Signature Crimes

A signature on a document is intended to identify the person issuing the document, such as a letter, or loan agreement letter etc.
A signature Crime is one that specifically identifies the criminal. What is their preference? Is is burglary, fraud, some type of deviat sex assault or at the top of the list, the serial killer.

Most crimes are crimes of opportunity combined with a persons abilities. A guy that needs money and is not concerned about stealing may have no problem coming into your home to take your stuff. How he gets into your home is where the signature starts.

The investigative reality for us is that if we understand the concept of how people do anything, we can apply it to how a criminal does his/ her thing. People are creatures of habit. We do things repetatively. Look at yourself. do you have a morning "routine"? Bathroom, then coffee, jogging, etc. etc.

Some people are  not morning people, they don't function well at first light, they prefer to sleep in, hit the snooze button ten times then run around like nuts getting ready.

Regardless of your routine the fact is most of us have routines. Whether they are simple or complex they are our patterns, our signatures if you will. Criminals are the same way. Understanding this very simple concept will go a long way to helping you understand how to look for and find a criminals "Signature" 

Lets run some examples:

The run of the mill burglar is a male between the ages of 15 and 40. If it is his first time commiting this crime you might find physical evidence at the scene that  will tell you that, but you have to know what to look for. The average burglary is also a crime of opportunity taking place between 8AM and 5 PM.

Statistics are your first opportunity to begin the identification. Knowing the basic demographic of the common burlgar as described above lets you know that if  you see a male in the category described wandering around a residential area during the times described you may have a burglar on your hands.
Observation of his/ her actions will be helpful to your case , but lets say you didn't see them. You get the call to respond to the Wilson home at 6:45 PM. They got home from work and found their house ransacked, jewlery taken and TV's missing.

Lets say a patrol officer does the minimum and takes a basic report then calls for you, the investigator.
Upon your arrival you get an overview of what happened then begin your scene examination.

It would be very helpful for you to know the type of criminal you are looking for.

The new or inexpereinced burglar will most likley have tried several ways to get into the house. They may have tried opening several windows, not knowing they were locked. You will find latent fingerprints or smears at these locations. You might find a broken window in the basement or elsewhere that finally allowed them access to the house.

Inside you see the ransacking of every room etc. These signs are the work of someone who was trying out their new occupation.

In police work there are terms used to help identify specific actions. Two of the best terms are :

Organized and Disorganized.   Orignally coined by FBI profilers for their work with serial killers, the terms are equally appropriate in any type of repeat crime, because as humans we are repetative.

The organized personaility has thought things out. They planned, they have some experience.  For the most part they have learned from their experiences and applied that learing to the task at hand, whether that task is homicide or burglary.

The disorganized personality is one that shoots from the hip so to speak. They really dont have a plan, they have an idea.   EX: "I want to steal from that house".  So they go over to it and try to break in and steal. The often leave lots of physical evidence, like fingerprints, foot prints, blood samples, wallets and other things that reveal thier lack of experience and planning.

One of the first FBI Profilers said the best chance they have to stop a serial killer is if they find thier first victim(s) realtively soon, before they have a chance to learn from thier mistakes. Same thing with any type  of crime. 

Get the concept?
And you thought those detecgtives were really unbelievably good didnt you?  The reality is a good detective also learns from their mistakes and gets more organized in how they investigate crime and criminal action. They also spend time learing these and other concepts of human nature. That  is our business after all isnt it??  Dealing with people.

OK so back to our new burglar. He picked a house in the middle of the block where neighbors can hear and see him. It was a crime of opportunity so he didnt have gloves and left latent fingerprints all over. He tried three windows before finding one he could get into and he spent alot of time going through a 12 year old kids bedroom finding nothing but action figures and video's.  Very disorganized.

So if you see these kinds of disorganized things at your burglary scene or the scene of an abduction and rape, or robbery, or whatever else you investigating then you know you most likley have a new or inexpereinced criminal.  Do a very good job of gathering forensics, canvass the neighbors.

On the other hand.........   

Lets deal with the organized guy and his signature.

