I'm not a cop, but I've spent a lot of time working with them. Toss in that I have been involved with foresnsic technology for forty years.
First off, there is the video surveillance which is pretty common. My house cameras are registered with the police and have been used to provide evidence in a few crimes. Not all CCTV is run by big brother. Get used to it if you go into public places, you are being watched.
And you have no right to privacy in a public area.
As for the people who get upset about facial recognition being used to solve crimes: would they rather a rapist or murderer was running around on the streets? It's like the people who ignorantly screamed "defund the police".
No, you don't want them defunded. You want them well funded and properly trained so that they do not immediately go into violent actions. You want them trained to deescalate the situation. You wan them trained so they can effectively enforce the law and keep the peace.
But the bottom line here is that police are a necessity in a civilised society: whether you like it or not. And the legal system is the place for redress. So, you hope that the justice system is transparent and accountable.
But, back to forensics.
Leopold and Loeb thought they were smarter than everyone else and decided to commit the perfect murder. They spent seven months planning everything, from the method of abduction to the disposal of the body. Unfortunately, they missed a few details. The victim, Bobby Franks, was someone they knew: a neighbour and a distant cousin of Loeb.
Police found a pair of eyeglasses near Franks' body. Although the
prescription and the frame were common, they were fitted with an unusual
hinge, which was only purchased by three customers in Chicago, one of
whom was Leopold. Leopold tried to say he may have lost them earlier.
The point? Criminals are arrogant and dumber than they think they are. Leopold and Loeb appeared to be whiz kids, but they were too clever for themselves. They thought they could outwit the police, but even the plods were able to break their alibis.
Brian Thompson's killer believed he could use a mask to hide his face. But he let it down later on, which was caught on camera. Toss in the amount of CCTV coverage in a city is more than just the authorities. There are non-governmental cameras which are the militia of the law enforcement community: called in to serve when needed.
But DNA will seal the case. I participate in a few medical research programs where my DNA has been collected and sequenced. One of which is Harvard's Personal Genome Project (PGP). They told me I needed to remove as much personal information as possible. This is because someone can actually create images of a person from their DNA! https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/how-researchers-are-using-dna-to-create-images-of-people-s-faces-1.4118378
In 2018, investigators in Washington State unveiled an image of a suspect created from DNA in the 30-year-old murder case of young Victoria-area couple Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20.
The police used technology called snapshot DNA phenotyping that can determine a person's eye, skin and hair color, facial features and ancestry to create mugshots of what the suspect may have looked like at 25, 45 and 65 years old.
The profile did not account for weight, facial hair or other features like scars.
As someone who has been involved in the criminal justice systems of various countries: people put a lot of trust in DNA evidence. Far more than a lost pair of glasses. And the killer is supposed to have left a significant amount of DNA traces in the food and drink containers (saliva). Add that to the image created from that DNA being matched to the photos available of him.
He will be found and prosecuted thanks to technology.
I doubt that there will be any movement on gun control: especially since "New York has strict gun laws". Those laws can be circumvented by going to a state with lax gun laws.
Brian Thompson's killer should have placed his efforts on working for the Green Party or someone like Bernie Sanders who proposes medicare for all instead of assassinating Brian Thompson. That would have been much more productive than the killer's prison sentence will be.
The bottom line is that this was a senseless act of violence which far outweighs any of the more meaningful message that the US healthcare industry needs reform. And that reform will not come with the current political situation.
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