Pat Wertheim on LinkedIn: #fingerprints #inkedprints #livescan | 12 comments (2024)

Pat Wertheim

Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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Dr David Schudel commented in last week's post about being left alone with a dangerous suspect. Other readers commented much the same. I started to reply to Dr. Shudel, but opted to write this week’s message and expand the discussion. I write today as a latent print examiner (LPE) who prefers to fingerprint suspects and arrestees myself.A high percentage of comparisons on my last job were reported as “inconclusive” due to inadequate exemplars. Incomplete comparisons of crime scene fingerprint comparisons allow criminals to go unidentified and innocent people to remain on lists of suspects and be treated as such. Most jailers and even police officers take fingerprints that are substandard for many of the comparisons that are requested.Personally, I want to take #fingerprints from suspects myself after I have analyzed the latent prints in a case. In first analyzing the latent prints, I want to determine what area of friction ridge skin probably made the latent fingerprint and gauge the direction and pressure that was applied during the touch. Then when I fingerprint the suspect, I want to take #inkedprints of the most likely areas of friction ridge skin duplicating as closely as possible the direction and pressure I inferred from the mark. I may also take and use complete major case prints, even regular 10-prints. But frequently, latent prints contain friction ridge detail not normally captured on standard arrest prints. And unless major case prints are taken by somebody expert in the process, they can be useless for difficult comparisonsTaking inked prints myself ensures three things: First, I have direct knowledge of the provenance of the prints, not just a name printed on a fingerprint card. Second, I take better prints using old fashioned black printer's ink and long-established methods than most jailers or police officers take using their #livescan machines. And third, I'm comparing "like to like," that is, the most likely areas of friction ridge skin impressions with the same pressure and directionality as the latent prints from the crime scene.Here's the point. Doing this puts me at the mercy of the suspect. I arrange for an officer to be present, especially for suspects who may be desperate. Because I stand directly in front of a person I’m fingerprinting and the handcuffs have been removed, it would be extraordinarily easy for them to get the jump on me, put me in a choke hold, hit me over the head with something, or even pull a hidden weapon. I start in those situations by making light of the subject. I tell the person I’m fingerprinting that he can get in the first blow while I’m fingerprinting him, but the officer behind him will get in the last blow and it won’t be pleasant. It is not uncommon for a suspect to resist being fingerprinted or try to smear his prints (easy for him to do with a jailer or officer who doesn’t realize the prints are slightly smudged and unusable) but I’ve never had one fight me.

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Shane Turnidge

Fingerprint expert

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There are no shortage of police administrators that think taking prints is easy. It is not easy at all. In the book Scott's Fingerprint Mechanics, Olsen describes the numerous errors possible when taking prints.Putting unmotivated people in that role with minimal training and mentoring assures that criminal occurence latent prints will remain unresolved.

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Tim Seguin, PhD

Creating a safer world through instructional design and criminal justice/investigative subject matter expertise.

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I too took my own fingerprints when a suspect was identified, for all of the same reasons Shane and Pat pointed out. When a suspect would get froggy, I reminded him of a state statute requiring a classifiable set of fingerprints to be taken...or no bond. And since I'm the only person to make that call, I decide if he gets bonded or not. They usually get very cooperative after that.

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Joe Means

Special Agent at SC Law Enforcement Division

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Good post! I remember a local detention center called me about a subject who refused to be fingerprinted. They did house him in jail for several months without bond. The name they he gave them was "Supreme One."Finally he saw the light and was ready to get out so he was fingerprinted and if I remember he wasn't wanted but had prior arrests. I wonder if he enjoyed jail that much instead of getting fingerprinted.

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René Rodrigues

retired fingerprint tech at san francisco police dept

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I've had arrested people try to smear the fingerprints as I was taking them. I would tell them that I would be just as happy to rip their arm off to get the fingerprints done right. Not seeing any fear in my eyes and watching any nearby cops or deputies backing away to give me room generally made them behave. If the cops weren't rushing in to help me, they figured that I meant what I said.A Sgt from Robbery took me to Juvenile Hall to palm print a kid. Turns out the kid and his buddies had been very careful not to touch things with their fingertips but had leaned against walls and door jams with their pals. His 'writers' side palm was a perfect match to one from the crime scene and he gave up all his buddies including the kid who lived in the house they ripped off.

