{"id":28357,"date":"2023-01-06T23:30:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T23:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/06\/propublica-exposes-even-more-cop-junk-science-using-911-calls-to-determine-if-people-are-lying\/"},"modified":"2023-01-06T23:30:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T23:30:21","slug":"propublica-exposes-even-more-cop-junk-science-using-911-calls-to-determine-if-people-are-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/06\/propublica-exposes-even-more-cop-junk-science-using-911-calls-to-determine-if-people-are-lying\/","title":{"rendered":"ProPublica Exposes Even More Cop Junk Science: Using 911 Calls To Determine If People Are Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"

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from the let’s-play-pretend-but-with-people’s-lives<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

Cops like science. Not in the way that say, scientists<\/em> like science. They just like science-y<\/a> sounding mumbo jumbo<\/a> that paves the way for criminal convictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And, sure, maybe you\u2019re thinking this only applies to backwoods agencies that prefer to use a combination of Aunt Cleo<\/a> and questionable testimony to lock people up. But it\u2019s not just low-tech, underfunded departments<\/a> with few investigative options<\/a>. It\u2019s also the DOJ<\/a> and the FBI, both of which<\/a> have continued<\/a> to support forensic junk science<\/a> despite admitting the science isn\u2019t solid and that their \u201cexpert\u201d witnesses have routinely misrepresented<\/a> the accuracy of their findings.<\/p>\n

Anybody who claims they can tell someone is lying<\/a> or is otherwise suspicious<\/a> just by watching or talking to them for a few minutes is lying to themselves, if not to jurors and judges. Claimed characteristics of suspected criminals overlap common human behavior so much that the Venn diagram is a single circle. A successful cop guess isn\u2019t something that should be backdated as \u201cbehavioral detection.\u201d Winning on a roll of the dice does happen. That it happens isn\u2019t the result of anything the dice roller did. <\/p>\n

And yet, cops continue to pay for the opportunity (with tax dollars obv) to be talked into believing their instincts are not only correct, but backed by actual science. The market for preaching to the converted \u2014 as well as those willing to convert \u2014 is immense. Cops who think they can actually distinguish one pair of mass-produced jeans<\/a> from another pair simply by staring at low-quality CCTV footage are pretty much willing to believe anything. And they\u2019re willing to use tax dollars to pretend their wild ass guesses are backed by science.<\/p>\n

More junk science is upon us, wielded by people with the power to end lives and deprive people of their freedom. This latest report comes to us from ProPublica, which uncovered certain law enforcement agencies\u2019 reliance on speculative fiction (i.e. \u201cforensic science\u201d) to convert writing samples pulled from statements to police into admissible evidence \u2014 despite there being no evidence (IRONY!) this was any more accurate than tossing coins to determine guilt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you think looking at people\u2019s written statements is a stupid way to determine whether someone\u2019s lying, just wait for this one. According to this ProPublica report by Brett Murphy<\/a>, one person (and his law enforcement students) are convinced they can establish guilt by cherry-picking words and phrases from 911 calls. <\/p>\n

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Tracy Harpster, a deputy police chief from suburban Dayton, Ohio, was hunting for praise. He had a business to promote: a miracle method to determine when 911 callers are actually guilty of the crimes they are reporting. \u201cI know what a guilty father, mother or boyfriend sounds like,\u201d he once said<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Harpster tells police and prosecutors around the country that they can do the same. Such linguistic detection is possible, he claims, if you know how to analyze callers\u2019 speech patterns \u2014 their tone of voice, their pauses, their word choice, even their grammar. Stripped of its context, a misplaced word as innocuous as \u201chi\u201d or \u201cplease\u201d or \u201csomebody\u201d can reveal a murderer on the phone<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Welcome to Premiseville, USA, where all the points are made up and actual science doesn\u2019t matter! [APPLAUSE SIGN flickers, arrested for \u201cfurtive movements\u201d] <\/p>\n[Waits for applause to die down] Well, it looks like we have a disqualification. [scattered boos]\n

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So far, researchers who have tried to corroborate Harpster\u2019s claims have failed. The experts most familiar with his work warn that it shouldn\u2019t be used to lock people up.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, to quote Socrates: \u201cDuh.\u201d This ain\u2019t science. This is someone tying a divining rod to their AMC Pacer before driving past the crime scene. The only difference is that cops didn\u2019t yell at Deputy Police Chief Tracy Harpster for disturbing the integrity of the crime scene. Far from it. Cops \u2014 including some federal cops \u2014 appear to believe he\u2019s the second coming of Columbo, capable of hearing guilt in phone calls made by extremely stressed people suffering through the worst days of their lives.<\/p>\n