This burglar picks houses he has learned give him the best hiding spots. Lone houses or houses on corner lots where prying eyes dont have a good view of his work.
He might pick a basement window everytime, and he might put a rock in the gate to keep it open for his retreat or escape. He might cut phone lines to defeat alarms. He will leave only smears because he brings and wears gloves. He  goes directly to the master bedroom and uses pillow cases from the bed to hold the jewelry that is most often in or on the womans dresser or in her underwear drawer. 

He goes out the same way he came in. He has leanred from experience.

So how then do we identify a signature?  Most criminals will do things the same way everytime if that way worked for them before. They might choose houses only on teh west side of teh street, or with a specific alarm company, they might cut only specific wires to the home indicating they know which ones are phone lines.
Some serial  burglars eat at their scenes, everytime. Some use the bathroom. I had a guy one time that defecated in the driveway everytime. Seems funny but it was his pattern, his signture. Some guys  steal booze everytime. No matter what they do, they will d it almsot everytime whether its how they git in, what tool they use, what  they steal or how they get away or act at the scene that will be their signature.

A good and funny example is the Home Alone movies: The two idiot burglars stopped up the sink and flooded the houses. They called themselves "The Wet Bandits".  This was humoruos but pointed out the lesson very clearly, they did the same thing in every job. The only difference was they wanted to leave their mark on each scene. For us, the investigators, we have to find the signatures the criminals leave behind that they dont want or expect us to find.

More on this type of training is available  http://www.jpangaro.com/  or buy my book   "The Art of Investigation"

email me at  jpangaro@yahoo.com  
 

School Shooting-Ohio

  At this point in the investigation the reason for the school shooting in Ohio is unclear. Media reports are culled from witnesses, rumors and hunches. Witnesses are unrelaible in many cases. Conjecture from kids in the school may offer some insight and investigational direction, but the truth may take some time to emerge. Looking at the reports so far we can try to understand the possible motives.

One commenter said the shooter, a student himself, was a "loner" and was bullied. Was his response to the bullying this murderous rampage? Could be. We have seen that before. Some people are pushed very hard, especially some kids. The bullying that goes on can be cruel and non-stop. It attacks a persons sense of self worth.

When you combine the normal insecurities of childhood with the tension and pain of being picked on everyday you can get an explosive reaction. If that is the case here the school must review what it does to ensure that bullying is stopped when it happens.

The parents of the bully's are also responsible and must take action to stop their kids from attacking other kids. Its  not good enough to simply say "Dont pick on Johhny even if he is weird" this reenforces the bully's beleif that he or she is superior to Johnny. Once out of sight of mom and dad the bully kid will continue to act out. Instead the parents should be held accountable for their kids actions. If your child is a bully and you do not take corrective action you will face consequences.

We all know bully's. They exist everywhere, not just in the world of kids but adults have to deal with them too. How about the bully boss? The road rage bully or the drunk in the bar thats ready fight anyone he thinks he can take.  

Bullying is the result of a persons over reaching attempt to overcome their own weak opinon of themselves. By attacking somone else they displace that self doubt and feel better about themselves. This is Psych 101 stuff. The problem with bullying is that if it is not shut down with the greatest force posible, it just grows.

Today two young people lay dead in a morgue. A senseless loss of life, tragedy for a community and individual families and many unanswered questions remain.

The why of this incident will be revealed soon enough. Ths shooter did not take his own life so he can be interviewed and hopefully some insight can be gained to prevent future horrors.

Look inward. Are you a bully?  Is your kid a bully?
   
  

The Bully

“Behind the Badge”               “The Bully”

By Joseph Pangaro

Last week I read a story about a man who lies in Florida. His young daughter had some physical and mental problems, but she attended the local elementary school. Over a period of time some of the kids in her school found it amusing to pick on this little girl.  Then one day the kids on the bus were particularly cruel to this girl and her father got on the bus and yelled at these kids after the girl pointed them out. The man was arrested and charged with a host of violations.

I was struck by this story from two sides. As a police officer I understand that we can not allow adults to board a school bus and yell, scream and threaten any child. Based on that understanding it was clear that his arrest appears to be appropriate. He lost his cool and reacted very badly.

