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.

Once again I heard the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” In reality, men seem to have a harder time handling rejection. Although there are indications that homicide by strangers is increasing and homicide by intimates is decreasing, (why, I wonder? What does it mean?) here are the facts.

From the U.S. Department of Justice/Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004 (the most recent they had):

Percent of homicide victims by Intimate:
Male, 5.3%. Female. 30.1%.

Percent of homicide victims by Spouse:
Male, 3.2. Female, 18.4.

Percent of homicide victims by Ex-spouse:
Male, 0.2. Female, 1.4.

Percent of homicide victims by Boyfriend/Girlfriend:
Male, 1.9, Female, 10.3.

From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, 2005:

Total murder victims: 14,860
Husband: 135
Wife: 594

Actually, we don’t know the motivation for these murders, whether it was rejection or some other issue. All we can say really, is that men get murderously furious more often than women. I wonder if there is data by gender for restraining orders? That might provide a better indication about which gender has more of a problem accepting a break-up.