Aaron Hernandez Arrest

New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested yesterday in Massachusetts for murder.  In following the case in news broadcasts and the internet, I was struck by the appearance of the detectives during the multiple searches that were done at Hernandez's residence.  In the videos and photographs I saw of the detectives conducting the searches, I noticed that the majority of them were not wearing a sports jacket.  

When I was a LAPD homicide detective in South Central Los Angeles, my lieutenant was a stickler for us to always wear our sports jackets any time we were at a crime scene or in the public eye.  People even called homicide detectives 'the suits.' It didn't matter how hot it was, whether we were canvassing a neighborhood for witnesses, or baking at a crime scene; he made us wear those jackets.  At the time some thought he was old fashioned and out of touch, but now that I look back on it, he kept up the public image of professionals at work.  Even today as a private investigator, I still wear a sports jacket when doing interviews or witness canvasses.  When people think of police detectives, they think jacket and tie.  Anything less and it minimizes the public perception.  

It was interesting to note that when Hernandez was led out of his house in handcuffs, the two detectives with him both had their jackets and ties on.

Homicide Rates in the City of Angels

When people talk about homicide rates, I always tell them about the Homicide division I worked in back in the late 1980’s for the Los Angeles Police Department. The police division was the 77^th Street Division, which was located in South Central Los Angeles.  There were seven teams of homicide detectives with a total of 14 detectives along with one detective supervisor.  In 1987 there were 160 murders in that division alone, which is the most for any one police division in the city’s history.  Again, that was not the city wide homicide count; it was just our division’s.  I believe there were 18 LAPD geographical police divisions at the time. It was not uncommon for one team that had the weekend on call in 77^th Division to have two or three homicides over a weekend.

There is no other way to put it, but that 77^th Division was a violent area.  It was the divisional policy to call out a homicide team only if the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.  There were shootings, stabbings, bludgeoning’s and beatings etc. almost daily.  Many of these crimes were gang related with Crips and Blood gangs shooting each other with regularity.  The term ‘drive-by shooting’ became a household word.  On many of these occasions the victim(s) miraculously survived.  Those serious crimes were the victim(s) lived were handled by the crimes against persons (CAPS) unit.  If homicide detectives had to roll out for every serious crime that occurred in the division where the victim was still alive they would have completely worn us out.  It is truly amazing how resilient the human body is and how much punishment it can take. 

I recall on one occasion where we were called out because the victim had been stabbed in the heart and another where the victim had been shot multiple times, including one to the head, and they were still alive but in critical division.   The sergeants at both crime scenes felt that the victims were going to expire and called us out.   We worked all through the night and into the next day conducting the crime scene investigations, canvassing the area and interviewing witnesses.  In both cases the victims survived.  The cases were then turned over to CAPS detectives.  Our case load was too intense to handle anything other than homicides.

It also seemed that no one died till after midnight.  When you had the weekend on-call duty, you’d try not to work overtime on Friday and get home and jump into bed for a few hours’ sleep.  The phone calls from the watch commander’s office notifying us of a murder always seemed to come between midnight and 4:00 AM.  You never got enough sleep, you were always working overtime trying to solve cases, and when you did you were constantly in court for preliminary hearings and murder trials.  

You also knew that you and your partner were the only ones that could obtain justice for the victim.

THE TRAYVON MARTIN CASE

Here are my thoughts on the Trayvon Martin case.  This is a case where emotions are running very high, both in the city of Sanford, FL where it happened, and on the national scene.  Political pundits and arm chair experts are constantly commenting on every news leak or story that comes out.  From an outsider investigator’s perspective, here’s what is known.  We have a young 17 year old boy (Trayvon Martin) who is dead from a gunshot wound.  We have a Neighborhood Watch volunteer (George Zimmerman) who claimed he shot him in self-defense.  We have a taped conversation between the shooter and a police dispatcher.  Other than that, it’s mostly conjecture and relaying on news leaks.

