Homicide Stats
Total 2011 12,664 murder victims - of that total 9,827 or 77.6% were males
Total 2012 12,765 murder victims - of that total 9,917 or 77.6% were males
Total 2013 12,253 murder victims - of that total 9,523 or 77.7% were males
Homicide: The deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another; murder.
2011 FBI Stats
Of the 12,664 murder victims in 2011 for which supplemental data were received, most (77.6 percent) were male.
If you edit and publish - point free - it's kind of like being the King of England. It sounds nice, but nobody notices.
Jack - Obviously you are too damn analytical - but of course you're right. The thing I like about that little 'mind blower' is it proves things are not always as they seem - like a lot of statistics. It all depends on how you present it. A joke came out of the Cold War days of yore. It described how one-sided the news out of Russia was presented. Goes like this: "An American and a Russian had a race. The American won, but the Russian paper reported it as: 'Russian finishes second, American comes in next to last.'
What does any of that have to do with cops? The standard mantra is: Never believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see. Now, about that bridge I want to sell you 
Allen
PB - From my perspective I see two things. Nobody (other than a mathematician) is going to take time to dissect the arithmetic on your calculation. The other thing is, while it is interesting, it comes close to being an information dump that is probably not necessary. You might let one of your characters simply say, "this would be like looking for xxxx% of the total population", or something to that effect. However, what percent of the population a person is, is really irrelevant. When a person goes missing, the investigator/s are tasked with finding them, regardless of what percent they are to the total population. Unless of course they are trying to rationalize using the time and resources to find them. Hope that makes sense.
Otherwise all that gets very confusing. Sort of like this:
3 men go to a hotel and ask for one room to share for the night. The clerk tells them it will be $30. Each man gives him $10. Later the clerk discovers the room is actually only $25. He gives the bellhop five $1 bills and tells him to return it to the men. The bellhop realizes he can't divide it equally, so he gives each man $1, and keeps two. Now each man has paid $9. But, $9 x 3 = $27. The bellhop kept $2. $27 + $2 = $29. What happened to the other $1?
Arson
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines arson as any willful or malicious burning or attempting to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, etc.
In 2010, law enforcement agencies reported 56,825 arsons.
The slang and legal words seemed to be a little mundane, so let's try this. A bit of the weird and unusual. And, yes, this is illegal so it's something a cop might have to deal with.
Necrophilia
Necrophilia is an erotic attraction to corpses, with the most common motive cited by psychologists as the attempt to gain possession of an unresisting or non-rejecting partner. Varieties of Necrophilia: There are three basic types of "true" necrophilia:
• Necrophilic homicide, which is murder to obtain a corpse
• Regular necrophilia, the use of corpses already dead for sexual pleasure
• Necrophilic fantasy, envisioning the acts but not acting on them
In a study of 122 cases, more people fit into the second category than the other two. More than half of them worked in a morgue or some other aspect of the funeral industry.
Wow - Between JP and Jack - the only two who took a stab - all the answers were correct. But I hope everybody can refer to and use them sometime. The 'ten codes' are indeed real and nationwide. The meanings vary on some numbers, but most are standardized. The most common being 10-4. I'm not sure why, but many agencies have dropped them in favor of their own internal codes or 'signals'. Could be due to the wide use of scanners. Cops always want to keep their business secret.
The term 'book him' was seldom used due to the old Hawaii Five-O series. "Book him, Danno' got to be so cliche everybody was embarrassed to use it.
It's worth watching just to listen to the sounds of the 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback and the 1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum.
OK, JP, you made a good stab at it. I'll tell you they are not all correct, but I'll wait a couple of days in case somebody else wants to try.
OK, guys. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I’m as useless as tits on a boar hog when it comes to trivia stuff. Since we all lean toward cop and legal lingo, and it should be part of our story telling, how about this. I’ll list some terms, both slang and legal, and everybody take a stab. If you don’t know, you can look them up, and arm yourself with terms to throw out in your next chapter.
1. Acquittal
2. Affidavit
3. Bench trial
4. Burden of proof
5. Capital offense
6. Consecutive sentence
7. Felony
8. Grand jury
9. Indictment
10. Subpoena
11. Warrant
12. DOA
13. See the man
14. 10-4
15. FBI
16. AFIS
17. NCIC
18. Book him
19. Back-up
20. MVA
PB - Glad you're on board. A while back I got on my soapbox and encouraged Cop Shop members to allocate time to make reading our group's stuff primary. I figured if we don't support each other, who will? Hope you enjoy and good writing.
Allen
I just discovered you cannot send an invitation to a new person to join a Group unless you are 'connected'. Could the being 'connected' requirement be dropped? A person may not want to be 'connected' personally but might enjoy the Group.
I don't recall reading anything about it (could be I simply overlooked it), but what happened to the old site requirement that an author had to at least acknowledge a review before being able to post something new? Did that go by the wayside, or is it an oversight?
I read about the new book on the Internet today. I loved Mockingbird, but honestly didn't know it was her only published novel. I was fascinated to read that this 'new' book was actually written first. But, her publisher was so taken with the flash-backs in it, he encouraged her to write a book focused on her younger years, so she abandoned this one and wrote Mockingbird. Can you imagine writing one book, having it published, garnering a Pulitzer Prize, having it made into a academy award winning movie, selling over 30 million copies and continues to sell over 1 million a year, and 50+ years later still having it called the iconic American novel of the 20th century.
The other thing that blew my mind was after all that, the publisher let the original (her now 'new' book) languish for all these years without publishing it. Go figure. Another reason I hate publishers.
