CSI where are you?
Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:06 pm
Hi. Prepared to leave for the Oklahoma town where I have been evaluating a rather large collection of Native American artifacts, guns, swords, knives, etc. in an estate (the man collected everything, even a sabre tooth tiger skull and some long bones!!! He had been collecting since he was a teen ager, and he died at 93, so lots of years to accumulate stuff. It is spread over three houses, and he has better than 40 thousand books!!!)
ANYWAY, as I walked into my garage I saw the door was 3/4s of the way up.
I had carefully put it down last night due to neighborhood thefts, and now it was up. I started looking around, and there were boxes of some of my collected items (accumulated as I tried to use them as an all consuming interest to deny who I was and avoid transition) on the floor, displaced from book shelves where they were stored in boxes; the passenger side car door was ajar and the dome light on; and the garage door opener kept in the car was gone. The small amount of change (80 cents and 10 pennies) in the console had been scarfed, but he left the pennies. Furthermore, the garage door would not function to fully retract or close. I couldn't tell if more than the garage door opener was missing, but it was time to take measures.
I called the garage door place first, arranged a repair and a new and different garage door opener, and then called the police. The cop arrived first at about noon (I called about 9). He had a finger print kit, and I saw little else. He did try to fingerprint the car door, but got only smudges. I gently pointed him toward the latex gloves left behind on the floor near one of the ransacked boxes, so he decided that was the reason for no prints (duh). I expected he would collect the gloves, but he didn't. Guess he didn't think much of the CSI technique of smoking superglue on the inside out gloves to get at least partial prints. Where is Sarah Sidle when you need her? I gave him the serial number on the garage door opener.
Actually, his response was probably appropriate. Though I would like to get the little maggot that has been hitting the neighborhood the last few weeks (one portable DVD player from a car, 4 garage ransackings and my own, and an attempted house break-in through a window that had been left open but secured with a special lock on the frame, and one bicycle, a multi-speed racer, is his/their haul so far that I know of), I am sure the 137.00 bucks it has cost me in repairs so far is pretty puny when compared to a murder or major theft, or bank robbery, and in property loss is less than 1,000 bucks for a felony. Proper investigation can cost money and take away from the very important task of writing tickets in this time of economic downturn. Remember your city needs your money, so speed!!
But I was kinda disappointed anyway. His powers of observation seemed very minimal (he did not see the gloves, nor the way the stuff had been pawed through, very fast, very messy, looking for pawnable items but leaving alone anything not immediately portable (he skipped a computer and monitor -- I think he was on foot or bicycle -- or items associated with work), and I do not expect an arrest any time soon. I do expect more losses to the neighborhood.
Guess I shouldn't have been disappointed. For 10 years I taught a course at the OKC TI school for the OKCPD on proper excavation of a grave to obtain evidence that could be used in a trial. We taught basic survey and search techniques with field excercise, and meticulous archaeological excavations of graves. One evening about a year after the end of one class, one of those class members appeared on television discussing the recovery of a murder victim, as the entire state watched a BACKHOE being used to scoop the entire thing up and dump it into a screen. Any evidence associated with the grave was long gone by that time.
The case remains unsolved, the victim unidentified though they claim they have good clues and a "person of interest". 
So, that's how I spent my day. With a cop, a garage repair man who arrived about 2:30 (overall I think the latter might have been smarter than the former, though the former was marginally better looking than the latter, if that makes any sense
) and going through the ransacked boxes trying to remember what they actually contained and what might be missing.
ANYWAY, as I walked into my garage I saw the door was 3/4s of the way up.
I had carefully put it down last night due to neighborhood thefts, and now it was up. I started looking around, and there were boxes of some of my collected items (accumulated as I tried to use them as an all consuming interest to deny who I was and avoid transition) on the floor, displaced from book shelves where they were stored in boxes; the passenger side car door was ajar and the dome light on; and the garage door opener kept in the car was gone. The small amount of change (80 cents and 10 pennies) in the console had been scarfed, but he left the pennies. Furthermore, the garage door would not function to fully retract or close. I couldn't tell if more than the garage door opener was missing, but it was time to take measures. I called the garage door place first, arranged a repair and a new and different garage door opener, and then called the police. The cop arrived first at about noon (I called about 9). He had a finger print kit, and I saw little else. He did try to fingerprint the car door, but got only smudges. I gently pointed him toward the latex gloves left behind on the floor near one of the ransacked boxes, so he decided that was the reason for no prints (duh). I expected he would collect the gloves, but he didn't. Guess he didn't think much of the CSI technique of smoking superglue on the inside out gloves to get at least partial prints. Where is Sarah Sidle when you need her? I gave him the serial number on the garage door opener.
Actually, his response was probably appropriate. Though I would like to get the little maggot that has been hitting the neighborhood the last few weeks (one portable DVD player from a car, 4 garage ransackings and my own, and an attempted house break-in through a window that had been left open but secured with a special lock on the frame, and one bicycle, a multi-speed racer, is his/their haul so far that I know of), I am sure the 137.00 bucks it has cost me in repairs so far is pretty puny when compared to a murder or major theft, or bank robbery, and in property loss is less than 1,000 bucks for a felony. Proper investigation can cost money and take away from the very important task of writing tickets in this time of economic downturn. Remember your city needs your money, so speed!!
But I was kinda disappointed anyway. His powers of observation seemed very minimal (he did not see the gloves, nor the way the stuff had been pawed through, very fast, very messy, looking for pawnable items but leaving alone anything not immediately portable (he skipped a computer and monitor -- I think he was on foot or bicycle -- or items associated with work), and I do not expect an arrest any time soon. I do expect more losses to the neighborhood.
Guess I shouldn't have been disappointed. For 10 years I taught a course at the OKC TI school for the OKCPD on proper excavation of a grave to obtain evidence that could be used in a trial. We taught basic survey and search techniques with field excercise, and meticulous archaeological excavations of graves. One evening about a year after the end of one class, one of those class members appeared on television discussing the recovery of a murder victim, as the entire state watched a BACKHOE being used to scoop the entire thing up and dump it into a screen. Any evidence associated with the grave was long gone by that time.
The case remains unsolved, the victim unidentified though they claim they have good clues and a "person of interest". So, that's how I spent my day. With a cop, a garage repair man who arrived about 2:30 (overall I think the latter might have been smarter than the former, though the former was marginally better looking than the latter, if that makes any sense
) and going through the ransacked boxes trying to remember what they actually contained and what might be missing.