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Breaking NEWz you can UzE... |
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compiled by Jon Stimac |
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High-tech Fingerprint Scanner Heading to Iraq
–
SANTA
FE NEW MEXICAN, NM
- Aug 20, 2007
...a
high-tech fingerprint scanner could revolutionize security in Iraq and
Afghanistan...
It It Right To Fingerprint Our Children?
–
THIS IS GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK
- Aug
21,
2007 ...a mother is outraged that her son was fingerprinted
at his primary school without permission...
Fingerprints Identify Bondi Beach Woman
–
WEST AUSTRALIAN
- Aug 21, 2007
...fingerprints have helped Sydney police identify a woman found
floating in water off Bondi Beach last week...
Murder Suspect Nabbed In Traffic Stop –
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, RI - Aug 25, 2007
...identity was confirmed by an examination of his fingerprints... |
__________________________________________
Recent CLPEX Posting Activity |
Last Week's
Board topics
containing new posts
Moderated by Steve Everist |
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The Lockerbie Connection.
Iain McKie 17098 Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:35 pm
Earprints
Ernie Hamm 113 Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:06 pm
Beliefs
Charles Parker 152 Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:17 pm
They Walk Among Us
Charles Parker 981 Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:05 am
Subpoena the Verifiers
sharon cook 1673 Fri Aug 24, 2007 2:34 am
Individualize vs Identify
Michele Triplett 1799 Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:11 pm
Interesting Tidbit 8
Charles Parker 40 Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:21 am
Entry Level Job Opportunity with the City Of Santa Ana, CA
City of Santa Ana 132 Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:18 am
(http://clpex.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=2)
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UPDATES ON CLPEX.com
No major updates on the site this week.
_________________________________________
Steve Everist brought us a review of George
Ries's new book on Adobe Photoshop.
I make good on something I
have been wanting to do for over a year, since Charlie Parker started
circulating examples of distortion to a Fingerprint Interest Group (FIG).
I have built Charlie a web page, and I will be posting FIG's weekly.
The page containing these distortion examples is available off the CLPEX.com
home page on the left - click on "Fgpt
Interest Group - FIG" To introduce the page, I take you back a few
months ago to a series of posts on the website that sets up this new
CLPEX.com page quite well. The idea is that the more distortion we
see, the better examiners we become.
_________________________________________
Introduction to FIG's
www.clpex.com Forum
Author: Charles Parker
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:12 pm
Hypothetical Scenario
---------------------------------------------------
You receive a latent print from a critical area on the inside of a burglary
scene (window glass from an interior door) with no suspects and upon
examining it you conclude that it is from the right palm. You analyze
(evaluate) the latent print and determine the area encompasses from above
the carpal delta to almost the right edge of the hypothenar. The image
appears to be continuous with just a little bit of smearing in the center of
the palm but nothing else is remarkable. You scan it into an automated palm
print data base. The inquiry produces a candidate that you decide to take a
closer look at even though the score is a little low but you did observe a
grouping of 7 L2D.
You obtain the subjects palm prints and then examine the latent print again
finding a nice target group within the running ridges above the carpal
delta. You move to the exemplar card and find the same target group in the
same relative position with the same unit relationship as the latent print.
By moving back and forth you account for 16 events in agreement between the
latent print and the exemplar. But then when you move towards the center of
the latent you observe an ending ridge which does not seem to be present in
the exemplar. You back up and then find a second target group on the extreme
upper right of the latent print. You mentally note their unit relationship
and move to the exemplar. In a short time you find the second target group
and by moving back and forth you account for 18 events in agreement. You
step back and then it hits you that the agreement of events on the left and
the one on the right there is a spatial difference of 3-4 flowing ridges.
You try to resolve the anomaly by running the ridges to join both groupings
but there are obvious differences. The ridges all still look continuous but
there is that little bit of smudging in the center.
You decide to do a peer consultation so you prepare five sets of unmarked
enlargements along with a set of marked. You present the five sets to your
peers and ask them for an examination and their conclusion. After a couple
of days you get the following returns.
LPE 1: I see agreement on the left side and agreement on the right side but
the center is screwy and until I can determine why and what has happened I
will have to pass on calling it an identification. I have some discrepancies
that I cannot explain at this time.
LPE 2: I see agreement on the left side and agreement on the right side but
the center is off. It is a double tap so I would agree that each side as a
separate identification. You have two that look like one.
LPE 3: I see agreement on the left side and agreement on the right side.
Mark it as an ID because you have so much agreement and who cares about the
center.
LPE 4: Good ID. Mark it and book-em Dano! Question---Do you see anything
unusual about the latent print? Answer---No, it is a solid ID.
LPE5: I can see overall agreement in a quantity that overrides the center of
the latent print. It is distorted in the center some way but I am not sure
exactly how. Still it is a good ID, if you decide to mark it, I will verify
it.
Now there is no wrong answer here. Just some different ones based upon their
experience and beliefs. Most of us are taught that we find a sufficient
amount of agreement we then look for disagreement. I think sometimes when we
have a large amount of agreement we stop and not necessarily look for
disagreement.
