1.09.2008

Positivism

The investigation lasted seventy-seven hours.

Police Buildings are four stories tall. There are no elevators in Police Buildings. The front doors stand nineteen steps above the sidewalk. There are no ramps. Officers routinely and vigilantly patrol the area immediately surrounding the Police Buildings to ensure the safety of the community. However, as the radius increases (i.e. as the distance away from the police building increases) the level of policing rapidly diminishes. As a result, there are a series of DEAD SPOTS in the city. A DEAD SPOT is a location with no police presence. A DEAD SPOT is not an official term, nor is it open policy to promote DEAD SPOTS. For example, the area between Martin Ave and 55th St is a DEAD SPOT. This too is not public knowledge. This area is forty-seven blocks. There are seventy four Police Buildings in the greater metropolitan area. Each building employs one hundred officers. Each building is twelve miles apart. Ten miles from each building is considered a high radius distance and is rarely patrolled. Eleven miles from any particular Police Building is considered unsafe and foreign territory. In short, all territories outside ten miles are considered DEAD SPOTS to the particular police building in question. If these areas are more than ten miles from any Police Buildings, these areas are not ever patrolled. The investigation in question occurred in a known DEAD SPOT but within range of accepted patrolling territory. The investigation lasted seventy-seven hours. One middle aged man was murdered within sight of Police Van 71 but outside the ten mile radius. Policy demands the reminder that it is not official protocol to abandon patrols outside the ten mile marker. During the night of October 21, Police Van 71 was at its outer marker for only a few minutes. Usual circumstances would require, by unofficial police code and conduct, the officers of Police Van 71 to immediately vacate the premises. However, due to eye witness accounts of Police Van 71, the victim lying in the street one block from police van 71, and a strict political climate in city hall, Officer Howard and Officer Cruz were encouraged to report and to launch investigation 11B-61. Neither Officer Howard nor Officer Cruz reported using narcotic or alcoholic substances during the night in question.

On the night of October 22, one hundred and twenty-seven potential suspects were brought to Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. Due to overcrowding, fifty suspects were eventually housed in Police Building 55B. Captain O’Donnell oversaw the investigation. Each suspect was weighed and measured in a proper and detailed examination that would reveal any and all physical contamination or deformity required for immoral or amoral activity. After twelve hours, seventy-nine suspects were released into the community. After twenty-four hours, forty-two additional suspects were released into the community. On the evening of October 24, seventy-one hours after the launch of the investigation, six suspects remained in police custody at Police Building 55A in Precinct 11. All suspects were disproportionately tall or wide in at least one particular area. Suspect 1 presented with poor posture due to the enormous size of his head. Sergeant J. Smitt reported that the pressure and exhaustion from such a physical state would induce serious and potentially violent fits of rage. Suspects 2, 3, and 6 fit the physical profile of the common aggressor or criminal: excessive muscle mass, petite ears, large and protruding chins, clearly defined cheek and jaw bones, and (most importantly) considerable, even inappropriate, arm length. Suspect 4 refused to co-operate with police procedure and with the physical examination. During the scalp evaluation, Suspect 5 presented with an inordinate amount of indentations and protrusions. Results of examinations were presented to Captain O'Donnell in the seventy-fifth hour. In the seventy-sixth hour, Captain O’Donnell reviewed all the appropriate material and judged, based on 115 unusual signs of indentation and protrusion, that suspect 5 was unequivocally the perpetrator of the murder on October 21. The investigation was closed on the seventy-seventh hour and suspect 5 was summarily let to the electric chair in the basement of Precinct 22. The execution lasted seventeen minutes.

The specifics of evaluations and examinations performed on suspects during detention will be released to public domain at the discretion of the Chairman of the Police and Fire Commission.

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