AID TO THE POLICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 14

AID TO THE POLICE

WORK OF LABORATORY

WHAT EXPERTS ACHIEVED

AMERICAN METHODS

Rapt concentration prevails within the whitewashed walls of three narrow, unpretentious rooms on the top 'C floor of the old Brooklyn police headquarters at 72 Poplar Street, says a

writer in the "New York Times." Here, 1 for' a year, the police and science have been working together to detect perpetrators of crime. And recently these H allies turned their full acumen and " force on the mysterious strangling of ;• Mrs. Nancy Evans Titterton, novelist, N in her Beeknlan Place hom&. •

r; When it became known that the police finally were reliant in this case ' on the experts and equipment of the ~ Technical Research Laboratory, popui : lar assumption naturally pictured an elaborate institution. The contrary is '' the fact, and therefore the successful results since the Department's -scientific unit was reorganised, and modernised a year ago appear the more remarkable. The visitor is surprised at the ; inadequacy of space. The building, given over partly to the Police ; Academy, is within the shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge. The small upstairs rooms devoted to research are crammed with equipment and chemicals.

There seems little space for the technicians; They have asked in vain for larger quarters. Their apparatus is the best available, but the space in which to handle it is far from adequate.

Nevertheless, because skill and interest find no final discouragement in such limitations, the Technical Research Laboratory operates with marked efficiency. It is not the first of its kind. Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Detroit,

Los Angeles, and Cleveland have their laboratories. The Department of Justice has publicised its own scientific facilities. But the New York police do not hesitate to maintain that in point of equipment and achievement their laboratory ranks high. NOT ENOUGH.

The recent expansion of scientific research by the New York police is a consequence of Commissioner Valentine's belief that "mere experience is inadequate," that however intelligent and persevering a detective may be, the limitations of the human mind require reinforcement with scientific strength. "As Mr. Grover A. Whalen, former Police Commissioner, observed in an address recently, the professional criminal of today has taken advantage of science to avert detection 1 ," wherefore the police, too, must turn to science if they are not to be hopelessly handicapped. The .necessity for this advance long has-been emphasised by Assistant

V Chief Inspector John A. Lyons. Today ! , the laboratory is a fact under the direc-

tion of Deputy Chief Inspector John J. O'Connell, college graduate,- dean of : tjie Police Academy, and author of a textbook on crime detection A'visit to the rooms-brings one upon a multitude of high-powered instruments,- microscopes, chemicals, and their equipment, an ultra-violet ray machine, plaster of paris, gum with

which to get the impress of teeth of

■ burglars who have left half-eaten • sandwiches behind, shellac to coat footprints for moulds to be compared with shoes, feathers with which to remove dust so; that fingerprints may be discerned, cameras, and a photographic : dark-room, an X-ray section, and innumerable other items to clutter the tables and shelves and floors. The ultra-violet machine has become a police superstition. Although it feas" limitations, it has revealed interesting data in the Titterton case. And it'has proved successful in detection of erasures on cheques, in exposing secret inks, in revealing bogus colours of counterfeit stamps and money, in disclosing over-paintings on canvases, and in showing forgery of labels and drugs purporting to come from reputable concerns. FINGERPRINT SYSTEM.

Most entrancing to the technicians is the .recently-developed* system of fingerprint, detection by Dr. Erastus Mead Hudson's silver-nitrate method, which, he' testified at .the Hauptmann trial, enabled him to find 500 finger impressions on the kidnap ladder. This is an involved method for revealing prints on wood, cloth, paper, and other materials which would not be disclosed by. the old-fashioned powder system. The silver-nitrate process was used in the- Titterton case. • ' Ballistics has its place in the technical research department. Just as all guns differ in markings, so do chisels, jemmies, can-openers, and the like, and the moulage process of casting is used in the laboratory to trace owners of such tools. It is employed, too, in reproducing heads, hands, and feet. Mr. O'Connell likes to dwell on a recent instance in which a technician spent three hours painstakingly removing dust from a wood moulding brought from a burglarised store. He used a feather to eliminate the dust specks until the underlying fingerprints came forth. His work made possible the conviction of the owner of these prints and his two confederates. A hold-up last September was solved because, in examining the markings of a .gun, found on a suspect, the labora-tory-resorted to three special processes of detection. What these special processes are the police declined to reveal, lest they become known to criminals who thereafter might devise countermeasures. The decomposed body of a man was found in the East River., In his pocket was a water-soaked card, the characters illegible. A chemical process, supplemented by the ultra-violet ray, enabled the technicians to discern the printing and to identify the body.

OTHER CASES. ; A husband reported that his wife had importuned him to will all his property to her. He said that in the icebox he had found a pudding on which she had placed a note: "Children, do not eat. This is for your father." The laboratory found ground glass in the food. The woman was acquitted, since the placing of the glass could not be traced to her. A footpad was convicted because one of his heels, cleated with a steel plate, left an impression in the mud and showed that he walked on the outer edge of his sole. The print was sprayed with shellac, the cast was intensified with plaster of paris. It was compared, successfully, with a suspect's shoe.

Eight men comprise the staff. Two * of them are college graduates with high records in sciences. Many detectives ?are candidates for laboratory work. 'They do not have to be college graduates. Training may be given to men

who do not have experience in the sciences, but only those who have distinct detective aptitude may enter the

■ work. i The members of this staff, like all detectives in the department, are instructed throughout the year in a series of lectures on various types of homicides, the medico-legal aspects of crime . detection and other aspects of police research. The Titterton ease, because of its

prominence, rendered the Police Department sensitive to the latest efforts of its technical research laboratory. The difficulty encountered by the 65 detectives on the case in their quest of a direct clue has turned them to the laboratory. The detective in the street might seek the Titterton slayer by old-time methods of questioning this person and that. But he finds himself confessing reliance on the ultra-violet light and on the silver-nitrate process. Suspects and witnesses may lie successfully to human interrogators. But they cannot evade the truth when it is established by science.