JP - Sec.7.02 is about conspiracy (acting in collusion with others). You say:
You are responsible for someone else’s criminal act if:
a.
(1) You committed a crime and took the kids or a mentally handicapped individual along on the job - Not exactly - what it's getting at is that you convinced one of those persons to do it or to participate, not necessarily someone who simply stood in the corner picking their nose or drooling. Depending on how mentally handicapped or young they are would open the door to a defense of mental culpability for them.
(2) You talked somebody else into doing the job for you - Yes - you could be charged
(3) You knew what they had in mind, you should have stopped them from pulling the job, and you didn’t even try - Yes, but, a DA would need to know how much you knew and why you didn't try to prevent it, i.e. you overheard some guys talking about it - probably not. If you sat in the room and brought pizza and cold beer to them while they planned it - maybe so.
b. You planned to rob a bank, one of your gang killed the guard, so now you’re all guilty of murder - Yes
If you want to do some light reading you might visit: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/?link=PE
JP - Jack is mostly right on with his definitions. The terms are not left to interpretation, they are very specific, but the laws differ by state. All I have any working knowledge of is of course Texas. And, as I told Jack a few days ago, this is the center of the universe.
In 1973 Texas did away with the accessory stuff. If you are involved in any capacity, you are charged as a principal. Also, if you assist (aid/abet) you can be charged as a principal.
Here's the actual statute covering conspiracy.
Sec. 7.02. CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONDUCT OF ANOTHER. (a) A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if:
(1) acting with the kind of culpability required for the offense, he causes or aids an innocent or nonresponsible person to engage in conduct prohibited by the definition of the offense;
(2) acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense; or
(3) having a legal duty to prevent commission of the offense and acting with intent to promote or assist its commission, he fails to make a reasonable effort to prevent commission of the offense.
(b) If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.
Since I've been reflecting on the state of my life and times lately, I couldn't help but respond. I force myself out of bed no later than ten-ish, spend the next two hours or so with coffee and my first cigar while I catch up on all the world events, then eat something. I try to read and review much as possible, do some writing, and deal with the occasional 'honey-do' my wife, who's 20 years younger, has for me while she's at the hospital pursuing becoming a doctor. For those of you who still have a real life, let me assure you that all this 'spare' time does not translate into writing excellence, or make it any easier. It's still a challenge, and believing lots of free time is what's holding you back is an illusion.
Mike - Glad to have you on board. You say you are 'back', which made me look at your portfolio to see what you've posted. I only found two items, both posted today. One was simply a 'test' post, the other a short story called 'Him'. I tried to open it but got the following message:
"Not Authorized
Please connect with mikejackson1127 using the Connect button on their profile page to gain access to this content."
Do you intentionally have it blocked or restricted on who can read it, or is that a glitch?
One last question. Your profile page says you've been a member since March 2013. I would almost bet money I've read your work but can't find any trace of it, even on the old site ( http://old.thenextbigwriter.com/index.html ). What happened to your stuff, or am I delusional?
Allen
I want to throw out a couple of things for the members to chew on.
First - we're a relatively small group, but we've declared our interest in a common theme. Idealistically I would like to think we would make work from our own group a primary reading focus, at least for the stories that fall in our preferred genres. I'm guilty of not doing it, and I know for sure I haven't been the recipient. Maybe that's because the story is terrible and no one can bear to fight through it, but then again, that's what we're working to improve, and we can't do it without feedback.
Second -Would you consider doing away with the points requirement for posting in our group? Obviously we'd like for everyone to read our stuff, so most (at least me) want to post to the broadest audience, which translates to the Premium Group. But, by doing that we bypass putting our work in front of Cop Shop members, unless we want to spend double points to post.
Unless there's something I'm missing, I don't see the benefit in paying double to post, other than achieving what I mention. Seems like a high price when making posting free would solve the problem.
Allen
Under the box showing the entries, this statement appears: '*This page lists the postings with public participation entered in the contest. Other work with private participation may compete in this contest.' What does the second sentence mean? What is 'private participation?
Thanks for getting back - I was checking for a co-writer who is thinking she may have to end her membership due to price increase. I'll let her know.
Did I read somewhere/sometime that if a person was a 'Premium' member when the new site became active that the annual membership renewal cost would remain the same and not go up to the new price?
JP - The town I grew up in had a pop of about 900 during that time. The town grew a little through the years, but when I left after high school, the FD was pretty much the same as it was in the fifties.
The FD was all volunteer - no one was paid. The chief was elected by the group. Usually a local business proprietor who could get to the station in a hurry and get the first truck rolling.
They had 2 trucks - I think they were called pumpers because they only carried a small reservoir of water on board and were forced to connect to a fire hydrant to fight a fire. If it was out in the country, they used what they had and returned to town for a refill, or they could pump from a stock pond if one was nearby.
When there was a fire, a siren mounted on the highest rung of the water tower sounded and everyone in hearing distance gathered at the station and off they went. They conducted a training session about once a month and those who attended put the letter 'P' (for present) next to their name on a big board. It was a standing joke about who 'peed' on the board.
Most calls were grass fires and with the help of the community they usually put it out before it got out of hand. If it was a house, kiss it goodbye. If it was a building, they called for help from the nearest town. It usually burned to the ground. Other than being moderately mechanized, the entire operation was not a lot different than the way fire was fought at the turn of the century. Of course if you were lucky, you could ride on the firetruck during the annual 4th of July parade.
This has probably been covered somewhere, but I have no way of knowing or searching. What is the relationship between TNBW and Booksie, if any. How do they differ?