Here’s what I think will be important to the case from an investigative standpoint.  If the police did their job, they would have canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses to the shooting.  They would be looking for anyone who saw anything before the shooting, the actual shooting itself, and immediately after the shooting.  The police probably canvassed the area on more than one occasion.  Any eyewitness interviews to the events should have been videoed and tape recorded.  This would go a long way in dispelling any claims of police coercion and also be of assistance if any witnesses subsequently change their story. 

If Zimmerman was knocked to the ground and was subsequently being struck by Martin as some reports are saying, they would be looking for physical evidence of it.  Zimmerman’s clothing would be examined for any evidence of grass stains, dirt or other residue consistent to the ground area where the shooting happened.  Just as important is if there was any evidence of this on his clothing?  Was it on his back, his side etc. 

The press has reported that Zimmerman claimed he was struck in the nose and face and also hit the back of his head when he fell.  If so, they would interview any paramedics that treated him at the scene.  Were there any signs of injury? Photographs should have been taken to show whether there was or wasn’t any injuries that would have been conducive to these claims.  It is important to note that often times swelling and discoloration doesn’t reach its peak until a day or two after an injury.  Subsequent follow-up photos should have been taken.  

One critical piece of this investigation would have been discovered at the autopsy.  What was the trajectory of the bullet when it was fired at the victim? Does it match up with the events as described by the shooter? Was it on an upward trajectory that was conducive with the shooter lying on his back and firing upward or was it at a different angle.  This would be a critical piece of evidence.

UTILIZING FORENSICS

When I first started out working homicide, I was at a crime scene with a forensic team that was assisting us in the crime scene investigation.  One of the items of interest in this case happened to be a box that had fallen from either a table or a shelf to the floor.  I remember that the Forensic team kept running multiple test experiments with the box to see if it fell in the exact place each time.  When I questioned them, they advised me they were testing to see if it always fell in the same place or if it had been moved there by the suspect.

Forensic people look at things from a scientific and analytical viewpoint.  If something happened to a person, item etc., there must be a cause and effect as to how a it happened.  Could a body weighing the same as a suicide victim have hung themselves from a certain height and item (Pole, railing, shower rod etc.) without the item breaking or falling?  Could a spent cartridge at a shooting scene have landed in a certain location?  Could a left handed suspect have stabbed an individual incurring the same wounds as the stabbing victim?  Could a pry tool allegedly used by burglary suspect have made the same indentations as the ones at your crime scene?  Forensic people are always running tests to see if this is the case.

Whether you’re a police detective or a private investigator, the key thing to take away from this is don’t just assume that everything at a crime scene or accident scene is as it should be.  Question things!  If necessary, seek out experts.

DEATH INVESTIGATIONS

One area of investigative work that a private investigator can be utilized in is death investigations.  Often times the family of a decedent has suspicions regarding their loved ones death and question the finding of the police and/or coroner’s office.  After interviewing the client, the private investigator should obtain and review any police reports, autopsy reports and photographs that are available.  A key step in the investigation is an examination of the death scene.  This can sometimes occur days, months or even years after the death.  It is still critically important to view the death location.  Even though some things may have changed at the location, you still need to conduct an on-site examination.  Is what you see at the location consistent with what’s in the reports? Has anything changed?  Is anything wrong?   Is the manner and cause of death listed in the reports consistent to what you see at the scene?  Do the events portrayed in the reports match up with the evidence you see at the scene?  Are there any errors in the report?  Could the decedent have met his demise the way it’s portrayed in the reports?


There is always the possibility that evidence could have been overlooked by the police at the scene, so if you find anything that you think could be of evidentiary value, be sure to photograph it before recovering it.  Take your own photographs, measurements and diagram.  Remember that oftentimes the only police presence at a death not immediately classified as a homicide is usually patrol officers who may not have a lot of experience in death investigations.  Take nothing for granted while you are out there.  If possible, try to conduct your examination of the scene at the same time as the estimated time of death.  Lighting at the scene could play an important part in the investigation and in witnesses’ accounts.


