Scared? Good!
You're probably having your assumptions challenged.
How would you prepare to speak with someone who violently killed their mother? Would you steel yourself for a certain type of person? Prepare to be met with a cool sort of degradation?
How about threat assessment? Can you assume standard procedures and your own proven methodology will work simply because you know, at times, they have?
Assumptions, you see, are always a dangerous thing in an investigation.
Act I: Sarah, Killer Investigator
No, not a play on words but the real deal. Sarah is a volunteer investigator who works with us and occasionally nudges me when I need to be reminded how to pronounce ‘fuhgetaboutit’ properly.
I trust Sarah when it comes to assessing an investigation. Not only because she’s deeply experienced and good at her job, but because she’s got that knack for questioning everything.
Me, herself, police, criminals. She’s endlessly questioning and diligent as all hell.
Now, the thing about me, in particular, is that I always assume I am wrong, about everything. If I publish ten words on something? I’ve read many more, adjusted, readjusted, checked and double-checked. I beg people to eviscerate and challenge my work.
I schedule post-mortems. I request transcripts.
And still, I fuck up all the time, privately, beyond the gaze of my colleagues and my clients. Then I fix it, and I start over from the top.
Repeat the process. Challenge assumptions. Fill gaps.
Repeat until I feel some comfort in my work.
Which is why we introduce Sarah in this particular part of the story.
A threat was emailed to a client, and I was asked to quickly and quietly discover the person who sent it.
I took the selectors down. I timelined. I used my usual methods and I applied them at high speed.
Ya know, I did the things.
I ran the searches—thank you so much, Skopenow, for all the support. We really, truly appreciate it!
Bingo, I got my guy. Everything matches the details of the threat and the selectors, so I start writing as fast as I can.
I crank out a quick summarized report, drive the important elements from pictures, locations, etc., into the report, and prepare to send it.
As I do one final glance over my email, an uneasy feeling settles over me.
My finger hovers over the send button as I stare at the finished report on my other monitor.
Why do I feel so gross all of a sudden?
I withdraw my finger from the mouse and chew the end of my pen.
It is not uncommon for me to get cold feet before delivering a report. I still have my guts in knots before delivering something to a client, and I’ve been delivering as a consultant off and on for 20 years.
There’s an entire dance I perform on one foot while riding an imaginary rollercoaster that will certainly go off the tracks, along with my career.
Neurodivergence, skepticism and anxiety, baby. It’s a hell of a thing.
Long story short: I never, ever, ever just click send.
Part of the dance, I’ve learned, is trying to sense whether I have anything else gnawing at me that needs to be addressed. People’s lives are on the line, and margins for error are pretty slim when there’s a likelihood of a SWAT team being deployed, as there could be in this case.
“Fuck,” I stand up, spinning away from my desk, snagging my water bottle in one hand and my “PROTECT TRANS KIDS, OR I’M GONNA IDENTIFY AS A PROBLEM” coffee cup in the other.
Should you be cool as fuck, you can get one too, or you can buy all kinds of other great merch to help support the National Center for Transgender Equality, like I did.
A moment later, I’m standing in my kitchen, one floor below my office, making my best attempt at an in-between-a-pee-and-a-coffee-break-yoga session as I keep turning the report and its details over in my head.
“I have to turn this thing in, for fuck sakes, this was a serious threat and folks are expecting it sooner rather than dead,” I think to myself.
What was I missing? Everything checked out. Their history, their location, their background.
What assumptions have I made?
My mind starts racing backward through the details of the threat, front to back, front to back.
The dread is growing because if I continue to vacillate, I know what will happen: I’ll either waste precious time or, worse, commit the sin I fight against all the time and accuse the wrong person.
But, I ran my process? I don’t get it.
Ok.
My process. That is what it is.
I grab my phone from my worn Puma sweatpants and ping Sarah.
“Sarah, a threat came in. I worked this guy up. Here are the details, here are my findings. I am just so positive I am wrong. I can’t submit this report. Can you please look at this for me?” I quickly tap the message out to her over Signal and slip my finished coffee out of the machine before heading for the stairs.
“Hold my Bloody Mary,” she responds, confused about why I think I am wrong, and eager to help. I, being exceedingly neurodivergent, am confused about how I’m going to hold her Bloody Mary but I know my role here and just virtually nod instead, head for a dark bathroom and start chanting.
My process. That was my assumption, and I made it early in the investigation.
My usual process is methodical and slow. I had not designed a process or systematic way to address this specific type of case and in this particular locale.
By relying on the assumption that I could use my “usual” process of weaving forward and backward, filling gaps, fixing problems, and addressing verification issues, I had forgotten about one critical element—time.
I didn’t have time for my “usual” process. It was an assumption that meant when I had to ship, I hadn’t actually run my process at all.
Which means if I didn’t run my process? I didn’t have any process.
I had made a mistake.
And Sarah caught it.
Something that tightens my throat and makes my eyes well just thinking about it to this day.
Thank God for Sarah's patience in pointing out the fork in the road where I went left when I should have gone right, and for verifying the path forward and backward.
And got the right guy this time. In the end, we did have to take more time, but everything turned out fine without any need for forced intervention.
It begs repeating—
Assumptions, you see, are always a dangerous thing in an investigation.
Act II: A Difficult Conversation
How do you begin a conversation with someone who brutally murdered their mother and disposed of her body?
… it’s another Monday at work. Threat reports complete, life moving on, world spinning—new complexities, delivered. I’m rhythmically tapping my pen against my desk, channelling John Bonham like he himself will come back and save me from this uncomfortable situation I find myself in.
How do you begin a conversation with someone who opened up a man’s neck with a box cutter and just laid down on the ground, waiting for guards to arrive?
… now the pen-desk drumming is falling into When The Levee Breaks because it always seems to find its way to that song, as one should.
Flipping through papers and prison documents, interviews, statements from guards, the various C-Files, or Central Files that CDCR maintains on their prisoners.
My eyes just glance over them at this point. I know what’s in them. I’m somewhat disgusted at myself that I have pulled them out like a security blanket that will shield me from this incoming call.
This guy was violent, mean. I know violence and meanness. But this, this was different.
I didn’t know who he knew on the outside, but he knew people I knew on the inside, and I worried about them if this call went poorly. I was professionally, but inextricably, part of a network I couldn’t really contain from here. I could be held responsible for things far beyond my control.
This man was frightening enough that his mere presence in our guy’s cell, an inmate we advocate and care for posthumously, created a documentation trail and video interviews that led me to this moment of anxious drumming.
…*tap tap tap* now my feet join in.
But I need to talk to him because he did spend time with our guy.
…*tap tap tap*…. fuck I wish I could play harmonica like Robert Plant.
I stop as my phone vibrates, snapping me out of my now-wandering thoughts about music.
I recognize the Sacramento, California number for CDCR.
Here we go.
“Pshew,” I exhale loudly and slide the toggle to accept the call, adjusting my headphones and spinning my pen in my fingers, right-side-up.
Now, the other part of dealing with someone who has a history? One of the worst mistakes you can make is assuming that their history is their present.
It can be fatal.
Assumptions, you see—you guessed it, didn’t you?—are always a dangerous thing in an investigation.
You could be making assumptions about someone you end up having quite a lot in common with.
His name is Matt, by the way.