed the federal WitSec guidelines has been killed while under the protection, but it’s not easy to walk away from extended family and friends in the middle of the night, never, ever to see them again. Cell phones with the old names and contacts are gone, losing social media is a problem for some, new identities may mean that new careers must be chosen. A familiar lifestyle must be abandoned.

 

If given a suitcase and told to pack in 20 minutes, what would you take? What could you leave behind?

 

Additional information can be found at:

 

http://priceonomics.com/what-happens-when-you-enter-the-witness-protection/

 

www.usmarshals.gov

 

 

Photo credit: US Marshal Service

 

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Visiting Detective Rainy Dale – “Encounter with Rainy Dale and Friends”

 

Sheila and Charlie Kerrian thoroughly enjoy their cross-country road trips, and besides taking loads of photos of the breathtaking landscapes, have met some truly intriguing people in law enforcement. There was the newspaper owner/editor Ava Logan; the psychic puzzler, Lexi Sobado; the 1880s midwife, Rose Carroll; the vegetarian detective, Becky Greene; and the time traveling sheriff, Will Denton – an eclectic bunch of crime fighters to be sure.


This trip was all about seeing the Pacific Northwest. Sheila’s parents had lived in Tacoma, Washington, for a while and spoke fondly of their time in the area. The plan was to fly out to Seattle, stop in as many coffee shops as they could (Charlie ran out of time well before running out of coffee shops to visit) and then travel by rental car through Oregon and on to California. A break in the drive in the middle of Oregon’s majestic scenery took them to the Cascade Kitchen.


Meet Rainy Dale and friends, in ranch and horse country Oregon:

 

“Twenty-seven hundred miles from home, Charlie and Sheila marvel at Oregon’s land between the Cascade Mountains and the high desert. Traveling through the central part of the state showcases the transition of coastal fir, spruce and cedar giving way to pine and sage. Black-ribbed buttes thrust out of the sandy loam. The last road sign announces their entry into (fictional) Butte County.


Hunger calls and they pull off the two-lane highway in the pokey little town of Cowdry where they find an unlikely-looking diner called the Cascade Kitchen. Farmland abuts the back of the truck-choked, gravel parking lot. A gleaming red horse stands at the hitching rail. Yes, there’s a hitching rail behind the diner and this horse’s reins are loosely swirled around the thick wood crossbeam. The animal seems perfectly happy to wait there, head low, eyes half-closed, one hip cocked. Maybe the restaurant offers oatmeal to go, perhaps with extra brown sugar.


Inside, garden variety décor screams mere diner, with a wooden sign suggesting they seat themselves. The vinyl booths are dinner-rush-full, but wow—at the first table, a good old boy in overalls and a baseball cap bearing the John Deere emblem is ripping into a ruby red bell pepper with fork and knife. Wild rice, sugar snap peas, and sausage spill out. Stuffed peppers in a diner!

 

Two seats are open at the lunch counter next to a young woman in jeans and a flannel shirt.

 

Why is she biting into a hamburger when better food is served here? Charlie and Sheila wonder as they climb onto the last available twirly stools.

 

The young woman makes eye contact via the mirrored wall facing the lunch counter, then turns to face them.

 

“You’re new here. Are you moving in? D’you have horses?” She pulls a business card from her shirt pocket and slides it down the counter in front of them.

 

Sheila and Charlie inspect the card together.

 

Rainy Dale, horseshoer.

 

“You’re a horseshoer?” Charlie asks.

 

A chuckle erupts from the uniformed deputy on the other side of the young woman. Charlie and Sheila look at the mix of people sitting on Rainy Dale’s other side. Two uniformed deputies, a middle-aged man with a crew cut and a young woman with a tight French braid who looks about Rainy’s age, probably young twenties, are finishing their plates. The chuckle came from the male deputy, who nods and says, “She thinks she’s a horseshoeing detective.”

 

“A horseshoeing detective?” Sheila asks. “That’s a thing?”

 

A ponytail keeps Rainy’s long brown hair out of her plate as she leans forward and uses both hands to stuff the last bite into her mouth. She looks at Sheila in the mirrored wall and nods.

 

Charlie reaches for the laminated menu. One burger option is local, grass-fed beef.

 

A tall, blond young man in a chef’s shirt comes through the swinging doors from the kitchen, plates in each hand. “A sample of blackened spears of butternut squash drizzled in maple-infused vinegar.”

 

Rainy smiles and wrinkles her nose.  “Guy, that looks and sounds suspiciously like vegetables.”

 

“I’ll try it,” the male deputy says.

 

Charlie studies the man’s uniform—it’s slightly different from what the woman is wearing. The man’s shoulder patch reads Deputy above the shield, Butte County below. The young woman’s sleeve has two lines above the cloth badge. Reserve Deputy.