How would you respond?
_________________
Pat A. Wertheim
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:48 pm
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hi Charles
When somebody says "Hypothetical Scenario," I have learned it is never
really hypothetical. Most the time, when I get a phone call and somebody
wants to run a "hypothetical scenario" by me, I have learned they have
issues they are trying to resolve. So here are my thoughts.
I think just about anybody who has been in the business a few years has seen
something similar to the print you describe. But the newer folks have a lot
of trouble with it. I remember training a young lady back in the early
1990's who, like LPE 1 in your example, would not verify an ident unless you
could explain exactly what had happened. She would not accept the short
version, such as "it's a double tap" or "it's just distortion." She demanded
to know exactly how the touch had occurred and exactly how the distortion
occurred during the double tap. Of course, that was usually impossible to
explain. Funny, a number of years later, after she had matured in the
business, I observed her give an identification to a new examiner she was
training. I was amused to hear the new person give her the same arguments I
used to hear from her. I think, with additional training and experience, we
develop more understanding and acceptance of distortion without having to
understand "exactly" what happened.
I think this situation is a training opportunity. But somehow, I think you
already knew that and are using it as such. One thing that may help is to
have your trainees deposit a bunch of distorted latents, dust them and lift
them, then compare them to study what distortion does. A piece of plate
glass maybe 12" X !8" is a nice surface. You can press your palm with great
lateral pressure and see what happens when it slips and slides across the
glass. Or you can twist. You can use a wet hand - hold it under running
water, then just shake it off before pressing it on the glass. Or you can
use a tiny dab of hand lotion rubbed in well, the excess removed by drying
with a paper towel before touching the glass.
You can use other surfaces, too. I have got great distortion from curved
surfaces and surfaces we usually handle with pressure or a twisting motion.
For example, I will clean a key well, then hold it by the teeth and tell my
student to "turn the key in the lock," while I hold the key tightly to force
resistance. Or I will hold a clean coffee mug tightly by the handle and have
the student grab the body of the mug, then I will jiggle the mug or twist it
or even jerk it out of their hand. You can think of all kinds of ways to get
great distorted latents to study.
Alice Maceo is doing some wonderful work in this regard. She places a video
camera beneath her glass coffee table and has her husband press his finger
down onto the glass. Then he will twist or slide or press the finger. They
have recorded probably hundreds of such movements of finger tip on glass in
which you can actually observe the ridges slipping and distorting. Then you
can see the lift taken from the print at the end of the episode of
distortion. If you ever get a chance to take Alice's class in distortion,
jump at it!
Have fun, Charles, and make this a great learning opportunity for all. Then
save all the latents and inked prints and make some proficiency tests or
even practice CLPE tests for your folks preparing to take the test.
Good luck!
_________________
Charles Parker
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:18 pm
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Pat, you know me too well. You can read me like a book.
Also I think you know I have been slipping and sliding on glass and curved
surfaces for awhile and you went into your teaching mode. Thanks for putting
that out there. More people need to experiment with different aspects of
distortion. I personally like the one where you work up a good sweat and
take a piece of blank paper and crumple it up, straighten it out crumple it
again and again. Smooth it and let it set for a day or two and then process
it with ninhydrin. Then set down with a set of your exemplars and try to
identify each piece and segment.
I saw Alice's presentation in Boston and was so impressed I bought two
cameras and the software to work the video's. I tried to get in her class in
San Diego to see if she has some new stuff but they are all full. I waited
to long to find out if I was going to have court that week.
We need more people experimenting on distortion effects and a central area
where we can put a lot of images for study. I have been sending out some to
people for a little over a year and I am considering creating a web site so
I can put some of these images on it...
_________________
Kasey Wertheim
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:23 am
-----------------------------------------------------------
Charles,
You have your web space whenever you need it - I would love to host your
examples on a FIG web page I can build for you. We could start now with the
examples you have re-formatted, or we could wait until you have gone all the
way back - let me know.
On your example, I am a big believer that accounting for distortion is the
key. If you have overwhelming agreement with distortion, additional
overwhelming agreement helps account for the distortion. In some prints,
distortion may create doubt (to use a Vanderkolk concept) and require
additional similarity to overcome that doubt - but I don't believe as some
examiners do that an exact explanation is necessary to overcome doubt. Pat
references experience, and most examiners will agree that they have seen
prints where they know the prints match even though they can't explain
exactly what happened. In fact, I would go a step farther and say that an
examiner who sees overwhelming agreement and "knows" the prints match has
already arrived at a conclusion of individualization. To state or report
otherwise is actually not being true to their true conclusion. I feel the
one dissimilarity doctrine does not apply to something you aren't absolutely
positive is a dissimilar feature. If there is even a small chance it could
be distortion, how can you state absolutely that the prints do not match?
Isn't an exclusion held to the same absolute standard as an
individualization?...
-Kasey
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Until next Monday morning, don't work too hard or too little.
Have a GREAT week!
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