The other side of me, the father side, felt some type of empathy with this man. His daughter was being picked on, or “bullied” continuously and the school system did nothing about it. He was wrong to get on the bus and verbally attack the kids who attacked his daughter, no question about that, but I get the sense he was trying to protect his child.

This story highlights a larger problem, the problem of the bully.

Many school systems now actively train their teachers and teacher’s aides to identify any type of bullying and put a stop to it. I know in our area most of the school districts have some type of training on this topic. Unfortunately bullying still goes on.

It would be easy to simply write this off. We all knew a bully in school, the guy or girl that taunted the skinny kid, or the poor kid, or the kids who were different in what ever way, or the girl that didn’t have the nicest clothes. For many of us as long as the bully wasn’t targeting us, we let it go, grateful we were not on the receiving end of the bully’s rage. We lived through it. It’s a part of life, it’ll make you tougher, right. I know some people believe that. I don’t agree.

I remember watching a girl in the 6^th grade that was tormented by quite a few of the kids in the school. Her name was Kelly. At first it was just mean names they called her, then she was shunned, then it was a shove here and there. I didn’t see any difference between her and any of the other girls in the school. She seemed normal enough. When they started in on her she would try her best to defend herself from the horrible things they said to her, but the more she defended her self, the worse it got. She told the teachers about it, then it got vicious. The taunting was constant, the comments about her parents, her clothes, her hair. The poor thing spent at least a part of every day in tears, alone. To my eternal shame I saw this happen and did nothing for a long time. Over that year the way she was treated made me sick. Finally one day, I could not remain silent. I had to pull together every bit of courage my 11 year old soul could muster. As the group was ripping into her again I said meekly “Why don’t you leave her alone”.

My attempt at stopping the attack was met with taunts to me about how much l must love her, how I must be a freak lover.  This experience was painful and frightening and it didn’t help very much. The kids still picked on her and she ran away crying everyday. I wished I was stronger, but I was a kid. The bullies had strength in numbers and they were relentless. That year ended and we went off for summer vacation. In September Kelly didn’t come back to school and we never saw her again. I guess she moved away or went to a private school. I can’t imagine that the scars left by the bullies went away any time soon. I know her torment still haunts me to this day.

The reality of the bully and bullying is that it does leave scars that last a life time. As an adult I know there must have been more kids that were just as upset by the way Kelly was treated as I was. It is not part of our human nature to see an innocent person attacked and think it is OK. I hope Kelly managed to move on with her life and the bullying became just a painful memory that she was able to live with. I also try to forgive myself for not doing more to help her. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I was drawn to police work, to protect the innocent and weak. 

Many parents have no idea how their kids behave outside of their direct supervision. Bullying and being a bully is something that happens over time. Parents have to instill in their kids that being a bully is not the thing to do. As adults we have to change our view of bullying as “Part of life”.

Children are different, they are trying to find out who they are as people. Some kids do act strange and dress weird and have goofy habits, but making sport out of these innocent children is a tragedy and it is up to all the adults to identify this corrosive behavior and help put a stop to it.

Let me know what you think.

                          

Daily Briefings

Each tour of duty should begin with updates. What happened before you came on and what is anticipated to happen during your tour.

Another important aspect of daily briefings should be training. Each day should begin with some tid bit of info or technique that can enhance youur work. To that end I will begin issuing "Daily Briefing" info and training on the blog.  PD's can print them and use them in their routine. I will be happy to address any topic of interest or need as well.  Just send me an email:   jpangaro@yahoo.com and put "Blog question" in the header.

Thanks and see you soon.
JP 

Change

The world of Law Enforcement is constantly changing. In New Jeresy we are looking at less than lethal options, especially tasers. Seems like a good idea if the technology is reliable and the training is good.
Saving lives is the ultimate goal of law enforcement especially in these ever changing times.

The violence that has been on the rise seems like it will continue, we must look cloesly at all options and try to advance where ever we can.

Thanks to everyone that has been stopping in to see whats new. I will make every effort to increase my entries as the next week moves along.

JP