Geoprofiling Moves Into The Limelight 300
circletimessquare writes "Interesting and timely. A short piece at CNN talks about the software helping to track down the sniper currently terrorizing the Washington DC area. It was the doctoral thesis of a cop, Kim Rossmo, who developed it while walking the beat in Vancouver and reading about the hunting patterns of African lions. Googling, I found an older but deeper piece which mentions more of the tech behind the software, called Rigel. That led me to the website of ECRI, the company that makes Rigel. More good tech there."
saw this on TLC (Score:5, Interesting)
They ended up catching the killer, and he was a cop!
From discussions I'm seeing about these shootings, it may very well be a cop or someone in the armed forces. The ballistics of the gun/ammo being used just don't fit right since people are saying they don't hear the shots, or don't hear very loud shots, so people are theorizing that there's special subsonic rounds being used to minimize noise - not easy to find with these types of bullets, from what I gather.. But I dont' know a lot about guns, so.. yeah...
Anyhow if I remember the name of the TLC special I'll post it here, it was on recently enough that it will probably be on again soon.
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:4, Informative)
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:4, Informative)
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:2, Informative)
But, of course, ANY round you think of probably exists on some wildcatter's bench somewhere, as well as a gun to make to do something you wouldn't expect. Many
However, since the whole concept of the 5.56mm as a military round (as compared to
Noteable also that a 9mm or
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:2, Informative)
If the shooter was a fair (300 yards+) distance away, the sound would be less, due to the distance. As well, I would imagine the clutter associated with an urban area would play havoc with the echo. As well, the bullet would arrive before the gunshot sound unless it was a subsonic round, which I have never seen, and agree that they must be more difficult to find, especially in the caliber the shooter is using, .223, a round that relies on high velocity to be effective.
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:5, Informative)
Dont need subsonic with suppressor (Score:2, Informative)
all you will hear is a "zip" or a "crack" type sound (depending on how close you are and what angle) from the supersonic shockwave. unless you have heard it before you probably wont pick it out in the middle of a noisy street.
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:3, Insightful)
Federally, they're very tightly restricted under the 1934 National Firearms Act. However, it is theoretically possible for private citizens to own them.
State laws may be more restrictive. I'm willing to bet that the state/local laws in DC and Maryland are a LOT more restrictive.
Someone with evil intent can probably make one easily enough. Most of us already have one on our cars: What do you think mufflers do?
Not subsonic with a .223 (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably a disaffected, over intellectual loner in high school or college with an M-14 or a bolt action
Hmm, I just described half of Slashdot. I hope you have your alibis
You mean Mini14 (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone curious, the .223 is about the same diameter as a .22 LR, but there the similarity ends. The .223 weighs in between 50 and 64 grains and travels at 2700-3300 fps. I think the .223 NATO round is 55 grains and moves at like 3100 fps. A .22 LR is 40 grains and travels at around 1050 fps. I might be a little off in my numbers, so don't quote me. The two are night and day as far as lethality and ballistics go, however.
It's probably a disaffected, over intellectual loner in high school or college with an M-14 or a bolt action .223 hunting rifle with a scope, who's taking out his feeling of inadequacy and powerlessness against random people. Needless to say, he's never been laid, either.
The M14 is .308, not .223. You mean a Mini14.
But I get your point. Feet first into the mulcher is too good a fate for this ass clown. Shooting old men and children and women. In the back. I'm having a hard time coming up with suitable retribution...
-B
Re: You mean Mini14 (Score:5, Interesting)
> Feet first into the mulcher is too good a fate for this ass clown. Shooting old men and children and women. In the back. I'm having a hard time coming up with suitable retribution...
I'd go for ordinary imprisonment. Sure, this and lots of other crimes merit worse, but unfortunately our "justice" system is actually a "conviction" system, and doesn't appear to be batting too high an average on hanging the right guy.
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:5, Funny)
3100 fps *drool*
Need... new... video... card... 8P
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2, Funny)
Not that I wouldn't like a video card capable of 3100 fps, though I think it's well beyond overkill...
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2)
Arms off at the elbows, spinal cord cut at the waist. Let him try changing his own diapers with his hooks.
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:5, Insightful)
Something I've wondered in this case... why is it worse to shoot "old men and women and children" than it is to shoot anyone else? Are 35-year-old men some sort of second-class citizen, not worthy of sorrow? Sure, they may be more able to defend themselves in hand-to-hand combat, but that's not going to do them a lot of good when a sniper shoots them in the middle of the suburbs...
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a good point, but the fact seems to be that our culture-- maybe all cultures for all I know-- places a higher value on the lives of the very young, the very old, and women than on the lives of adult men.
But you're absolutely right. From a thousand feet away and on the wrong side of a rifle barrel, a 35-year-old white man is just as defenseless as anybody else.
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand that... I just noticed this when the police chief said that shooting children was "crossing over the line". I'd like to think that I'm on the same side of the line as the children, i.e. that shooting at me is unacceptable. (I don't live in the US... maybe common-or-garden public shootings occur often enough over there that this is no longer a reasonable expectation?)
