My numbers are rough because I don’t have access to all the information I need to be able to say these are hard numbers, but they are pretty good.

In New York you’re twice as likely to be murdered if you’re black. (That’s the figure that’s rough.) However, for the United States overall in 2005, the number of blacks and whites being murdered was pretty equal (that doesn’t sound right).

In New York if you’re black, your murder case is four times as likely to go cold. (That figure is a lot less rough.) It looks like the same is true for asians in New York, but sometimes asians and caucasions were not broken out so I am still working on that one.

Oh my god. There’s an article in today’s USA Today about DNA hits that law enforcement didn’t pursue.

From the article. ” … a USA TODAY investigation found almost three dozen cases during the past five years — including a rape in Virginia — in which investigators failed to pursue potential suspects whose DNA matched evidence found at crime scenes.”

On the West Yorkshire Police website, there is only this stark announcement:

Monday, November 7, 2006

This is an update in connection with the death of eleven-year-old Lesley Molseed whose body was found in Rippenden in October 1975.

A 53-year-old man has been charged with murder and is due to appear at Calderdale Magistrates Court on Tuesday, November 7, 2006.

But then you go here and get the whole sad story.

“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!