6 ms·

It sounds like you would have been saved a lot of stress, indignation and hassle if they had simply asked you, and spent five minutes checking up on your answer

by kw71 11y ago

It sounds like you would have been saved a lot of stress, indignation and hassle if they had simply asked you, and spent five minutes checking up on your answer, before arresting you. Considering the number of fingers that may have touched a telephone book during its manufacture and distribution (surely the cops have phone books and knew they weren't sent in the post, or if they had found a post worker's fingerprints on a piece of mail they wouldn't have arrested the postal worker) it seems to me that they may have been reckless in their conclusion.

mavdi 11y ago
I was surprised by their conclusion. The only item with finger prints on it was the phone book. So I asked them, would a burglar go about stealing things, then just as he's about to leave the home, he takes off his gloves and checks out a phonebook? And then puts the gloves back on to open the door to leave?
- Bluestrike2 11y ago
  Isn't that sort of like poking a finger in the lion's eye without being able to run away? You're absolutely right, but while that's logical, it's also the sort of thing that a detective already fixated on you might think of as gloating. Insert new theory of the crime: you weren't helping your mother out of the goodness of your heart, but so you could scope out potential victims. And maybe you did touch the phone book during the crime for the adrenaline rush, content in the belief that it's the last place the police would think to dust for prints. All theories made less crazy because the detective thinks you were a smug SOB. You mentioned that you felt lucky; sad to say, I think you're probably right. What a nightmare of an experience.
  - dave_sullivan 11y ago
    Indeed. "Ah ha! How could you know the burglar was wearing gloves if you weren't at the scene of the crime?" No winning there. Never talk to police without a lawyer is good advice, but that advice literally translates to "Never talk to police without paying someone $300 per hour to do it." Meanwhile, police, at no additional cost to themselves, can essentially compel you to talk to them any time they want. So it's pretty easy to push people around with that dynamic, yet most people I talk to seem to bury their head in the sand on the issue. I'm reminded of: George Aaronow: When I talk to the police I get nervous. Ricky Roma: Yes. You know who doesn't? George Aaronow: Who? Ricky Roma: Thieves.
    - anon4 11y ago
      It's not that much. That lawyer then would spend those money staying at one of your hotels or such. What goes around comes around.
- enjo 11y ago
  After I had my home broken into the guy taking fingerprints explained to me that fingerprints don't really work like that. You're lucky to pull one single print out of an entire house, regardless of how careful a burglar was. So I suspect that finding one good print and extrapolating a suspect from it is probably pretty common. Flawed obviously, but common.
NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
This happens because the police aren't intelligent people. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the protagonist uses forensic evidence but he thinks about what the evidence means. The police, on the other hand, want a magic oracle device that spits out names and current addresses, and they treat forensics like it was such. In the United States, having a valid explanation for why your fingerprints were on some object wouldn't necessarily get you freed, it wouldn't necessarily prevent prosecution. Some asshole DAs here would take that to trial (or extort you into a plea bargain, at least).
- pixl97 11y ago
  >The police, on the other hand, want... someone to get arrested so it looks like they are doing a good job so the chief gets off their back, the chief wants this because re-election is coming soon and doesn't want to look weak on crime. Neither one of them can go pick up some random black guy for the crime any longer without too much media attention so 'forensic' evidence is what they try to use today.
  - TallGuyShort 11y ago
    I'm sure many police are not like this, but they also want the power trip. I was once pulled over by a cop who was driving incredibly recklessly on icy roads to get behind me fast (when I saw him swerving in my mirror I actually thought he must be on his way to an active shooter situation or something). He yelled at me to give him my license, and then ordered me to get out of the car and sit on the curb because he thought it was a fake. When it turned out to be authentic, he politely informed me that one of the lights illuminating my license plate were out and that my registration was expired. He wrote me a ticket. My registration was not expired, and I fixed the light the next day. The judge was laughing his head off at the ticket and called people in from the hallway to see how silly it was. But my complaint about the officer was just "noted".
    - drostie 11y ago
      I was pulled over by a cop because I essentially "cut him off" at an intersection, pulling from my complete stop at a stop sign across the intersection while he, further behind but with no stop sign, was turning into the same road: he therefore couldn't keep so much of his momentum but once he got into the road he needed to slow way down to match my speed. Fortunately, I had a tail light out -- not a brake light, just the ones that idle on when the car is running. When he asked "do you know why I pulled you over?" I said "Because I have this tail light out: but the brake lights are fine, I have this appointment to fix them tomorrow, and here is this warning that this other officer gave me about the problem, which clearly says that it has to be fixed by the end of the week." He said out-right "no, that's not why I pulled you over, you ran that stop sign," and I said, "no, I came to a complete stop, I always do, it's one of those disciplines I have that really annoys my girlfriend..." and such. Probably I shouldn't have even tried to argue it? But I did. In the end, he came back with a ticket for "driving a defective vehicle" -- because the tail light was out, and despite the fact that he should have ideally deferred to the earlier warning. I asked him about it and he said, "you didn't fix it fast enough!" brusquely. Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." This turn of events was quite fortunate as when the county prosecutor saw both pieces of paper side-by-side (the warning, "fix by the 9th", and the ticket issued on the 7th, or whatever), she agreed to drop the case before it went to trial. (I had also been told by a police clerk that the judge was pretty lenient about traffic violations, so that may have also been in her mind.)
phkahler 11y ago
>> Considering the number of fingers that may have touched a telephone book during its manufacture and distribution (surely the cops have phone books and knew they weren't sent in the post, or if they had found a post worker's fingerprints on a piece of mail they wouldn't have arrested the postal worker) it seems to me that they may have been reckless in their conclusion. That's why such evidence is supposed to be supportive of a larger case. Of course there will be a fingerprint on almost any given item. If you have a complete biometric database of every person in the country you will be able to match it, but that doesn't mean anything at all. If the person matched happens to be local it still doesn't mean anything by itself. In this case there was a plausible innocent explanation of how it got there, but in most cases people won't know how they spread their prints or DNA.
crimsoneer 11y ago
At which point he could have disposed of evidence, refused to be interviewed, etc etc. This is exactly how the legal system in the UK works - you arrest people at a relatively low burden of proof, and that gives you the power to detain them for a few hours while you question them, search for evidence, etc. You can't do any of that if you go over and "ask"