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Renee Wilson

Police Advisor-Forensics Timor-Leste Police Development Program (AFP)

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I agree Pat, I prefer to take suspect or elimination prints as I have only myself to blame if they are not good quality. I also now photograph the hands (and sometimes feet) if I’m doing a footprint comparison. I always explain what I am doing and chat about any cool features I see, this tends to put the person at ease and more compliant. There is always a sworn police officer with us in the room and we would not be put into a dangerous situation. Unfortunately this practice is becoming less frequent and livescan is being used more, usually by people who don’t put the same care into taking a good set of prints.

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Bernard Bukowski

Quality Assurance Representitive at Dept of Defense

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Nothing is ever as easy or uncomplicated as portrayed on TV shows or movies.

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Leon Gurnari

Dactyloscope senior niveau 3 chez Police fédérale

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I agree Pat !

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    After my webinar a couple of weeks ago, Kathleen Saviers emailed me and asked why, if I love fingerprints so much, am I glad to be retired.Max Planck, a leading German physicist of the early 20th Century, commented in 1917, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponentseventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." I like to put it more bluntly: "Old scientists never change; they just have to die."When I first got into fingerprints, the idea that "there is no minimum number of points" was just being accepted. I was part of a "new generation" that grew up with that concept. The old timers firmly believed in the mandate for "8 points," or whatever magic number they had been taught. For my generation, though, David Ashbaugh defined “Ridgeology” as a balance of quality and quantity of detail, not just quantity alone.Then along came DNA, and lawyers and academicians began asking why don't all forensic sciences use statistics? That idea began to blossom after the NAS Report in 2010. The OSACs were formed and the old SWGs and TWGs were relegated to the history books of the late 20th Century.In his 1962 book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Thomas Kuhn coined the term "paradigm shift" to describe the same concept that Max Planck had referredto in 1917. Kuhn says "normal science" is the use of a set of agreed upon rules by which a group of practitioners answer small daily questions. That is a perfect description of latent print comparison. Each comparison is a small daily question. Kuhn says a crisis arises when a new question comes along that cannot be answered by the old rules. The old practitioners will not change, but new people coming into the business will devise new rules that answer the new question. Then a "scientific revolution" occurs as new people insist on their new rules. The old timers prevail for a while, but as they leave the field (i.e., die off), eventually the new kids take over. The process from the framing of the new question through the final tipping of the scales to accept the new rules is the "paradigm shift."Starting with the use of statistics in DNA, the seed of a paradigm shift in forensic science was planted. It has been watered and fertilized by the new practitioners as we old timers leave the field. I'm a victim of Max Planck's curse. It is distasteful for me to surrender the rules under which I have practiced for fifty years. I still believe in a non-numeric, non-statistical threshold for identification. And I will maintain that I am entitled to my "opinion" of identification under Rule 702 in spite of the paradigm shift to statistics & likelihood ratios. That's why I'm glad I'm out of the field. I'd rather take my dogs to the dog park to play with their puppy friends while I listen to audiobooks, than stubbornly stay in the losing battle against statistical analysis in fingerprints.

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    Are you a CLPE or LPE losing ground to inflation? Looking for a jump in pay plus outstanding benefits? This might be the opportunity you are looking for:For more information, contact:Angela PrattPhysical ScientistCustoms and Border ProtectionLaboratories and Scientific Services202-591-5868 (cell)Angela.R.Pratt@cbp.dhs.gov

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    Many thanks to Cameron Triboulet and W. D. Jenkins Private Security (https://lnkd.in/gxgNjAkj) for the invitation to attend the Texas Business Owners and Executives (T-BOE) mixer. I felt like I was a little out of my league in the crowd of amazing young entrepreneurs who have started their own companies and built amazing business organizations in a wide variety of fields from construction to transportation to training to marketing, and many more. Just listening to the conversations among these vibrant young business owners convinced me that the future of the United States is in good hands, indeed, with this new generation of leaders.