35-year-old white man
I wasn't talking about colour here -- that would fall into that standard pro/anti-reverse discrimination line of argument, and I'm more interested in discussing people's ingrained notions of degrees of fairness/unfairness.
The average serial killer profile in the US is often white middle-class male, isn't it? Are there any useful statistics on this?
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2)
It's worse. At 900 yards, everyone is defenseless. Yet this bottom feeder chooses to shoot the young or the weak... in the back. Almost as an insult. It's almost... dishonorable (as if there is even the hint of honor in what he is doing). It's like he knows that he's killing the innocent, the weak, the "normally defenseless".
He's making a point. And it's a bad one.
-B
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2)
He's already so low that this particular choice doesn't really surprise me, it just reinforces the need to catch the bastard quickly.
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2)
I agree. But my point was that I think that he is making a point by what he is doing. He is targeting certain people, and shooting them in certain ways. There's a reason why he is killing the people he is killing in the way he is killing them.
I didn't mean to say there was anything close to honor about the way that he is doing what he is doing. I just wanted to point out that there's a reason why he's doing it. And it's not even close to honorable.
He deserves to die in ways more horrible than humans can imagine.
-B
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:2)
(Note that most police ammunition violates that spirit -- the cops want hollowpoint so that the bullet tends to stop when it hits something, rather than travelling on through and endangering bystanders.)
Re:You mean Mini14 (Score:3, Interesting)
Please define "high powered sniper rifle". Differentiate from "hunting rifle" or "varmint rifle" or "target shooting rifle". Please be very specific.
If you've noticed how badly-written laws about technology are, they've got nothing on the labyrinthine morass of laws that cover firearms ownership.
As opposed to what? (Score:3, Funny)
I prefer Defense Weapons. Those Assault Weapons are just too dangerous.
-B
Re:Not subsonic with a .223 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not subsonic with a .223 (Score:4, Funny)
He's just very far away (Score:3, Informative)
No, I think he's just got a lot of "stuff" around him (grass, bushes, etc) and is pretty far off. Cities are loud places, much more so than out in the woods. You'd be very surprised how quiet even a big hunting rifle is from a couple hundred yards off. And sound can echo off things fairly effectively in a city (although I've never shot a gun in a city, I've shot quite a few of them in the country, so I'm partially guessing here). If the victim was hit a second or two before the shot was heard, that confuses things even more. You'd pretty much have to see the impact to know where it came from.
Whatever he's using, I can't think of a fate bad enough for this guy. There's a special place in Hell for those who shoot women and children in the back. I just hope he's found soon.
-B
Re:saw this on TLC (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy enough to make, though. It's not uncommon for hunters or competitive shooters to load their own ammunition at home. To make a slower bullet, just use less powder. (Okay, it's a tiny bit more complex than that, but you see the general idea.)
Also, it's not hard to mistake the sound of a gunshot for something else, and especially not in an urban area. A month or so ago, I took a complaint of a guy whose truck had been shot. With some sort of .30-caliber solid-construction bullet, original weight above 200 grains, and probably faster than 2700 feet per second from the muzzle based upon the deformation. If you don't know what that means, that's a damn loud round. I try and shoot an elk with a round like that every year, and thank god for Peltor earmuffs.
Anyway, almost nobody in the neighborhood remembers a gunshot. However, everybody remembers a car backfiring fairly loudly. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don't believe in them.
So, you see where I'm going with this? It's easy to mistake the sound of a gunshot for something else if you don't know much about them. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess that people in an area where private firearm ownership is almost nonexistant (like much of the DC area) may not know what they did or didn't hear.
If only life was like UT2003... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If only life was like UT2003... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure, under these circumstances, that shooting back would be just fine.
Ruining the Model (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ruining the Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing them into unfamiliar territory to screw up the profiling them loses them the advantages of commiting crimes on known ground and makes it more likely they'll be seen/caught.
Re:Ruining the Model (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ruining the Model (Score:2, Insightful)
My theory on the criminal mind is that people who would be smart enough to indefinitely outsmart detectives in a crime are generally smart enough to reason themselves out of committing the crime in the first place. And most of the "criminal geniuses" become to cocky for their own good.
This sniper's weakness is that he is going to do it again. And every time he does, we will get closer to catching him. People without the willpower to stop themselves from doing it the first time certainly don't have the willpower to stop themselves subsequently.
Unplanned murders are generally messy and planned murders are done by people not entirely in their right mind. That is why this guy is going to be caught.
Re:Ruining the Model (Score:2)
media and the software (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:media and the software (Score:5, Insightful)
Questionable. As with any technique designed to discover patterns in human nature, the focus already is on the aggregate, on how people tend to behave. There's going to be deviation no matter what. A good model accounts for this. A good detective understands the nature of the model and its limitations.
