At the end of February 2012 there was a unique crime in New York City that made national news. Three suspects robbed a check cashing store of $200,000 dollars. The thing that set this crime apart from other robberies was that the suspects were wearing blue police-like jackets with the NYPD logos on them along with police type badges around their necks. They all wore sunglasses and two of the suspects were wearing NY Yankee baseball hats. The media also reported that the police think the suspects may have been wearing expensive, whole head Hollywood style masks. They may not even know the ethnicity or race of the robbers.
How do detectives go about solving this type of crime? Because the crime was caught on the store’s video, they will examine every frame of the film to look for any idiosyncrasy they can find on the suspects, such as a scar, tattoo, mark, watch ring etc. that the film reveals. They’ll canvass every store and mail order business that specializes in whole head masks looking for similar purchases. They’ll be contacting makeup artists who may have had some recent clients around the time of the robbery. They’ll be contacting other police agencies nationwide to see if they have had any similar crimes and suspects. Get-a-way SUVs were used in the crime. They’ll be looking for stolen vehicles that were similar to the ones used and looking to find both where they were stolen and recovered. There’s a chance that one or more of the suspects may have been arrested in their past for a similar robbery using the same MO. If so, they’ll want to know everything they can about that crime, including interviewing the detectives who handled that investigation.
One of the most important tools in solving this crime is getting information from informants. Suspects have friends, wives, girlfriends, drug suppliers and competitors who all have information about what went down. The suspects had to get police-like badges, jackets, masks and vehicles to pull this off. That’s a lot of working parts and other people would have to either be involved or have some knowledge. Vice, narcotic and plainclothes detectives will be or should be talking to every arrestee in the city along with their regular informants to find out who knows something. Whether they’re working off an arrest, greed or revenge, somebody is going to talk. When that happens, the heat is on and the case will be solved.