 

The horseshoer and the reserve deputy give each other the stink eye in the mirror. What kind of ire lurks between them?

 

Guy, the cook, fires up a tiny butane hand torch that hisses as he caramelizes sugar on a small, perfect-looking crème brulée. The scent of browning sugar wafts over them, making Charlie and Sheila think of eating dessert first. Guy carries the dessert to the man at the first table.

 

Charlie wonders how many homicides the deputy has investigated.

 

“How many sworn officers are in your Sheriff’s Department?” he asks over Rainy’s head.

 

(This is how law enforcement officers compare department size—by the number of sworn and non-sworn employees.)

 

The regular deputy nods as though recognizing he’s likely talking to a brother officer. “Twelve deputies in a county of seven thousand square miles. About as many people as square miles.”

 

Charlie whistles. “That’s not really enough personnel for full twenty-four-hour coverage. How do you patrol that much land with so few deputies?”

 

The deputy jerks a thumb to the young woman seated beside him. “With reservists like her.”

 

The reserve deputy quits making faces at the horseshoer and sips her soda.

 

This is the modern American West. More going on than would appear at first glance. Maybe Charlie and Sheila will stay a night or two.”

*****

 

Many thanks to Lisa Preston for stopping by and introducing Rainy Dale, horseshoer, to the Kerrian’s Notebook readers. Rainy is a truly original voice, with a talent for sizing up people and their horses. Horses kick and people get dead around her, but….. 🙂

 

Click on the link and let Rainy tell her story in “The Clincher.”

The Clincher

 

 

 

http://www.lisapreston.com/Clincher.html

 

 

 

 

“The Clincher,” is the debut novel for Preston’s Rainy Dale horseshoer series. An important scene in the book mentions a practical application of the sport of “Ride & Tie,” and the photo above shows Preston competing in a real life Ride & Tie race. Although her experience and love of horses and other animals did not start out to be research for any of her books, the knowledge gained throughout her globetrotting life flows richly on the pages.

 

VisitingDetectiveRainyDale-LisaPreston

Lisa Preston began writing after careers as a fire department paramedic and a city police officer. She was first published in nonfiction, with titles on animal care, such as The Ultimate Guide to Horse Feed, Supplements and Nutrition. Her debut novel, Orchids and Stone, (Thomas & Mercer, 2016), has been described as a book club thriller, or domestic noir. Her psychological suspense novel, The Measure of the Moon, (Thomas & Mercer, 2017) was also a book club pick. The Clincher (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018) debuted her mystery series featuring a young woman horseshoer. She lives with her husband in western Washington.

 

 

Please visit www.lisapreston.com for links to her bestselling books and more about this multi-faceted author of both non-fiction (animals and their care) and fiction.

 

 

 

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FW: “Can’t get rid of the blood?”

 

 

Continuing the series of articles about Evidence Collection Training Classes held at SIRCHIE.

Click here for Part 1 – “Have you been fingerprinted?”

Click here for Part 2 – “Where are the Evidence Collection kits made?”

 

Part 3 – “Can’t get rid of the blood?”

 

The morning of Day #3 of Evidence Collection Training classes at the Sirchie Fingerprint Laboratories in Youngsville, NC was spent on the tour of the company’s manufacturing facility. We watched as fiberglass fingerprint brushes were made from start to finish, saw riot helmets being assembled, heard the printing presses rhythmically slap logos and directions onto stacks of waiting cardboard, saw employees counting and rechecking boxes of supplies and chemicals. We witnessed a smoothly running facility. That’s what it takes to insure that the products the law enforcement community uses to catch and prosecute the criminals work. Every time, without fail.

 

After the tour, Robert Skiff (Training Manager/Technical Training Specialist at Sirchie) told us about a new method of fingerprint enhancement developed in Scotland. A bullet can be placed in the middle of an apparatus that shoots electric current into the cartridge and reveals the moisture from a print. This method was demonstrated on an episode of Rizzoli & Isles. Kudos to the show’s writers for including this fascinating technology!

 

Another interesting piece of equipment is the ElectroStatic Dust Print Lifter. Impressions left at a crime scene in the dust on the floor, or on dusty doors or walls, can now be lifted and preserved. A shot of electricity is applied to foil cellophane and any dust below/behind the lifting mat will stick to it. If there is a palm print or fingerprint, it will show up as a mirror image of the original. Rough floors or brick surfaces where a suspect may have jumped, can now be processed using this lifting method.

 

Our afternoon training segment dealt with blood and other bodily fluids.

