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Google Used to ID Hit-And-Run Victim
jafiwam writes "Google has been used (according to CNN) to help identify a hit-and-run victim from 1993. Detective Pat Ditter used Google to identify victim David Glen Lewis, 39 who died after being hit by a car while out of town. An image involving a fairly unique pair of glasses was found on the Texas Department of Public Safety web site, and a similar image on the Doe Network (involved in unsolved cases). This was after Det. Ditter began working on unsolved cases utilizing Google as a tool in that process. Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this. Process servers, employers and significant others already use Google for theses purposes... why not cops?"
that law enforcement and government agencies are finally starting to use the internet to its full potential.
But it's not a simple matter of typing in someones name and it comes up "he was killed in a hit-and-run , hit F5 to solve the case".
The cops USE Google, but they still have to be the ones that put 2 and 2 together to get a conclusion.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Last year when I was doing web work for a car dealer a state policeman happened to come into the showroom asking for assistance. He had a piece of a tailight lens and that was it. Something had hit a parked car on some private property and that piece of lens was the only evidence. When the parts department said they couldn't help I poked my head up and volunteered. This drew some sneers from the "pros" behind the counter who felt that I couldn't possibly help with anything related to cars. Anyway, using Google I narrowed it down to a specific year and model of a Ford pickup. The police were able to track down the owner - it's not that big of a town. It was fun, though it took about two hours and I got quite a headache looking at so many images.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I guess that puts a new meaning to Google's "Don't be evil" slogan. =)
Join the TWIT army now!
What about facial recognition software used for this purpose? If drivers license pictures were standardized and pictures taken at the morgue were made to the same standard (assuming the face of the disceased in not injured/damaged) is facial recognition software good enough to be used to try to identify John Does?
I know that a couple CSI episodes and a couple NCIS episodes used a generic looking search engine page. I don't know whether or not they'd use Google unless someone paid them to but the concept's there.
Of course, the TV search engines can tell you a person's entire life history with only a first name and a hair color. They're pretty powerful, you know...
The story of how one Google-obsessed computer geek solves crime after crime, all the while consuming vast quantities of pizzz, snacks, soda and coffee...
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The second is that Google is a private corporation and there is no guarantee that google does not the display search results that it wants displayed instead of the real ones. Just too much power in Google's hands in my mind.
_____
Thank you.
I often sneer at the fantastic search capabilities (and impeccable graphics) dramatized in the CSI shows. If only the state was so organized to have so many databases immediately on hand... and if only the software was so good. Perhaps Google is in fact one step in that direction.
Also interesting, there is a phenomenon called the "CSI effect" referring to jurors expecting capabilities similar to the tv series in real-life forensic investigations...
anything else being ID'd by any other 'technology' and it would've been 'Your rights online' ...
I do this all the time with problematic eBayers and Yahoo auction buyers and sellers that I run into.
I once had a guy email me and accuse me of stealing his Bang & Olufsen turntable that I was selling on ebay. He said he sold one on ebay two weeks prior to my auction and that the bidder (who happened to be 100 miles from me had made a claim that it was broken. He paid out on the claim. He accused me of being in cohorts with someone to pull a fast one and get the turntable, collect on insurance, then resell it on ebay for a double profit.
Well, I ended up googling his email address. Turns out - I got something to this affect on a "Discreet Personals Website" in Colorado:
"Male looking for other males for discreet, private meetings - into play, but nothing too rough"
I emailed him and told him I had found some information about him that I might post to eBayers That Suck dot com.
He didn't bother me after that.
I always google any problematic customer to see if they are a complainer on line or have anything "strange" about them - or are possibly on another business's hit list.
I google potential girlfriends names and if I have them, email addresses.
If you google my ID; adzoox, it brings up my website and home town of Greenville SC and things about me in the Upstate of South Carolina. Lots of google results are my slashdot posts from the past 3-4 months.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
New way of using Google to help the cops: Click me
I saw this on a TLC documentary about a year ago. This guy Patrick Critton hijacked a Canadian plane to Cuba back in 1971 and got away. The Canadian police re-opened the case, and searched for the man in all the police databases. Nothing was found. So then they did a Google search on the guys name, and lo and behold, one link from a local newspaper in Westchester County, NY had this guys name. The police went down there and sure enough, it was the same guy, over 30 years later. He had turned his life around and become a pillar in the community, mentor to young kids, etc etc.
t ml
Here's a link
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0206/11_hijacker-cp.h
"Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this"
This is of little surprise to me.