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    I got extremely angry - totally pissed off, really - one night about 2:30 AM when I arrived at a hotel to process a rape scene in a room and found an unconscious woman in one of the beds. Plano Police Department policy included a requirement for an officer who called out the Crime Scene Unit to remain on the scene until the CSI Technician (civilian) arrived. So here I was, a civilian CSI with an unconscious woman in my scene while the officer had already left – against policy! Was I even in the right room?I got the shift sergeant on the radio and raised hell. I did NOT want to be the only one there if the drunk woman regained consciousness and became hysterical or combative with me. The officer returned to the scene.The story was that two women had gone to a bar to pick up guys, then went to a hotel for one-night stands. One of the women was too drunk and passed out before consummating the act. Her guy had left in disgust. The second couple had gotten into the program when the guy became abusive and the woman called it off. But then the guy got violent, slapped her around, and raped her before leaving. The first woman was in the other bed unconscious the whole time the rape was going on. The officer explained that he had called an ambulance as soon as he arrived. The EMTs had tended to both the rape victim and the drunk. They determined that the drunk was in no danger of anything except a world-class hangover and suggested just leaving her there to sleep it off. They took the rape victim to the ER for exam and rape kit.I went ahead and processed the hotel room as one would normally handle a rape scene. As for the drunk woman, I placed a yellow evidence marker next to her head on the pillow to designate her as an item of evidence in the crime scene photographs. She was still out cold when I cleared the scene and locked the door behind me.I wrote a memo to the Chief the next morning regarding officers not remaining at the scene after they had called out ID. We were civilians, we were unarmed, and we had no authority to act if things went south after the officer had departed. I was not worried for myself. After all, I had been an officer for eleven years before going civilian to supervise the ID Unit and do latent prints full time. But I had several young ID Techs straight out of high school on their first job and I knew it could be disastrous if one of them got into some kind of altercation in a situation such as that hotel room that night, or any other call out where a perp might return, or even one where a victim became emotional and disorderly.Two reminders: 1.) I will be leading a webinar on Detection of Forged and Fabricated Latent Print Evidence on Wednesday, June 12. For more information or to register, check here: https://lnkd.in/gmK7Miyi2.) You can find all of my past stories in the Blog section of my website, https://lnkd.in/gXgAkUD7.

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    We had a kinder, gentler way of dealing with homeless people and transients in the 1970s in Kerrville, Texas where I was first a police officer. Anybody who was living on the streets and wanted a place to sleep could come to the police station any evening and request to sleep in the city jail.The jail at that time consisted of five or six spartan, steel walled cells with doors that had windows only big enough to peer through to check on occupants. There were steel bunks with thin cotton mattresses, steel toilets, and steel sinks. It was the polar opposite of luxury, but for people with no other place to sleep except outdoors, it offered a warm, dry place on cold, rainy nights.A local restaurant fixed breakfast plates every morning for everybody in jail. The dispatcher would call with the number of plates needed and an officer would go by and pick them up. They would still be warm when we handed them through the little windows to the occupants.We called the folks who were simply spending the night there “sleepers.” I’m sure that if a Kerrville police officer today went back to the book-in cards prior to the late 1970s, they would find a significant percentage of the persons booked into jail during a year’s time were sleepers. Once they had finished their breakfasts, they were released back into freedom, no charges filed and no charge for the room and board. Like I said, it was a kinder, gentler place back then, my Texas of the 1970s. With the population of homeless people today, I can’t imagine police departments would still extend the courtesy of accepting sleepers and giving them free breakfast. I don’t imagine large cities did it, even back then. Sometime in the late 1970s, we quit accepting sleepers. The chief explained that in another city that took in homeless people on bad nights, one of the sleepers had awakened one morning with a toothache. I don’t know the whole story – perhaps a reader does and can fill in the details in the comments below – but the upshot of it was that a lawsuit ensued and the court found that once the jail booked a person in as a sleeper, it became responsible for his needs including any medical attention he required before he was released the next morning.A lot of good things get ruined by one person demanding too much. As we were told, the city where that event occurred was on the hook for major dental work for the one-night sleeper but every other city in the good old USA that had allowed sleepers immediately stopped the practice. Reminder to my contacts and followers – all of my weekly posts are entered into the Blog section of my website, www.patwertheim.com, as I post them here every Sunday evening. If you are new to my weekly posts and would like to read some of the earlier stories, please check them out there. I tell of things I did wrong as well as things I got right, in hopes my younger readers will think of situations and be better prepared if they find themselves in similar circumstances.

