“It’s not just about taking this old case off the shelf,” says Andy Rosenzweig, director of Cold Case Forum in Newport, RI. “It’s about what are they doing now.” That’s a quote from this article about a possible new cold case unit in Rhode Island.

The picture is of Col. Dean M. Esserman, the Providence police chief. Interesting guy. I found this bio on the Vera Institute of Justice website:

Dean M. Esserman (2005) is chief of police of the Providence Police Department and one of only a handful of federally appointed police monitors in the nation. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Police Executive Research Forum, a policing think tank. From 1998 to 2001, he led the Stamford, Connecticut, Police Department as its chief; and from 1993 to 1998, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Metro North Police Department in New York as its chief. He was assistant chief of police in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1991 to 1993 and counsel to Chief William Bratton of the New York City Transit Police from 1987 to 1991. He began his career as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York.

Quite the achiever!

New York Magazine has an article about the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad this week called Stiffed: How the NYPD’s elite Cold Case Squad, which investigates long-unsolved crimes, is falling victim to a slow bureaucratic death, by Janelle Nanos.

This is a picture of the front of the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library, where you no longer have to go to get certain information (although it’s a beautiful place, and you might want to go there anyway). I guess I’m old enough that it still amazes me how much information is available online.

Crime reports are available everywhere. For instance, every state has an attorney general, and a number of police departments, and they are publishing information online all the time. I just googled Maryland and got this:

Maryland State Police. The link to cold cases is on the left.
Maryland Attorney General publications.

But there are endless reports out there. They are useful for the public, they are useful for law enforcement to educate themselves about their field. This is just the tiniest sample.

United States Department of Justice publications.
Bureau of Justice statistics publications.
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services publications.
The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services also publishes information about their DNA databank. This is interesting to look at to see how many DNA samples are being collected and how many hits they are getting from those samples.

Of course there is still a vast amount of valuable information available in libraries. I just found that homicide reports for 1893-1947 for the New Orlean Police Department are in the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. They also have the witnesses statements.

I just read that retired Detective 1st Grade John Reilly died on October 16th. Reilly worked for the NYPD from 1955 – 1974. I never met him, we only emailed, but he helped me a lot with New York Police Department history when I was writing The Restless Sleep. The last time we emailed he told me that he was working on a book about old Police Department station houses. I don’t have a picture of him so I’m putting up one of the pictures from his collection. This is of the site of original 9th Precinct, 79 1st Avenue, around 1939. I got it from Police NY where there are many other photographs from his collection.

I learned from retired sergeant Mike Bosak’s daily email that Reilly was the one who worked with Boask researching every member of the Police Department who ever died in the line of duty so that they could be added to the memorial wall at Battery Park.

As an amateur historian, and mostly as a fellow human being who appreciates the effort to make sure that people and their contributions to the world are not forgotten, thank you for your service and your contributions, John Reilly. And may you rest in peace.