An added benefit to conducting a death scene examination is that it will greatly assist you when you are interviewing family members and potential witnesses.  Be sure to have the diagram and photographs to available to show witnesses.  Try to interview the police officers, paramedics and coroner’s investigator that were at the scene.  They may or may not talk to you, but it’s worth a try.

WHEN IT RAINED BULLETS IN THE CITY OF ANGELS

Back when I worked as a police officer and homicide detective for the LAPD in South Central Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a custom there that on New Year’s Eve the local citizens would fire off their guns in celebration.  You would hear a cacophony of gunshots from 11:30 PM on New Year’s Eve till about 1:00 AM New Year’s Morning.  If you were working patrol during those hours, you would try to get back to the station and sit in the parking lot to avoid getting hit.  I vividly recall pulling into the station parking lot and seeing a guy who lived in one of the apartments next to the station run out on his porch and fire a bunch of rounds from his gun into the air right around the stroke of midnight.   If you couldn’t make it back in by then because you were on  a call, as soon as you cleared that scene you’d at least try to make it to a freeway underpass if you weren’t close to the station.  It wasn’t that people took a free pass to shoot at the cops, it was just that there were so many guns down there and so many rounds going off you might become an accidental casualty.  Newton’s Law of Gravity, what comes up must come down, definitely plays into effect here.  All those rounds being shot in the air have to go someplace, so if they go up, eventually there going to go down. They also come down at the same speed they went up.  My homicide partner at 77^th Street Division handled a murder that happened just around midnight one New Year’s Eve where the unfortunate victim happened to be walking down the street when a spent bullet  came down and hit him on top of the head, killing him instantly.  With so many people firing their guns off in celebration in the area, how were you going to identify the shooter?  The case went unsolved. One year we put a tape recorder on top of the station on New Year’s Eve and left it up there for about an hour.  When we played it back, it sounded like the Battle of Hue City (Viet Nam).  So every year when I celebrate the New Year, my memories take me back to the one night each year when it rained bullets in the City of Angels.

FORENSICS: IT’S WHAT YOU KNOW AT THE TIME THAT COUNTS

When I was a young homicide detective we had a case where a young woman had been strangled and her body was left in a vacant field.  The body was naked except for her panties.  An examination of those panties revealed some small plant-like material inside them.  My partner and I took the material to a botany professor at a very prestigious university nearby.  After examining the residue, he advised us it was pink heather.  Additionally he told us it was a small plant that grows back east, not in southern California.  He also said it was it was used for garnishment in floral displays.  This really caught our attention.  The victim’s boyfriend was employed at the time at a flower shop.  Once we had this information we raced up to the flower shop and detained the boyfriend.  We took him back to the station where he eventually confessed to the murder.  The next day we got a call from the botany professor.  He was extremely apologetic and advised us that he had been incorrect in his analysis.  During the criminal trial of the boyfriend, the court ruled that the confession was admissible because the detectives were acting on the information they knew at the time, which was based on the expert botany professor’s analysis.  Every time I go into a flower shop, I still think of that case and pink heather.

I'D RATHER BE LUCKY THEN GOOD 101

Once when I was a homicide detective in South Central Los Angeles, we we’re handling a very difficult gang murder.  It had happened in broad daylight on a residential street, but this particular gang had intimidated the neighborhood to the point where after a number of weeks we still didn’t have an eye witness to the murder.  We had already canvassed the neighborhood on two previous occasions, but if you’re dead in the water on a case you go back to Detecting 101.  So we went back out for a third canvass.  We came to one particular house where we had already interviewed the two elderly residents.  One was blind and the other one had beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease.  Being dogged detectives, and having no other good clues to work with, we again door knocked it.  When we were let into the residence, I noticed a middle aged female sitting in the kitchen.  She looked towards me, and then immediately looked down at the floor.  I walked down the hallway to where she was sitting and the first thing I said to her was, “You saw it, didn’t you!”  She slowly looked back up and nodded her head.  She identified the shooter and the other participants and we were able to solve the case.  Like I said, I'd rather be lucky then good.