Forensics AB Odd 10/4/15
Current Event 03 Lain Miller
Kalthoff, Ken, Johnny Archer, Frank Heinz, and Tim Ciesco. "Crime Spree Chase Ends With Violent Crash." NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. NBC, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.
This article exemplifies the problems that occur for forensic specialists when the crime scene is a large scape of land. In this crime a man named Dylan Perry went on a crime spree in arlington. On Friday morning (October second), Perry robbed a Valero Gas station, a Bank of America, and a Moritz BMW. He stole a suburban and a BMW, was involved in a high speed car chase from 11am until 5pm, open fired on Arlington police, and crashed into another car, seriously injuring himself and three civilians. There are clearly a lot of moving parts in this case, since more than one crime is being investigated across multiple locations. This amount of data was too vast for the Arlington police alone to cover. The FBI was called in to help them string the bank robberies together because they were unable to handle the workload themselves. A key issue presented in this kind of situation is that over such a large span of area and action a lot of the evidence could be lost or contaminated. This problem will make it difficult to find the shooter of many of the bullets, including one that hit Perry in the leg; which will be a key piece in jurisprudence of the case.
Cases like this always get plenty of news action and eye witnesses which may end up causing problems. It is seemingly helpful to have witnesses in these cases, but everyone has a different side of the story to tell and they more often than not will conflict somewhere. This crime is clearly too vast for a group of local authorities to handle alone. It is great that the FBI is there to help them with connecting the bank robberies, but they could do more. FBI agents are far more equipped and trained to handle cases over large area. Their insight could go much deeper than the banks and better all of the community of Arlington, Texas by bringing their knowledge of how to handle cases like this into the situation. A forensics case is always like a puzzle that needs to be put together, but cases like this one are like the puzzles you are missing pieces to; making the task all the more difficult.
This article was a little difficult because it was oriented more towards news than to science. As said before, everyone has a story to tell. Therefore the story was told in great detail which gave me a clear understanding of the timeline of the crimes. Although it lacked on the analysis. By focusing less on the story and more on its impact the piece would have been much more balanced. I also thought this was interesting because Arlington Texas is in the hot spot for having the inaccuracy in the forensic labs in the Texas area. I’m curious to see how the spotlight this case will bring will force the local authorities to manage the forensic side of the case.
4 comments:
I feel that from reading this article that a description of what happened during the crime was very well presented. You gave an in depth description of what the criminal did as well as brought up the criminal investigation of the crime. I also think that the discussion on how the forensic investigators are handling this case and how the FBI’s involvement may help was smart to bring up since the FBI’s involvement could help solve the case. Another aspect that I think was well presented was how you discussed some of the issues that are involved with solving this case, such as that the crime was committed over a large span of an area and that the involvement of many new stations may affect the crime due to the several different stories that will cause conflict. One thing that could’ve improved this comment is if you brought up more on the forensic side of the case, whether it was just a small amount of details about how the forensic investigators are trying to solve the crime. Another improvement that could help develop this comment is if you brought the conflicting statements that were being made by the witnesses due to all the news action. I enjoyed how many different sides of the crime were discussed in your article such as the events that took place, the forensic aspect, and the involvement of the FBI and how they could help with solving the case by giving it more attention than the Arlington Police could by themselves.
Jillian Jiampietro
Emme Kerj
I thought that you did a good job focusing on the underlying problem of the article which is that local police forces can’t take on the responsibility of a crime covering a large area alone and that the FBI is much more equipped to handle such cases. I also think that you did a great job summarizing all of the events of the crime and how the police was trying to handle them.
I think that you could have gone more in depth about exactly what happened in the case and what the police did before contacting the FBI to help them. I also think that you could have added some info about how skilled this also shows that the police is since they managed to stop the criminal and no one got hurt, neither a police officer nor a pedestrian.
One thing that surprised me when reading the article is the fact that the police didn’t come up with a better strategy to find and arrest the man.
This current event did a good job at stating why the local police is less suited than the Federal Bureau of Investigation to handle such case that involves such a wide range of area. I would have liked to have learned a little more about the details of the case and the events that occurred because I feel as if the story of the case was slightly vague. I appreciate the way to got to the point of the problem, however, and did not just throw in unnecessary details into your writing. It would also be interesting to hear in specifics what the FBI can do that local police authorities can because although it is obvious the FBI is more suited, there are specific things they can do that local police cannot.
When reading this current event I noticed how you addressed the lack of analysis in the article you used. I felt that you did a great job giving the analysis that the article never gave. This allowed me to really understand the chain of events that led up to the horrific car crash and ultimately resulted in a wonderful learning experience. Although I thought you did an amazing job explaining the article, I think you could've made this current event even better by raising the question that maybe the problem of the local authorities not having enough workforce for all the forensic data may be caused by forensic labs in the U.S being locally run rather than nationally.
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