If we look at the demographic that is the police, then the only saving grace is that they would probably contain a small percentage of "forward thinkers" - maybe 2-5% of their number, just as in most organisations.
Police officers often do not hold any formal qualification outside of high school, or their own training instutions.
Fundamentaly, police in the field need the ability to arrest, tackle, and subdue violent offenders. The fact is, they need special...uh...abilities, to do this. Not the ability to "think outside the square".
Later in their career they will graduate to perhaps detective. They then utilize past experiance and gain new initiative.
They would now have the opportunity and freedom(in work) to move beyond the text book.
There must be so many "old schoolers" in the police, where challenging tried and true process's requires seniority, an innovative bent, and the ability to say no to the old school.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
A 50+ year old copkiller cold case was sovled by the LAPD last year. All the homicide detectives had to do was just check the fingerprint found at the scene against the FBI's computers and they found their man.
Matching fingerprints isn't as easy as searching Google but it's pretty damn easy compared to olden days (the 80's) where the two prints were put side by side and someone had to visually compare them.
After that murder case was solved the LAPD decided to assign a group people to work on these cold cases. They have tons of physical evidence that can be matched against different databases (blood, fingerprints, DNA, etc.). All they need is the manpower to go through it.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Apparently some 14 year old girl on the other side of the world has the hots for me. I read it in her livejournal.
Google: bringing false hope to thirtysomething geeks since 1998.
Now if only the USPTO would google for prior art.
Yes, and there's not a damn thing spooky about it. It's actually quite useful. I found a short piece of code I wrote this way. I'd lost it in a crash and thought it was gone forever. I'd posted it to a Python newsgroup and it was still on there.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Google CSI Miami.
Google Cold Case.
or
NYPD Google.
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
"Ditter began working on unsolved cases utilizing Google as a tool in that process. Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this."
Actually, law enforcement has been using internet search engines as long as they have been around. Just because an occasional case manages to get some media attention, does not mean the method is anything new at all.
Keep in mind, also, that Google has reached near retardation levels of attention in the media. Anything anyone does which results in something positive could just turn up as a media-worthy article to mention Google.
Look back 6 years and you'll see the same BS with Yahoo.
I swear, if the public had any less of an attention span, people suffocate from forgetting to breath.
Does this mean disallowing google from your robots.txt is obstruction of justice?
Just about every variation of the TV show Law and Order (The normal one, Special Victims Unit, and Criminal Intent) has used google in their investigative research. In fact, they've even turned it into a verb:
"I googled for bla bla bla..."
Seeing that TV usually mimics reality, I have a feeling that real cops have been using google longer than we think.
Daniel
This is necessary...life, feeds on life...
I have been wondering about this. Earlier this year i was looking at the stats for my personal web page i set up on geocities.
For some reason i was getting all these hits from google with people typing in "tommy savage" who ran a guest house i stayed at in Amsterdam. Turns out he the law thinks he is some huge drug dealer. Shipping huge amounts of grass into Greece.
The big question is did all the cops have to do is type his name into google and up pops my website with directions on how to find him?
I hope not because incoent or guilty he looked after me when i stayed there.
Here is the website incase any of you are curious.
http://www.geocities.com/babajuma
or if you just want the bit about tommy
http://www.geocities.com/babajuma/tommy.html
They already do. Take a look at the Google-cached copy of a page, and you'll see something like "This is Google's cache of ((BLAH)) as retrieved on Sep 21, 2004 05:14:22 GMT" at the top of the page.
Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this.
No, not really. I'm pretty sure the cops figured out google a while ago, all around the world. It's just that its successful use is not fucking news!
What it really makes me wonder is what on earth these guys at CNN were on when they decided to run this.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
I had a kid run over my dog a few years ago (like 3) and I got his license plate. The trooper I talked to could find his name and address but it was pretty far away (in the same state) and he couldn't get a phone number for him. It took me one lookup on anywho. When the cop called back I gave him the number and he was astounded that I could get it.