Take a look at the second article: Rossmo puts emphasis on certain locations based on his psychological assumptions about the quarry. At the same time, he discards or discounts other locations that he believes might skew his findings. This is just one tool in his arsenal: an important one, but other tools feed data in and yet others interpret what comes out. Sounds like the way to go.
Re:media and the software (Score:2)
When they first announced the use of this system for this case, reporters asked over and over "But won't the shooting way down in Virginia skew the results?" They obviously thought it was some simple formula computing a centroid or something. The cop didn't want to give away details, but anyone with an ounce of sense could see that the Virginia shooting was a statistical anomally (not that they would rule out the possibility that that was the ONE shooting near the shooter's home, either.) It's just a tool, folks.
Re:media and the software (Score:2)
Will it work when everybody knows... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, now media is writing extensively about the software and the algorithms involved. A shrewd killer could use such information. He could think again about where to act, perhaps selecting sites at random, or selectively so that they would mislead the program.
Tor
Re: Will it work when everybody knows... (Score:2)
> However, now media is writing extensively about the software and the algorithms involved. A shrewd killer could use such information. He could think again about where to act, perhaps selecting sites at random, or selectively so that they would mislead the program.
I think picking random sites would actually provide more information, though I can imagine other spoofs that (might) work.
Think of it as an optimization problem.
Re: Will it work when everybody knows... (Score:2, Interesting)
Randomness is the opposite of information. If the sites are truly selected at random, then nothing can be infered from it (other than possibly that the killer is using a randomizing algorithm).
Of course, if the algorithm is 'a random place within 10 miles of my house', then it does not work, because then the locations are not very random.
Tor
Re: Will it work when everybody knows... (Score:2)
> Of course, if the algorithm is 'a random place within 10 miles of my house', then it does not work, because then the locations are not very random.
Precisely. And s/he can hardly operate without some such constraint, eh?
Attempts at randomness might not yield anything more than a false sense of security.
It's a fine theory... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: It's a fine theory... (Score:3, Insightful)
> but don't brag about it until/unless it helps you crack the case.
Supposedly in another recent case it yeilded a point across the street [state.va.us] from the perpetrator's residence.
The pattern stops here... (Score:5, Funny)
It all lost it's beauty.
You're running low on virtual memory, pick a smaller town, fewer crimes or reboot yur machine
A Computerized Profiling technology I'll Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, here is one that I think is right on the money.
Here is one that makes the computer just another tool in the policeman's tool box. This is in sharp contrast to present trends. For now the computer is helping solve the crimes and prevent future crimes, but it's not laying the blame on people who have yet to commit a crime.
I know this is mostly due to how the creator uses his experience, but (IMHO) that's what makes this soo nice.
More links (Score:5, Informative)
But how good is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
How many of those would have been solved without the program? I'd like to see a head-to-head, although I assume most police forces don't have the manpower to devote 2 seperate teams to the same crimes.
Re:But how good is it? (Score:2)
If using the software increases the amount of time to solving an otherwise solvable case then the software is flawed. If it reduces the time to solve it enough to save 1 person then the software, in my mind, is worth it. Even if it only helps solve 10% of such investigations, As long as it does not further hinder others.
Re:But how good is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
> without the program? I'd like to see a
> head-to-head, although I assume most
> police forces don't have the manpower to
> devote 2 seperate teams to the same
> crimes.
I don't think an increase in the proportion of crimes solved is neccesarily the goal. The goal is to solve crimes more quickly. After all, this is just a more sophisticated version of the pegboard shown on every cop show.
Faster solutions to serial murder and rape cases mean fewer victims, which is a good thing. They also mean that the same detectives can solve more crimes in a year, even if the rate of closed cases stays the same. So this software makes a city safer, and makes its police more efficiant; even if the proportion ofr crimes solved remains the same.
When I go nuts, my perl script will foil them (Score:2)
Now that the word is out, potential serial killers just need a perl script that generates structured lat/long pairs that mislead the FBI. I guess they're counting on most serial killers to be to crazy to think things out that much.
Re:When I go nuts, my perl script will foil them (Score:2, Insightful)
Same when someone wants to commit suicide, they dont go to the observation deck on the Sears Tower then jump off, they dont care how they die, they just wanna die fast!
Re:When I go nuts, my perl script will foil them (Score:2, Interesting)
Tor
But what if the sniper has the software too? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop applying Cantor's diagonal method ... (Score:2)
Hmmm, maybe it was seeing Red Dragon (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever since I first saw the movie I've always wondered how often that is the case: serial criminals who commit the first crime locally, realize it, and then make a point of trying to be "random".
This entire scenario it doesn't look like the case: the first and fifth shooting were very close together and the entire field of action seems to be very localized. But still these sort of things always make me think of that quote. Guess because it was so imporant in the movie.
sniper anagrams (Score:4, Interesting)
"Dear Policeman, I am God"
written on it.