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    Webinar on forged & fabricated fingerprint evidence.When: June 12, Wednesday.What: Valuable information for criminal justice professionals.Who: Latent Print Examiners (IAI credit for CLPE training), Criminal Defense Attorneys, Defense Investigators, Private Investigators, authors of crime fiction, and any other professional involved in crimes involving fingerprint evidence.Topics: Three methods corrupt cops use to fabricate fingerprint evidence and three methods crooks use to forge fingerprints. Red Flags: clues to be on the lookout for that might indicate fabricated evidence or forged fingerprints.Case studies: Dozens, even hundreds, of cases will be discussed taken from the literature and from the presenter's own experience investigating these crimes.Register here: https://lnkd.in/gmK7Miyi#CLPE #criminaldefense #crimeinvestigation #latentprints #fingerprints #privateinvestigation #defenseinvestigators #crimescene #csi #truecrime#authors

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    #FabricatedEvidence occurs in fingerprint cases far more often than #misattributions, or so my experience during a half-century in the fingerprint business informs me. I have testified for #CriminalDefense in both kinds of cases, but in more latent fingerprint fabrications than in erroneous identifications. My research into latent #FingerprintForgeries and fabrications revealed three methods of forging latent prints and, likewise, three methods of fabricating evidence. The subjects of fingerprint forgery and latent print fabrication are two entirely different concepts and should never be confused.I will be instructing an 8-hour webinar on the topics of latent print fabrication and fingerprint forgery on Wednesday, June 12, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Central Daylight Time. I will detail all three methods of forgery and all three methods of fabrication, plus cover all of the clues to be on the lookout for when conducting latent print examinations. In addition, I will discuss numerous cases of corrupt police officers fabricating fingerprint evidence in order to bolster a case or even frame an innocent person.The course is approved for credit by the IAI for the relevant certification programs. If you are a #FingerprintExaminer, #LatentPrintExaminer, or #CLPE, this course will help prepare you to detect false evidence submitted to you for examination.This webinar also contains valuable information for any #DefenseAttorney who represents clients in felony cases when fingerprint evidence is present.For more information or to register, see:https://lnkd.in/gmK7Miyi

