Cold case

There is a nice article in this morning's Lincoln Journal Star about Dr. John Dietrich, who is retiring as Director of the Nebraska State Patrol Crime Laboratory. He's been a tremendous asset to our profession, and will be missed.

Crime scene investigation and forensics have come a long way, Dr. Dietrich notes. Tremendous advances such as DNA analysis and automated fingerprint identification systems have helped solve cases that were long dormant. Across the country, detectives have been dusting off old homicides for a fresh look with new eyes and new tools. I think I'll put this one from Capt. Ireland's blotter in our own cold case hopper:


Thursday May 30, 1889 9:15 AM

Officer Post and wagon returned and brought to station a box containing a human skeleton found in an out-house near the alley bet. 11th & 12th, N and O Sts. Box was taken to dumping ground and buried by special officer Crick, per order of Marshal Cooper.

I'm not sure where I heard or read this, but I think that the "dumping ground" around this time may have been around the place we all now know as the Sunken Gardens.

Exemplary planning and execution

Yesterday's series of search warrants and arrests to dismantle a drug trafficking organization in Lincoln was a work of art. So far, seven arrests have been made, and over a pound of methamphetamine and nearly a pound of cocaine seized. The counting was still going on when I left last night, but there is over $80,000 in cash.

It's an excellent bust, not because of the amount located, but because of the quantity of methamphetamine that this organization has been distributing in Lincoln and in other Nebraska cities. There will be another 2,100 drug arrests in Lincoln this year, but few will have as much impact on disrupting crime. This organization was involved in guns, drugs, stolen property, and child abuse.

The 0815 briefing in our assembly room Wednesday morning was something to see. Sgt. Donahue had the operations plan on the plasma monitors, while the Captain was reviewing assignments. The room was packed with officers in full gear. listening intently to their instructions. Nothing like a few decked-out SWAT teams to make a chief smile. We had personnel from LPD, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, the Nebraska State Patrol, the University of Nebraska Police, the FBI, the DEA, and the prosecutor's office gathered.

The operations plan was detailed and informative, including assignments, interpreters, mug shots, maps, floor plans, aerial photos, locations of medical standby units, notations of children at the target addresses, and much more. The level of preparation it reflected was exemplary. After the briefing, I had to dash over to show it off at the Mayor's office. Good planning like this protects everyone involved.

Congratulations to Capt. Brian Jackson and the rest of the Narcotics Unit for putting together a great case.

The answer to yesterday's question

Capt. David Beggs and Capt. Joy Citta were the only people to get the correct answer.

I had to dig to find some documentary evidence, but this photo from the Lincoln Evening Journal of November 8, 1975 seals the deal. Shelley Zalman was still attending the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center academy in Grand Island when this article was published.

LPD history buffs will note the style of Officer Rollie Weisser's badge and shoulder patch. For LPD readers of The Chief's Corner, I have the appropriate scrapbook in the display case in the Commons. There are some great articles about women at LPD on this date and continuing through January, 1976.

Recent history

During our trip to Atlanta to appear at our accreditation hearing, I noticed that several of the agencies applying for accreditation were headed by women. Our review committee, in fact, was headed by Elgin, Illinois Chief of Police Lisa Womack. Back in 1992, Austin's Elizabeth Watson was pretty much alone as a municipal police chief, but this has changed hugely in the past ten years, and today women are heading several of the largest police forces in the United States.

Like virtually all cities in the United States, Lincoln did not hire women as uniformed police officers until the mid-1970's. This is not to say there were no female police officers, but they had a separate job title--police woman--different qualifications, and limited duties. Some of Lincoln's police women went on to very successful careers in a number of fields, including Shari Farrar, who retired as Assistant Director of the FBI.

When the first female police officers donned the uniform and began regular patrol duties (in Lincoln, that was 1975), it was an exceptionally challenging path. Women dealt with overt discrimination and harassment that is unfathomable by today's standards. Those who overcame the obstacles are now seasoned police veterans, and it was inevitable that they would rise to command levels.

Today, one in five Lincoln police officers is female, women occupy many of our top command and supervisory positions, and command our SWAT Team and two of the five geographic Teams in the Operations Division. It is one of the most significant and important changes in policing that has occurred during my career.

Back in 1983, someone had the presence of mind to snap this remarkable photo in one of the Team offices. The second shift was reporting to duty, and on that day 25 years ago, the squad was composed of six women and one man.

From the left, that is Kim Cartwright, Jayme Reed, Joy Citta, Lauri Hanson, Ann Heermann, Sara Koziol, and Dan Dwyer.