Some anagrams for "dear policeman i am god"
go and implode America
Laden doom pig America
impaled good American
magic doomed airplane
megalomaniac drop die
an imperial dogma code
good, an epidemic alarm
Some anagrams for "dear policeman i am god death"
imperial hated and good came
imperial death and good came
I'm a degraded emotional chap
I'm delegated macho paranoid
homicidal dead eager top man
Peter, a homicidal dead man go
dead homicidal game not rape
Reaching, aren't we? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chances are s/he just wanted to say that s/he's god, and because of that has power over life and death (with no way for them to stop s/he).
Sometimes a nutjob is just a nutjob.
Re:Reaching, aren't we? (Score:5, Funny)
-B
Is it this nut job? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that guy! (Score:2)
Re:sniper anagrams (Score:2)
Re:sniper anagrams (Score:2, Insightful)
And "recalci" is an anagram of "Clarice." What are you trying to tell us, here?
programs response (Score:5, Funny)
Re:programs response (Score:2)
Better CNN article (Score:3, Informative)
Note: I work at ECRI, but I'm not speaking for my employer. I will answer basic questions in the comments here, though I can't always go into detail.
Re:Better CNN article (Score:4, Funny)
Ph.D. in Criminology (Score:5, Informative)
Kim Rossmo got his Ph.D. in criminology at SFU [www.sfu.ca]. The ideas in his thesis [amazon.com] weren't just sudden inspiration -- they came from his many years as a police detective working on investigations, and from rigorous academic study and research.
The "Deeper" Piece Seems to be Slashdotted: (Score:5, Informative)
Cracking the Toughest Serial Criminal Cases
Dec. 31, 1998
By Jim Krane
SAN DIEGO (APBnews.com) -- Picture a small city in eastern Canada whose residents were rarely touched by violent crime. Then, startlingly, a serial rapist began attacking women, injecting a dose of fear into a normally tranquil community.
By the time the assailant sexually assaulted his 11th victim, police were desperate. They compiled a list of 300 possible suspects and prepared to conduct expensive, laborious DNA tests on each one, hoping to match DNA residue taken from victims.
Vancouver Police Detective Kim Rossmo
That's when Det. Kim Rossmo got a call.
Rossmo, a detective inspector with the Vancouver Police Department, developed an investigative technique called geographic profiling. Using geo-profiling, police try to trace a serial criminal to his home or workplace by computing distances with geographic clues he's left -- such as dead bodies, sites of attacks and other known locations the lawbreaker visited.
Rossmo explained geographic profiling to attendees at the International Association of Crime Analysts here recently, giving criminal analysts a window into one of law enforcement's newest and least-known investigative techniques.
Rossmo's methodology would come in handy on the serial rapist case and many others.
Valuable search tool
As part of his doctoral research at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, Rossmo developed an algorithm -- a mathematical model of repeated calculations -- that targets serial criminals by the spatial patterns they produce.
Since then, Rossmo's algorithm has been computerized, allowing it to make hundreds of thousands of calculations that pinpoint a criminal's hideout within a fraction of the crime site area.
Priority: danger
Rossmo most often gets a call when a serial criminal is on the loose. Since many agencies -- in Canada, the United States and Europe -- seek his services simultaneously, Rossmo said he gauges which community is most at risk.
In the eastern Canadian sexual assault case -- Rossmo didn't want to divulge the location -- his geographic profile turned out to be remarkably accurate. With 300 suspects on their hands, the local police could only look forward to a lengthy period of laboratory testing.
The red peaks in this image identify the probable location of an offender's residence in Vancouver, British Columbia.
But Rossmo's geo-profiling technique helped the police get their man much more quickly. The Vancouver detective visited crime scenes, read reports, and talked to victims and investigators. He analyzed the data using his computerized algorithm and found a neighborhood hot spot to focus on.
Seventh time's a charm
Instead of hauling suspects in alphabetically by last name, police matched suspects' addresses against Rossmo's findings and tested those who lived nearest the hot spot's peak. The seventh suspect lawmen tested was a positive DNA match. Police arrested the man and cracked the case.
"If they didn't have geographic profile prioritization, they might've started with Archer and ended with Young," Rossmo said.
Lazy to a fault
Despite its complicated mathematical calculations, geographic profiling is based on a simple theory. Criminologists say most humans -- criminals included -- are inherently lazy. Just as a person will shop in the grocery store nearest his or her home, a predatory criminal usually picks his victims in familiar areas -- except for a small buffer zone around his home, says Rossmo.
Thus, when an arsonist sets a series of fires, police can estimate his whereabouts (usually a residence) by dumping the addresses of buildings burned into the computer and calculating the location most central to the crime scenes.
Crime as topography
In reality, Rossmo's crime-busting technique is more complex. He walks through crime scenes, conducts interviews and reads police reports. With years of investigative experience under his belt, Rossmo puts emphasis on certain locations based on his psychological assumptions about the quarry. At the same time, he discards or discounts other locations that he believes might skew his findings.
Rossmo then keys his data into the computer. The machine converts street addresses into latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates and creates a three-dimensional "jeopardy surface" or topographical model of the data. The jeopardy surface looks like a mountain range, with colored bands of peaks and valleys that show where the addresses converge -- the peaks -- and where they don't -- the valleys.