 

Bloody crime scenes are horrific, but law enforcement officers have to put their feelings aside in order to process and maintain the chain of evidence. Everything they do is aimed at furthering a case to convict, so the scene needs to be secured in order to keep people or animals from contaminating the evidence. If blood is visible at the scene, photographs are taken before the collection process disturbs anything. The photos assist in showing the overall patterns and placement of the drops and splatters. Investigators can determine the approximate place in the room where the victim was first struck, whether the victim was dragged or bludgeoned or shot, if there were one or several victims involved, the velocity of the strike, whether there are arterial spurts, etc.

 

Examples of blood spatter patterns

 

 

 

In order to accurately demonstrate and then analyze the scope and nature of the spatters, the area covered with visible blood is measured and scaled (paper rulers are applied next to the surface being photographed).

 

Blood spatter tagging and scaling

Then it is tagged with information that will help the investigators figure out the sequence of events during the commission of the crime.

Blood Spatter Trail

Specific characteristics of the droplets – whether there is a tail or shaped like an ellipse or a circle, whether small or large circular drops – all reveal information to the investigators and examiners. TV and movie watchers often hear the phrase ‘blunt force trauma’ as a cause of death. This most likely means that the victim has been struck with a baseball bat or a bottle, or a golf club (my fave fictional instrument of death) with medium velocity, so the droplets will be medium sized. (See the drop several inches in front of Mr. Skiff’s finger)

 

A high velocity hit (from a bullet) will have smaller droplets because the blood is broken into smaller pieces as it leaves the body and is sprayed onto the walls or floors.

 

Weapons that are close to the scene or involved in the crime, may get blood on them. They need to be processed for blood as well as prints.

 

Blocking out area of floor of interest to investigator

 

After the visual scans of the room for the visible blood, and the initial photography has been completed, then the areas of possible bloodstains can be swabbed, the samples bagged and identified (as to placement in the room). Presumptive tests can be conducted at the scene, using the Field Kits that contain chemicals commonly used for this purpose. Presumptive tests can help eliminate stains that are not blood, but the stains cannot positively be identified as blood until taken to the lab for confirmation – a detail that TV crime shows frequently fudge.

 

An added level of security for preserving a sample is to make transfers from the original or take chips of the original, but not test the original. That insures that additional tests can be conducted at a later time on the original or pieces of it.

 

 

Unknown Stain

 

 Three transfers were made from an Unknown Stain and then tested with various chemicals.

 

Latent Bloodstain Reagent Products

 

 

 

Unknown stain luminesces

 

 The third transfer was sprayed with a bloodstain reagent, and then the lights were turned off. The Unknown Stain luminesced, therefore indicating the presence of heme, a portion of hemoglobin.

 

If there is no visible blood in the room, but a crime has been reported as having been committed at that site, it is common practice for investigators to work in teams to process the room. The room is darkened, one investigator sprays the walls with a blood search product, while the other marks (tags) the spots that luminesce. The lights are turned on and then the room is photographed, then processed/tested. The method of spraying and tagging is repeated for floors as well.

 

It’s worthwhile to note that blood cannot be destroyed with paint. No matter how many coats, no matter what color paint is covering the evidence of the deed, the tests will always reveal that blood has been spattered beneath it. It gets into every crack and crevice. And it just can’t be washed away. Remember the ‘trace evidence rule’? A crook always leaves something behind.

 

For all you crime show TV junkies out there (I’m one of them): that red blood you see on the bed or wall or floor (hours after a murder has been committed on the show) is strictly for visceral effect. Human blood turns brown or almost black as it dries.

 

 

 

Sexual Assault Collection Kit Record

 

Unfortunately, reports of sexual assault crimes are on the rise. But, ‘He said, she said,’ cases are difficult to prosecute because there are rarely any witnesses to the crimes. Samples taken from the victims need to be pristine and chain of custody must be clearly established. Clothing and bodily fluids need to be collected from the victim as soon as possible after the crime in order to have a chance of catching and prosecuting the perpetrator. A good practice for evidence collection from victims who arrive at the hospital is to have them disrobe while standing in the middle of a sheet. Then the sheet corners can be pulled together, keeping as much evidence as possible intact. Rape victims may not wish to be touched, but swabbing their bodies for fluids, then bagging and testing whatever is collected, may be the only way to tie a suspect to the rape.

 

 

Seminal Fluid Test

A presumptive test can provide important information to include (or exclude) a possible suspect from consideration. There will be an instant (up to 3 seconds) reaction if the unknown substance at the scene or on the victim’s body contains seminal fluid. If the results take longer than that to appear, it must be reported that a false-positive has been found. This might happen if there is not enough of a sample or if the transfer made from the original sample was not good enough.

 

Rape and homicide evidence is kept for years. Bagged, tagged, stored. Photographed and entered in databases as well. If the suspects aren’t caught right away, then the evidence is still there, waiting in storage, to be matched to other evidence that pops up in later crimes.

 

 

*Photos taken by Patti Phillips at SIRCHIE Education Training Center in Youngsville, NC.

 

 

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