by kw71 11y ago

mavdi 11y ago

I was surprised by their conclusion. The only item with finger prints on it was the phone book. So I asked them, would a burglar go about stealing things, then just as he's about to leave the home, he takes off his gloves and checks out a phonebook? And then puts the gloves back on to open the door to leave?

Bluestrike2 11y ago
Isn't that sort of like poking a finger in the lion's eye without being able to run away? You're absolutely right, but while that's logical, it's also the sort of thing that a detective already fixated on you might think of as gloating. Insert new theory of the crime: you weren't helping your mother out of the goodness of your heart, but so you could scope out potential victims. And maybe you did touch the phone book during the crime for the adrenaline rush, content in the belief that it's the last place the police would think to dust for prints. All theories made less crazy because the detective thinks you were a smug SOB. You mentioned that you felt lucky; sad to say, I think you're probably right. What a nightmare of an experience.
- dave_sullivan 11y ago
  Indeed. "Ah ha! How could you know the burglar was wearing gloves if you weren't at the scene of the crime?" No winning there. Never talk to police without a lawyer is good advice, but that advice literally translates to "Never talk to police without paying someone $300 per hour to do it." Meanwhile, police, at no additional cost to themselves, can essentially compel you to talk to them any time they want. So it's pretty easy to push people around with that dynamic, yet most people I talk to seem to bury their head in the sand on the issue. I'm reminded of: George Aaronow: When I talk to the police I get nervous. Ricky Roma: Yes. You know who doesn't? George Aaronow: Who? Ricky Roma: Thieves.
  - anon4 11y ago
    It's not that much. That lawyer then would spend those money staying at one of your hotels or such. What goes around comes around.
enjo 11y ago
After I had my home broken into the guy taking fingerprints explained to me that fingerprints don't really work like that. You're lucky to pull one single print out of an entire house, regardless of how careful a burglar was. So I suspect that finding one good print and extrapolating a suspect from it is probably pretty common. Flawed obviously, but common.

NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago

This happens because the police aren't intelligent people. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the protagonist uses forensic evidence but he thinks about what the evidence means. The police, on the other hand, want a magic oracle device that spits out names and current addresses, and they treat forensics like it was such. In the United States, having a valid explanation for why your fingerprints were on some object wouldn't necessarily get you freed, it wouldn't necessarily prevent prosecution. Some asshole DAs here would take that to trial (or extort you into a plea bargain, at least).

pixl97 11y ago
>The police, on the other hand, want... someone to get arrested so it looks like they are doing a good job so the chief gets off their back, the chief wants this because re-election is coming soon and doesn't want to look weak on crime. Neither one of them can go pick up some random black guy for the crime any longer without too much media attention so 'forensic' evidence is what they try to use today.
- TallGuyShort 11y ago
  I'm sure many police are not like this, but they also want the power trip. I was once pulled over by a cop who was driving incredibly recklessly on icy roads to get behind me fast (when I saw him swerving in my mirror I actually thought he must be on his way to an active shooter situation or something). He yelled at me to give him my license, and then ordered me to get out of the car and sit on the curb because he thought it was a fake. When it turned out to be authentic, he politely informed me that one of the lights illuminating my license plate were out and that my registration was expired. He wrote me a ticket. My registration was not expired, and I fixed the light the next day. The judge was laughing his head off at the ticket and called people in from the hallway to see how silly it was. But my complaint about the officer was just "noted".
  - drostie 11y ago
    I was pulled over by a cop because I essentially "cut him off" at an intersection, pulling from my complete stop at a stop sign across the intersection while he, further behind but with no stop sign, was turning into the same road: he therefore couldn't keep so much of his momentum but once he got into the road he needed to slow way down to match my speed. Fortunately, I had a tail light out -- not a brake light, just the ones that idle on when the car is running. When he asked "do you know why I pulled you over?" I said "Because I have this tail light out: but the brake lights are fine, I have this appointment to fix them tomorrow, and here is this warning that this other officer gave me about the problem, which clearly says that it has to be fixed by the end of the week." He said out-right "no, that's not why I pulled you over, you ran that stop sign," and I said, "no, I came to a complete stop, I always do, it's one of those disciplines I have that really annoys my girlfriend..." and such. Probably I shouldn't have even tried to argue it? But I did. In the end, he came back with a ticket for "driving a defective vehicle" -- because the tail light was out, and despite the fact that he should have ideally deferred to the earlier warning. I asked him about it and he said, "you didn't fix it fast enough!" brusquely. Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." This turn of events was quite fortunate as when the county prosecutor saw both pieces of paper side-by-side (the warning, "fix by the 9th", and the ticket issued on the 7th, or whatever), she agreed to drop the case before it went to trial. (I had also been told by a police clerk that the judge was pretty lenient about traffic violations, so that may have also been in her mind.)

phkahler 11y ago

>> Considering the number of fingers that may have touched a telephone book during its manufacture and distribution (surely the cops have phone books and knew they weren't sent in the post, or if they had found a post worker's fingerprints on a piece of mail they wouldn't have arrested the postal worker) it seems to me that they may have been reckless in their conclusion. That's why such evidence is supposed to be supportive of a larger case. Of course there will be a fingerprint on almost any given item. If you have a complete biometric database of every person in the country you will be able to match it, but that doesn't mean anything at all. If the person matched happens to be local it still doesn't mean anything by itself. In this case there was a plausible innocent explanation of how it got there, but in most cases people won't know how they spread their prints or DNA.

crimsoneer 11y ago

At which point he could have disposed of evidence, refused to be interviewed, etc etc. This is exactly how the legal system in the UK works - you arrest people at a relatively low burden of proof, and that gives you the power to detain them for a few hours while you question them, search for evidence, etc. You can't do any of that if you go over and "ask"