When Rossmo superimposes the jeopardy surface onto a street grid, the result isn't an exact map to the killer's house, but it's something close to it.
Method used in 80 cases
Since 1990, Rossmo has used his geo-profiling technique in more than 80 cases, representing 1,800 crime locations. He believes his work helped crack about half of those cases.
But Rossmo doesn't measure his success only by cases cleared. He's interested in geographic accuracy.
In cases where an arrest has been made, Rossmo's been able to estimate the location of the offender's home within the top five percent of the search area. That means, if police believe the offender lives somewhere within a 10-square-mile area, Rossmo can tell investigators which half-square-mile section to search.
In some cases, he's more accurate. In the Canadian rapist investigation described above, Rossmo's suspect lived within the first 2.2 percent of the area searched.
The more a criminal strikes, the more clues Rossmo can enter into his computer. Theoretically, that makes his predictions more accurate. But Rossmo's computer doesn't spit out a name and address. After the computer does its thing, Rossmo writes a report suggesting strategies for capture.
"It's the investigator that solves the case. Our role is to support him or her," Rossmo said.
Cops, meet Rigel
Rossmo's algorithm has been incorporated into a software program called Rigel, manufactured by the Vancouver firm Environmental Criminology Research Inc. (ECRI). Rossmo is a member of ECRI's board of directors and acts as the company's chief scientist.
Currently, Rigel runs only on a Sun Microsystems UltraSparc workstation. But ECRI is reprogramming it for use on Windows NT workstations and servers.
The software isn't cheap -- ECRI president Barry Dalziel priced a copy at $70,000, which includes some training and help with installation.
Rigel, emphasized Dalziel, isn't perfect. For best results, it should be used by a police investigator or crime analyst who undergoes a year of training, some of it under Rossmo's personal tutelage.
"If it sends them off on a wild goose chase, police investigators aren't likely to use the system again," said Dalziel.
It's a Canadian thing
Besides Rossmo's Vancouver Police, two other agencies have been trained in geographic profiling with Rigel: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's national police force, and the Ontario Provincial Police. Rossmo said the British National Crime Faculty, another national law enforcement agency, will be certified in 1999.
No U.S. law enforcement agencies are on Rossmo's training list -- even though he's been invited to help crack dozens of cases in the States.
The real Robocop
If its geo-profiling uses weren't enough, Dalziel said investigators will be able to use a new version of Rigel to predict a serial criminal's next crimes, including dates and crime locations.
And cops will be able to predict and monitor the likely "hunting grounds" of paroled sex offenders by plotting past crime data and behavioral traits into Rigel, said Dalziel.
"Say there were crimes in that area that matched [a parolee's] M.O., his name would pop up," Dalziel said.
Jim Krane is APB News staff writer (jimk@apbnews.com).
Kim Rossmo (Score:4, Interesting)
Other uses (Score:2, Offtopic)
How effective are probability toosl on anomalies? (Score:3, Insightful)
When one has already shown them self to be a anomaly how effective is any given method of prediction/profiling?
Let's face it, you don't go killing people as a habit. Any results from a given "profile" are not the best answer, they are merely a suggested solution to a given set of criteria, some of which we've yet to know.
If the person meets the criteria of a given profile, then yes, they are more likely to be in X place or be X person.
But we *must* keep in mind people can do other than what they would be expected to, even if we know nearly everything about them. And if they've already broken the social and moral bounds of killing their fellow man, seemingly without cause I'd say then that they are even less likely to fit a given profile.
True, they are likely to meet some criteria and be "standardized" in that aspect, but we can never know which criteria are the ones that fit their profile.
With that said we can *never* rely on just one method for a single case. We need to use many methods, often contradictory, in the hopes that one of those profiles is the correct one.
In this kind of case over confidence in our methods literally becomes a killer.
*shrug* look at people like the Uni-Bomber. If I recall correctly, the only reason he was eventually found was because his brother turned him in after recognizing his style of witting reading the manifesto.
Sorry if this isn't more eloquent. This case is actually pretty close to home for me (both geographically speaking and emotionally.) People who go out of their way to try and kill children... I really want this person gone.
Court TV Forensic Files had an episode... (Score:2, Informative)
Some background on this guy.... (Score:5, Interesting)
He was very successful, and it led to his rapid advancement in the Vancouver Police Department. But like most police departments, it's still old-boys, and alot of them resented an educated individual rising through the ranks so quickly.
Finally, they told him they weren't extending his contract when he was promoted too far. He sued. During the trial, the senior VPD members were made to look like fools for lying under oath [vancourier.com].
One of the interesting things that came out was that he suspected (back in June, 2001) that a serial killer was involved in the disappearance of 20 to 30 Vancouver women [canoe.ca]. Well, he was right [cbc.ca]. The Vancouver police are conducting a huge investigation at a pig farm in the Vancouver area, and Robert William Pickton is now Canada's most prolific known serial killer with 16 or so charges in the works, and more pending as they find more DNA at the farm.
