![]() The locals came out of their houses to watch. ![]() He fought hard, and we slammed into a low wall, the edge cracking a couple of my ribs. Instinctively I stopped him for a “chat.” He was fine until I told him I intended to search him, then he resisted and produced a handgun (rare in England, but not unknown – it’s usually knives). ![]() I shouted up on my covert radio, but there was no reply or signal. I got called away and, on my return alone, saw three young guys walking toward me, one matching the description of the offender. My team did some covert observations in the area where we thought the suspect would strike next. A low life was targeting and breaking into the houses of elderly people. The quick rise of technology is exemplified in an incident that occurred to me slightly later in the 1990s. Personal radios were dodgy, and you couldn’t always get a signal. The fact that there were no cellphones in the 1980s meant that when you turned up at a scene you were the decision-maker without detailed recourse to anyone senior. The author pictured at training school graduation in 1982. The real offender, Colin Pitchfork, remained at large, and tried to evade capture by paying a co-worker, Ian Kelly, to pose as him giving a sample while purporting to be Pitchfork. A suspect, Richard Buckland, was taken into custody for the crime. The investigation saw all the men in the village “voluntarily” give a sample that was broken down to DNA profiles for comparison of evidence left at the scene. Two girls had been murdered in Narborough, Leicestershire, in 19. The first use in a major criminal case was in England. DNA profilingĭNA profiling was in its infancy in the 1980s. Today, it is one of the first things we consider in an investigation in the 1980s, less so. In one of my books, a young trainee asks, “What’s CCTV?” There are now reportedly 6 million CCTV cameras in the UK, and an estimated 30 million in the United States. In the late 1980s, CCTV was a new thing – only a handful of private companies had it, and the British government was holding trials at some government buildings. How the ‘90s changed the future of law enforcement
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