Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
“Las Vegas Gunman's Brain Exam Only Deepens Mystery of His Actions.” - Zachary Zucker
Zach Zucker
Fink, Sheri. “Las Vegas Gunman's Brain Exam Only Deepens Mystery of His Actions.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/las-vegas-attack-paddock-brain-autopsy.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
Following the brutal Las Vegas massacre last October that killed 58 people by Stephen Paddock, a recent autopsy and examination took place to see what was going on inside of his brain. In Sheri Fink’s article titled “Las Vegas Gunman's Brain Exam Only Deepens Mystery of His Actions” she describes what scientists did to discover and look for inside of his brain. In his brain, it was discovered that Paddock did have fatty plaques inside blood vessels that can hurt circulation but that is common among adults at that age. “Also, scattered on the surfaces of his brain were an abnormally high number of tiny deposits that tend to increase with age and accompany some neurological diseases.” Dr. Hannes Vogel, the director of neuropathology at Stanford University examined the brain which was tough due to the fact that there was still the self inflicted gun wound to the brain. “With a good deal of screening, I didn’t see anything,” he said, that could explain why Mr. Paddock became a calculating mass killer. The reason why a brain would be examined was to see if the brain showed any evidence of disorders that could have made him mentally ill, but nothing was found. “A primary care physician in Las Vegas — who said he had been Mr. Paddock’s doctor since 2009 and had last seen him as a patient roughly a year before the shooting — told officials that he suspected Mr. Paddock had bipolar disorder.” After careful examination of his brain, nothing could have been noticed that had led Stephen Paddock to commit this horrible crime.
I feel that this article and very informative and very relevant in today's society. For example, as crime rates have been drastically rising, it is important that we are able to get true justice and we deserve to know what happened in certain cases. Along with this, technology is rapidly expanding and improving so it is very interesting to see how cases can be solved by examining the brain.
After reading this article called “Las Vegas Gunman's Brain Exam Only Deepens Mystery of His Actions” , I feel that this article is very well written. I think the article is well written because it is very easy to understand and shows purpose in today’s society and our advancing technology. Although this article would be improved. For example, the article could have explained and gone more into detail on what happened during the examination and what the future holds for this case. To improve this article I would suggest writing about another story on which the same technique of brain examination was used.
Ohio Man Charged With Providing Guns that Killed Officers
Ohio Man Charged With Providing Guns that Killed Officers
Two officers were shot and killed this Saturday when responding to a domestic violence 9-1-1 call near Columbus, Ohio. When arriving on the scene, officers Eric Joering and Anthony Morelli were met with gunfire from Quentin Lamar Smith who was wounded by the officers who returned fire. This is the latest in a string of police ambush shooting. When investigators came to the scene they found the gun. “Community tips, social media posts and a gun trace led authorities to Lawson”, said Ronald Herndon, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives. Gun tracing is a technique done by the Bureau of AFTE along with forensic investigators. It is done by tracking of the movement of recovered firearms from where the gun was sold to the manufacturer, the retailer and finally the person who purchased it. Quentin Smith gave his friend, Gerald Lawson, one hundred dollars to buy the gun. Smith himself could not buy a firearm because he was convicted felon. Lawson appeared in court for a federal hearing on the 12th. A bond hearing was set for Wednesday.
Gun trafficking is a serious issue in America. Domestic abusers and felons are not allowed to buy weapons, but due to weak gun laws in America, they can easily work around it. In gun-related homicides, only 1% of gun dealers were accounted for when almost 60% of crime guns were recovered by police and attempted to be traced. This is a disappointment, not only to officers Eric Joering and Anthony Morelli but all of the law enforcement officers in America whose job it is to protect us.
Overall, Andrew Welsh-Huggins did a good job on writing on this case. However, it was a very short article. Only very basic facts were presented and I had to do further research on the background information. I also had to look up how the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives trace guns. I would suggest including more information regarding the background of the crime, and how the Bureau of AFTE was able to trace the gun.
Welsh-Huggins, Andrew. “Ohio Man Charged with Providing Gun That Killed Officers.” Forensic Magazine, Associated Press, 13 Feb. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/02/ohio-man-charged-providing-gun-killed-officers.
Rovell, Timothy. “Dutch Police Use Augmented Reality to Investigate Crime Scenes.” New Scientist,
me-scenes/.
For this review I read the article by Timothy Rovell titled “Dutch Police use Augmented Reality to Investigate Crime Scenes.” This article talks about how the Dutch are attempting to help out their first responders to a crime scene. The article gives the example of a officer entering a ecstasy lab, but not knowing what to look for, so an expert looks though the officers body cam and points out what to look for into a smart phone or a HUD(heads up display) on something like a google glass. The article also mentioned how the video analysis by the expert could be used in court.
This technology can have a great impact of how crime scenes are first looked at. If this technology is brought to the US it could lead to better analysis of crime scenes and more faith in first responders to not miss things when in a crime scene. It allows the field officer to have the knowledge of an expert to make sure everything is documented.
This article was very well written. It had quotes from experts as well great examples to let the reader know exactly what this technology is capable of helping.
Case of Jogger’s Murder Hinges, in Part, on Questions Over a Police Stop
Martha Thomas
2/13/2018
Case of Jogger’s Murder Hinges, in Part, on Questions Over a Police Stop
Mueller, Benjamin. Case of Jogger's Murder Hinges, in Part, on Questions Over a Police Stop.
“Case of Jogger’s Murder Hinges, in Part, on Questions Over a Police Stop” by Benjamin Mueller explores the controversy of whether illegally obtained evidence can be shown in court. Mr. Lewis,a 20 year old black male, was walking on a public street on Howard Beach in Queens. Lieutenant Russo was suspicious of him and took him in for questioning but released him soon after. The jogger Karina Vetrano was raped and strangled on Howard Beach later that night. The police decided to add Mr. Lewis to the list of suspects and take him back in for questioning. His defense lawyers argued that walking in public is not a crime and did not warrant his arrest in the first place, “The stop was redolent of the abuses of stop-and-frisk, an act of profiling that put Mr. Lewis under scrutiny because he was a black man walking in a mostly white neighborhood.” Even though this defense was convincing, Mr. Lewis remained a suspect because of “a 2010 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals seems to have established that a name cannot be excluded from trial in New York, even if it is the result of an illegal stop.”
This controversy is important because it raises the issue of racial profiling in the police force. The arrest of Mr. Lewis is an instance of racial profiling that backfired on the prosecutor. Because of the initial illegal arrest of Mr. Lewis, it was debated if investigating him for the murder of Vetrano was legal. The laws protecting citizens from racial profiling are inherently important, and if Lieutenant Russo had followed these laws the investigation of Lewis would have gone much more smoothly.
This article was sympathetic to both Lewis and the police force. The structure of the article, placing information about racial profiling in the beginning and end, connected this event to a larger issue. However within the body of the article, it was difficult to follow the investigation of Mr. Lewis chronologically.
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