Someone recently asked me how many detectives are in the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad. There are now only nine. There were twenty-seven when I wrote my book and I was told that there were around fifty when the unit started (although there are 40 in the early group shot below, minus the commanding officers).

The NYPD’s Cold Case Squad was once the largest in the country (probably in the world, but I didn’t call around to confirm that). The next largest squad was in Los Angeles and they had seven detectives.

But the LAPD’s Cold Case Homicide Unit is now up to 13. Other substantial squads are in Miami and Boston, and they do not have more than 13. So as far as I know, the LAPD now has the largest cold case squad in the country.

I’ve been cringing ever since the story broke alleging that the NYPD is basically doing what they can to make their crime stats appear better than they are. Leonard Levitt makes some interesting points about it in his September 6th post on his blog (that link will always take you to the current post so you may have to scroll back to see the one from September 6th).

There is no doubt crime is down, but given the tremendous pressure to keep crime down and to keep it going down every year, and many other factors (some mentioned by Levitt) this mess was almost inevitable. I cringe because, well, I have a sense of what is probably going on behind the scenes.

It’s been a bad patch of crime news. A recent article in the New York Times about the FBI’s Civil Rights Cold Case initiative was filled with disheartening news.

(The picture by Erik Lesser is from the Times article.)

I wanted to post a link to an article by Kirk Mitchell in The Denver Post titled: Lured by cold cases, retired detectives go back on the beat. The picture below is from the article and the caption reads:

Once-retired Lakewood Police Department homicide Detective Alex Jameson stands next to files on 22 cold-case homicides. Familiar with many of the cases, Jameson works part time and enjoys being back on the job. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post).

The article also includes a link to another article about some of Denver’s cold cases.

As of January 16, 2007 there were 9,082 unsolved murders in New York since 1985. To get an estimate of the current total I added up the murders from 2007 – 2009 (2007: 496, 2008: 523, 2009: 471) and then using the most optimistic clearance rates (67%) the current number of unsolved murders in New York since 1985 would be 9,574. (Nationally, 36.4% of all murders go unsolved as of the latest data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports).

I noticed an amazing fact while I was browsing the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports—in 2008 there were more white murder victims than black. Figures for 2009 haven’t been released yet, but I believe this might be the first year where there were more white victims.