I don't know much about the technology (or psychology) involved, but I do know that when he applied his software to some of Canada's other serial killers (Paul Bernardo, Cliffard Olsen, etc) his software picked a 4-block area which included the killer's home. It was also used to catch a killer in Abbotsford.
Thanks to a bunch of fat old men who's ego has extended past their intelligence, Vancouver has lost what appears to be a top-rate talent.
How this thing works - an explanation (Score:2, Interesting)
Alittle bit about geographic profiling works. Essentially, what this software does is it assigns a weight to different attributes of a crime and based upon past crimes determines a probability that the crime was commited near someone's home or an area they know. Throwing in some additional variables such as where an individual works, what route they probably take to work, etc, helps identify a person's individual daily path.
Throw in a couple more factors like how far most criminals go from home to comit a crime - i.e. bank robberies tend to happen at banks individuals don't know, further from home, though rapes and murders happen in areas people are more comfortable - near an area they know - so that if discovered they know where to run (read: no unexpected dead end roads, good alleyways etc). Without getting into the whole theory of why this is - basically its because someone near their home doesn't stand out, they've probably been seen on the street before, maybe a neighbor knows them, they dont pose a threat - and dont' look out of place. Think about yourself - if you had to go walking around alleyways to stake out a location to dump a body or commit a rape, would you feel more comfortable (and look less shady) in an area you know, or some place out of town?
So take some basic variables - what was the crime? when was the crime?
Now, take the location of your crimes and cross-reference it with just the areas that would match given crimes. You end up with an area of probability that usually circular in nature around each crime... as these areas intersect, you get "blotches" of red, yellow, orange, etc..
That done, start to take other factors into consideration. You probably don't have a database with everyone's job, route to work, schedule, etc - what you probably do have is income ranges and general demographic information for specific areas. (Ok so I mentioned all this stuff about individuals above, I'm getting there).
Using that data, you can modify the predictions futher. For example, something like a string of gang shootings... There are several areas (chicago for one, im sure you can think of one near you) that have affluent or up-and-coming areas near or next to ghettos. For chicagoans, think near west side vs. cabrini greens. For those who don't know, 2 bd 2ba condos in near west side go for about $300,000 to $500,000. Go about five or six blocks down the road though and you'll run into section-8 housing. I'm getting to a point here, bear with me.
Having run your first analysis, you may find that there was a gang shooting in the "nicer" area, but it isn't really likely the shooter is from there... more likely than not, he's from the crummier side a few blocks away. Up to this point, the system knows nothing about Street Y vs Street X. Street Y might be a few blocks from Street X, but STreet Y might be primarily a six figure area... This information exists - if not directly, it can be found through housing prices and general crime level.
Ok, so now what? We have a big red blob that winds around. Feed the system the data on population type, ethnicity (yup. Not too PC, but its there), income, average age... etc. With this new info, it starts to eliminate or decrease the red areas, building a smaller search section.
Now I'd talked about all those individual factors - I'm finally getting to them. Remember those? Where does person A work? Person B?
What does this person do? (Truckers and transients dump bodies far away, most employeed people dump them near work or home)
Usually in cases like these you have hundreds of leads. Everyone is followed up - some are easy to eliminate some don't really lead anywhere. Some sound like good potentials. Say you get a tip that joe shmoe did this crime. A quick check reveals he has no alibi for the time in question... does he fit the (geographic) profile?
Obviously, you are going to go see joe shmoe. You ask some pretty basic questions that sound pretty boring... where do you work? You drive to work? Take the bus? What time do you leave? Do you eat lunch at work or outside? Simple stuff. You bring it up in conversation like nothing was - and for the most part it isn't anything.
Pretty soon, you've got a list of 50 individuals who could all be involved. None of them have alibis, and you need to figure out who to focus on. Here we go again.
Your now narrowed red area can take into account what these people do, where they work, how do they get to work, etc. Put those in and usually, you end up with 10 individuals who fit the geographic pattern. Those are the ones you go see again. And again.
The rest? They don't fall off the radar, but you are no longer dedicating half your team to them. It's a game of probabilities. Now with your 10 "likelies", you've got the resources pointed in the right direction.
Combine this with an FBI Profile of an individual and you've taken your 10 and shaved off 3 or 4. Now, you've got a handful of people to really focus on. At this point, you've got your search warrant if you want it - no alibi, meets the profile, fits the area, etc.
The search warrants usually lead to a few more clues and narrow it down to one guy. Then you just got to figure out how to prove it was him.
How this works (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like to point out... (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it just me? (Score:4, Funny)
Is it just me or does anyone else think they might have more chance of catching the guy if cops dont walk the beat reading a book!!
If I was an investigator.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If I was an investigator.... (Score:3)
Unless the sniper is choosing targets first and locations second.
I would tend to agree the sniper is choosing the locations first (i.e. the guy who had just walked out of the store) but that still leaves millions of possibilities. Personally, I think his residence is centered somewhere inside the initial five shootings and he has slowly spiraled out around the DC area since the heightened media coverage.