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    When I was a patrol sergeant at Plano Police Department, I came up with a novel way to motivate my officers and give them each a little reward once a month. When an officer did something particularly noteworthy during the week, I would let him check out an unmarked vehicle and watch a liquor store on a Friday or Saturday night to catch minors buying booze, then file the paperwork to suspend the store’s liquor license.The department had a Pontiac Trans Am seized in a narcotics deal and invariably, that was the car the lucky officer would pick on his night to play undercover surveillance cop. There were any number of small liquor stores in the strip shopping centers where you could set up halfway across the parking lot and watch through binoculars. I don’t think any of my officers ever came up dry when they got a chance to work the liquor stores.I remember one time when I came in on my day off to play the game myself. Instead of the Trans Am, I picked the beat up old panel van. We had several sets of magnetic signs to stick on the side to pose as an electrician’s van, a plumber’s van, or one or two other businesses. I think I was using the electrician’s signs on the van the night in question.A car pulled up in front of the liquor store I was watching about 10:00 PM. Three girls got out and went into the store, then came back out a few minutes later with a couple of bags and got into their car. Unbelievably, they pulled across the parking lot and parked in the spot directly next to me.It was a hot night and I had the windows open on the van. I leaned back and pressed myself into the seat to try and make myself invisible. Their car windows were down, too, and I could hear their conversation crystal clear. The driver turned on the dome light and they began pulling the beer cans out of the twelve-packs and wrapping the cans with clinging plastic labels that said “Caca Cola." They were laughing about the clever way of outsmarting cops. On casual inspection, the cans looked everything in the world like Coke cans.From the girls’ conversation, I learned that the clerk knew they were underaged and he kept a stash of the "Caca Cola" labels under the counter for occasions when minors came in to buy beer. As soon as the girls had started to drive off, I radioed one of my officers in the district. He stopped the car about six blocks away and shocked the hell out of them by knowing exactly what they had in the car and how they had got it. He ticketed each of them for minor in possession. In spite of the fact that some of them feigned ignorance of the beer, I had clearly seen the whole group go into the store and heard them laughing about it less than ten feet from where I sat watching them put on the fake labels.We drew a healthy license suspension on the store for knowingly selling to minors that night and enabling them to disguise the beer cans. I don’t think the girls ever learned how the officer who stopped them had known what they were up to.

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  • Pat Wertheim

    Latent Print and Crime Scene expert

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    The most outlandish case I was ever asked to investigate as a private fingerprint consultant was the bizarre case of Leonardo da Vinci’s reincarnation.To my new contacts and followers, I post here every Sunday night with a story from my career dating back to 1973. I tell of things I got right and some that I got terribly wrong, in hopes that my readers will think about the situations I recount and be better prepared if they ever find themselves in similar straits.But back to the strange case of Leonardo da Vinci. I received a call from a woman who wanted to meet with me to discuss fingerprints in the paint on the works of Leonardo da Vinci. I was living in Salem, Oregon at the time. She lived out of state and she asked if I could meet her in Portland. Something about her approach intrigued me and I said I would. I asked her to name the place and time. She named a certain microbrewery and designated a time and evening for the meeting.When I showed up and we met face to face, she finally explained the examination she wanted me to conduct. She had an intense dream in which she was climbing a scaffold in the refectory of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Graziein Milan, Italy. In her dream, she was stretching her arm out with a brush and painting the Last Supper. She told me the dream was so vivid that she knew she must be the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci. In her dream, she maintained that she was reliving what she had once experienced in real life. She wanted me to fingerprint her, then compare her prints to those in paint on known works of Leonardo to confirm that she was, in fact, Leonardo reincarnated. She went on to explain that Leonardo was actually a woman and was the greatest male impersonator in history, and that the Mona Lisa was her self-portrait. Who am I to dispute the idea of reincarnation, accepted as true by millions if not billions of people around the world? I decided to treat the request seriously and refrained from commenting that she looked nothing like the Mona Lisa to me. I spent a couple of months reading up on the old masters’ use of their fingers in their paintings and learned that they often used a little paint on a fingertip to shade or add background texture to a painting. In modern times, look at the amazing portraits painted by Jennifer Hannaford using nothing but her fingertips. But for all the high-resolution images I could find of Leonardo’s paintings, none had a sufficiently large area of friction skin impression to conduct a comparison with any hope of reaching a conclusion. Some had friction ridge detail to be sure, but such tiny and overlapping fragments as to preclude any kind of reasonable examination.In the end I issued a report to the client that summarized my findings as inconclusive due to insufficient friction ridge skin detail for a comparison in any of Leonardo’s paintings. I ended my report with a philosophical comment that perhaps some mysteries are never meant to be solved.

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Pat Wertheim on LinkedIn: #fingerprints #inkedprints #livescan | 12 comments (44)

Pat Wertheim on LinkedIn: #fingerprints #inkedprints #livescan | 12 comments (45)

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Pat Wertheim on LinkedIn: #fingerprints #inkedprints #livescan | 12 comments (2024)

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