Case number one

Dustin Lind is an intern working with us this semester. We use interns for many interesting assignments at the police department. Dustin's main focus is a long-term project to preserve some of our historical photographs and documents. He's been scanning, organizing, and most recently exploring. The exploration recently took him to the Nebraska Historical Society, where he scored a small collection of long-forgotten records. They are incredibly intriguing.

Here's one of the gems he found. It's case number one (click to enlarge):

Lincoln was incorporated in 1869, but it wasn't until 1870-71 that things got organized to create a board, city officers, and ordinances. Mr. Wallace, it appears, violated City Ordinance Number 8. It may be a little difficult to read, so here's my re-typed copy:

The fine of $5 and court costs of $3.35 would equal $135.37 today, according to my trusty inflation calculator. By comparison, the last time this guy was convicted of a similar offense (consuming alcohol in public)--136 years after Mr. Wallace--his fine and court costs totaled $144. If you sit that out in jail, you'll be cooling your heels for the weekend, cowboy.

Nicely done

Captain Jon Sundermeier heads the Lincoln Police Department's Criminal Investigations Team. He supervises a group of 37 detectives, investigators, and civilian staff members who are responsible for coordinating major crime investigations and specialized investigations such as child sexual assault, financial crimes, and computer crime. It's a big job.

In his spare time, though, Jon pursues several other activities. He is an accomplished painter, for example, and the lead singer in a popular local band, Bob Who. I didn't know much about his musical talents until lately, but I've always known about his writing talent. This was evident in his police reports, correspondence, and memoranda. He was an English major, and it was clear to me that he was passionate about the written word.

He used that talent recently to pen an excellent article that is published in this month's issue of The Police Chief, the flagship publication of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It is quite a feather in his cap to be published in the most widely-read professional journal in our field. The article is an interesting report of a research project Jon took on in his prior assignment commanding the department's Northwest Team. I have no doubt that this research will be of considerable interest for many years to other departments contemplating new work schedules.

Congratulations, Jon. Nicely done. Add "published author" to the list that now includes accomplished artist, musician, writer, and police officer.

Another way of looking at it

One of the reasons I started writing this blog in the first place was to build a little more understanding in the community of the issues the police deal with and the difficulties we face. Chief among those is the challenge of providing quality police services with an unusually small force. The comparative size of the Lincoln Police Department is a topic that weaves through many of my posts on The Chief's Corner, as is the topic of citizen expectations.

One way of comparing departments is to look at the number of police officers in relation to the population. By downloading data on crime and police employment in the FBI's annual compilation, Crime in the United States, you can create many views of the spreadsheets. I can massage the raw data by building formulae, creating pivot tables and charts, performing various column sorts, and applying filters.

The metric I normally use for comparisons is the number of police officers per 1,000 population. While this is a commonly-used comparative statistic, many others could be calculated. One that I also produce is a column that simply divides the number of FBI Part I Crimes by the number of police officers. By using filters on the population and State columns, I can then quickly produce comparisons to nearby cities, cities within certain size ranges, or both. Here's what it looks like for all the cities in Nebraska and its surrounding states with populations of 200,000 or better (click to enlarge):

The FBI Part I Crimes are Murder and non-negligent homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, auto theft, and larceny theft. The first four are the violent crimes, the others are the property crimes. The weakness of crimes per officer as a measure of comparison is this: crime isn't all we do, by a long shot. In terms of volume, it's not even the most common thing we do. Those Part I Crimes only constitute about 10% of the incidents we handle. You could even make an argument that some of our other responsibilities are at least as important to public safety.

A hole in his bucket

Last May, I posted the story Gary got his gun permit, detailing the circumstances that resulted in a guy with a rather incredible past receiving a Nebraska concealed handgun permit. Gary is not his real name, because the law in Nebraska prohibits me from revealing the identity of a concealed carry permit holder.

He went almost a year before his bucket sprang a leak.

Dressed in his camouflage T-shirt, Gary decided to take a little outdoor shooting practice Saturday. He set up a white plastic bucket in the backyard, and began firing. This caused something of a stir in the neighborhood, and 911 was ringing with reports of gunfire. Multiple officers responded, and a perimeter was established. The police response was complicated by misinformation Gary provided upon our initial contact. There had been no mysterious drive by shooter, also wearing camo, as he had claimed. Further investigation revealed the true story. After officers located the shiny shell casings and the perforated bucket in the back yard, the truth emerged and Gary fessed up. He was cited for discharging a firearm within the city limits.

Lest you think he lives in a secluded spot, here's the aerial photo of his neighborhood.


Gary got his gun permit, but we now have his gun. His Colt Defender .45 ACP semi-auto pistol was seized as evidence. Hopefully, if he's convicted, the State will see fit to revoke his concealed carry permit. Oh, by the way--we found several spent shell casings, but only one hole in his bucket.