I also think that most people are overestimating the sniper's education. After all, I became proficient firing a
"Mapping Crime", et al - FREE NIJ research reports (Score:2, Interesting)
Research Report, Mapping Crime: Principle and
Practice by Keith Harries Ph.D. December 1999:
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/178919.htm
('lots of other research reports are there for
cost-free downloading, too; including one into
RH Linux 7.1's GNU dd as a disk imaging tool.)
I have worked on this (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in the early version, the algorithm was very simple. It was so simple you would have though it would never be useful. The beauty is that the algorithm doesn't need to pinpoint the house, just the neighborhood. It was much better to have a simple and easily provable algorithm than get another half a block of accuracy.
The available databases to convert from street address to spatial locations sucked. To me a big part of the magic was converting addresses where a crime occured to a UTM coordinate.
Most importantly, the magic of Rigel and Kim Rossmo is not the geoprofiling algorithms, but the marketting and public relations.
clever (Score:2)
thats clever.
Happy that someone's listening to him (Score:5, Informative)
Vancouver's Mayor had more police manpower directed towards a high profile pot shop in the area than the case of the 50 missing women. Rossmo's thesis was pooh-poohed and he was demoted and effectively run off the force [cbc.ca].
The missing prostitute case continued to be a willfully low priority of the Vancouver police department until it recieved some publicy (including, I believe, being featured on "America's Most wanted" -- "Vancouver's a great place to be a serial killer -- cops cry '50 missing and all's well!'"
A little over 2 years later, they've charged a guy with killing 15 of those missing women, and are searching for more remains on his pig farm.
From what I've been able to piece together, he abused them, killed them, ran their bodies through a meat grinder (or branch grinder) and buried the ground-up bits on his farm.
In the meantime, Downtown Eastside residents who were formerly unwilling to report mysterious disappearances of friends to the cops have now brought the number of missing women into the 60 person range.
More info on the missing women case can be found on the CBC website [www.cbc.ca].
Re:This is scary (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a technique that's been in use for a long long time by police departments, only with a less quantitative aspect. But they dind't call it 'geographic profiling' they called it 'sticking pushpins into the map'...
They're not *tracking* people, they're entering crime data into a GIS.
Re:This is scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Pushing stickpins into a map rarely allows such insight.
Re:This is scary (Score:2, Interesting)
Top level link: http://www.portlandpolicebureau.com/crimemapper.h
Top level map [portland.or.us]
Monster direct link to Portland downtown wide-scale crime map [portland.or.us]:
detailed downtown Portland crime info [portland.or.us] showing the locations of individual crimes.
Re:This is scary (Score:2, Interesting)
Joe is a 35 year old male with a wife and a 3 year old son. Once or twice a week, Joe goes out to a restaurant near his work for lunch with a couple work acquaintances. Joe has been tasked with the weekly job (done on Thursdays) of doing the family grocery shopping. Joe pays their bills on the 27th of every month. He fills up with gas and buys a pack of smokes X times throughout the week on his way to or from work. Occasionally, maybe twice a month, Joe also stops to pick up a case of beer. At the same time (roughtly) every year, he goes out and buys another present for his wife because it's her birthday. He does the same for his son. He does this again predictably (which would only have been discovered through the use of patented software) the week before Christmas, at the reminder of his wife. Joe and his family go on vacation every year to the same place, because Joe's wife has family there. All of this, except the vacation, happens within a 1km radius from either Joe's home or his work.
"No alarms and no suprises..." (Radiohead for the uninformed)
Joe's probably not that far from 95% of people either. There's no holy grail of purchasing patterns to be discovered that would increase Walmart's revenues by another 100%. The funny part is that Walmart and all the boys will still try to license this technology to have this fact pointed out to them once again, and just for the fun of it since they can.
This doesn't scare me much at all. I'm a law-bidding citizen on one hand with nothing to fear, and I'm also a privacy/indie/free speech zealot as well, but I don't think this is quite the technology that will put automatic identity checks in the doorways of retail stores, or that will improperly accuse me of some heinous crime. Now required ID cards and all this DMCA garbage, that's another story.
Re:This is scary (Score:3, Interesting)
Shows what you know. The following is based on real analysis, carried out in the UK by a major supermarket.
Basket analysis shows that for stores in Joe's area, there's a certain tendency for people to buy beer and nappies (diapers) together. This sparks some qualitative research, and they discover that it's largely because of men sent out to buy nappies also buy beer to reward themselves.
So as an experiment, the supermarket's store manager places some high-profit brands of nappies next to the beer section. Sales go up, and not only that, more profitable sales go up. Store manager gets a big bonus.
Next, the supermarket expands the test to neighbourhoods of similar socio-demographic profile to the first one. Sales of high-profit brands go up nationwide, because retail behaviour has a strong correlation to socio-demographic profile. That's the GIS bit - which doesn't actually need tying into individual consumers.
Even if total sales of nappies don't increase, the sales of specific brands does. This gives the supermarket leverage with nappy manufacturers to extract fees for putting their brands next to the beer section. (Incidentally, many manufacturers don't know exactly how much they're shelling out in promotional costs... which can lead to big holes in their account - as happened to Bulmers [bbc.co.uk] recently - 3m+ spent without anyone noticing)
So while total sales doesn't change, profit does, because there's additional profit from the high-margin brands, and additional shelving fees from the manufacturers.
And that's just one category... most supermarkets have several thousand categories. Profit doesn't have to increase 100% year on year - double digit is fine, especially in the current climate.
Re:Sound cool but (Score:3, Interesting)
pretty much any random way you could come up with of doing what he is doing could leave a pattern that someone would see.
though with that said even when you have a pattern going it's still really hard to refine to being able to knock on his door or no his next move.
Re:Sound cool but (Score:2)
Dude is a nutcase since he is killing other people for the thrill.
Everyone has a pattern, even if we don't see this f*ck's pattern until he (or she) is caught.
Re:Sound cool but (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I'd say he's certainly some kind of nutcase. Examination of his method, however, reveals a few interesting things. First, he acts like a military sniper; that is he selects a target, takes 1 shot, and then (presumably) leaves his position, taking everything (like shell casings) with him. In other words, all the work is in preparing his site, and leaving it. The actual shooting doesn't take much time or effort. Second is his selection of target. It appears to be random, although shooting a kid going to school could be designed to cause fear. Its almost as if the target is secondary to the location; this nutball may be picking sites from which he thinks he can get someone, and then killing whoever shows up. If this is the case, this location software may be just the thing; on the other hand, his criteria for picking a site might not have anything to do with where he lives. Anyway, I hope they catch this bastard soon, and I really don't care how they do it.
-- Rich
Re:Sound cool but (Score:2)
Re:Shooter is accurate too (Score:4, Informative)
-- Rich
Re:Shooter is accurate too (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about that as his kills have been in the chest AND head not to mention he has also wounded his last two victims, one of them by an abdominal shot. Formal training would provide for far better accuracy and the wounding of the last two might indicate he is getting more nervous.
My guess is that this is an emotionally immature individual without any strong emotional attachments who has spent far too much time involved in fantasy and the movies and television. (thus the overly theatrical death card). This individual does not have military training as his shots have actually not been that accurate and he is not killing for the sake of killing. Rather he is doing it for the attention and the power trip that this is providing via the media. He will not have a professional job as his emotional immaturity will not allow for it and the crimes have happened when most professional jobs would be taking place. My guess would be this is a white male with some post high school education but no formally completed degree and he is most likely in his thirties with an emotionally adjusted age of twenty or so. He probably has an fascination with guns, but cannot afford the higher end so he is doing the killings with a commonly available shorter barrel AR-15 derivatives and has most likely spent some time on the internet at the various sniper websites that I am sure are out there possibly even contributing to the discussion groups. As such, that may be a good place to look for clues to anyone in the D.C. area. Additionally, this person most likely has spent some time at local shooting ranges (if there are any. Anyone?) and would most likely be known there. He is likely somewhat talkative to others about guns and technique, but somewhat unidimensional and unimaginitive in his interactions.
Re:Shooter is accurate too (Score:3, Informative)
If this guy is making long shots (500 yds +) with an AR-15, then he is as accurate as the most accurate military shooters (I am assuming no scope here). I know, I was a rifle coach/sniper in the USMC. The bullseye used at 500 yds by the USMC represents a man's head and chest. And not even the best shots hit it every time. To get better than that you have to use scopes and bipods, as well as weapons that are tighter than the standard issue M-16. By the way, I am assuming that this guy is making long shots because of the varying reports as to the sound of the shot.
-- Rich
Re:Why not a search engine? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be (Score:2)
To quote Tyler Durden:
The illusion of safety.
Bzzzt! So sorry, let's meet our next contestant... (Score:3, Interesting)
I live near these shootings. As I type, I hear a police helicopter overhead. My kids complain about not having outdoor recess at school. When I run an errand, I scan the perimeter of the parking lot before getting out of the car, and then jog to the door. But at least I'm not paranoid!
It's not a government plot to stir up anti-Iraq rage because (1) these daylight suburban shootings are too risky for a plot that would need to avoid detection at all costs; (2) the public has had no reason to think that the sniper attacks are related to terrorism, let alone to Iraq (unlike the anthrax attacks of last winter, which apparently were the work of a right-wing kook who wanted to look like an axis-of-evil terrorist); (3) the government has evil elements, but not THAT evil - not hunting rifles against children.
Until less than 24 hours ago, I thought the sniper was probably an Al Qaeda terrorist. No, he hadn't made political demands, but neither did the September 11 hijackers. Far from causing me to favor war against Iraq, though, the prospect of terrorism reminded me that we'll face much more of it if we continue to make war in the Middle East (for no very good reason).
Anyway, the tarot card [9wusa.com] seems to dispose of my terrorism theory, as well as your government-plot-posing-as-terrorism theory.