Being distraught is just evidence of wrongdoing, said Harpster. Despite not actually collecting any confessions via 911 calls, Harpster pressed forward with his behavioral observation theory. And despite collecting zero support from any behavioral scientists, law enforcement began to buy in. And prosecutors who value collecting wins over actual justice offered their support.<\/p>\n

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In 2016, Missouri prosecutor Leah Askey wrote Harpster an effusive email, bluntly detailing how she skirted legal rules to exploit his methods against unwitting defendants<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course this line of research is not \u2018recognized\u2019 as a science in our state,\u201d Askey wrote, explaining that she had sidestepped hearings that would have been required to assess the method\u2019s legitimacy. She said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by \u201cgetting creative \u2026 without calling it \u2018science.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The ends (even if completely wrong) justify the means. The means are wrong, too, but it\u2019s the ends, baby! Locking people up! That\u2019s what we do. Who needs evidence when you have a deputy police chief and his ridiculous assertions about 911 calls?<\/p>\n

This prosecutor already had a wrongful conviction on her record, thanks to her reliance on Harpster\u2019s unreliable narration. But having a conviction overturned and her \u201cexpert\u201d 911 call testimony tossed didn\u2019t deter her. She took this loss and turned it into a win, glossing over the overturning while providing a blurb for Harpster\u2019s book and marketing materials.<\/p>\n

Harpster continues to claim he\u2019s just doing Law Enforcement God\u2019s Work in his promotional materials, claiming that he can tell whether or not a 911 caller is a murderer. He also claims he has \u201cpersonally consulted\u201d in 1,500 homicide investigations. Perhaps his definition of \u201cconsulting\u201d includes unreturned phone calls. Very few agencies are willing to admit they\u2019ve used Harpster\u2019s 911 tea leaves to secure convictions.<\/p>\n

ProPublica recounts \u2014 thanks to public records requests and law enforcement sources \u2014 Harpster\u2019s unlikely rise to a position of junk science prominence. Harpster may currently be a deputy police chief, but there\u2019s nothing on his record that suggests he was ever anything more than an average cop. He worked for years serving a small Ohio town of 6,500. His commendations have little to do with law enforcement work. Instead, they show he was a decent human being capable of volunteering time to help the less fortunate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good thing. More cops need to do more for their communities. But somehow, despite his lack of investigative experience or track record in closing difficult cases, Harpster became an \u201cexpert\u201d in sussing out criminal intent via 911 calls. It all appears to have started with Harpster\u2019s attendance of classes held by the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. In 2004, a regular cop named Harpster entered. Ten weeks later, he perceived himself as some sort of super-cop.<\/p>\n

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After he left the FBI Academy that winter, Harpster enrolled at the University of Cincinnati to pursue a graduate degree in criminal justice. For his master\u2019s thesis, he collected 100 recordings of 911 calls \u2014\u00a0half of the callers had been found guilty of something and the other half hadn\u2019t. Harpster believed he could analyze these calls for clues. In his thesis\u2019 acknowledgments, he said he wouldn\u2019t have started the project without Adams, \u201cthe best teacher I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Based on patterns he heard in the tapes, Harpster said he was able to identify certain indicators that correlated with guilt and others with innocence. For instance, \u201cHuh?\u201d in response to a dispatcher\u2019s question is an indicator of guilt in Harpster\u2019s system. So is an isolated \u201cplease.\u201d He identified 20 such indicators and then counted how often they appeared in his sample of guilty calls.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s what Harpster said. He attempted to publish a study on his dubious findings with an FBI behavioral scientist (John Jarvis). It never happened, which means it was never peer-reviewed. The unpublished, unvetted work, however, gained traction in the law enforcement community. The party at fault? The FBI, which sent out the unpublished, unverified quasi-study as part of a law enforcement bulletin in 2008. The FBI never noted the study had not been published or vetted.<\/p>\n

Cops assumed that if the FBI had linked to it, the study must be valid. A sheriff\u2019s department utilized the minimal information to arrest a widow for the murder of her husband, claiming her use of the words \u201cblood,\u201d \u201csomebody,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d during her 911 call indicated she had killed her spouse. The prosecutor secured a conviction using this report from the sheriff\u2019s department \u2014 one based on an unpublished study by some dude who once attended FBI classes.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to point fingers at Harpster and his Midwestern, small-town under-qualifications as a forensic 911 phone call examiner, a whole lot of blame rests with the FBI<\/a>, which apparently hasn\u2019t met a junk science it doesn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

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For more than 12 years, the nation\u2019s premier law enforcement agency helped 911 call analysis grow unabated. FBI officials at a charity fundraiser have even auctioned a copy of the book Harpster and Adams wrote about it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After twelve years of treating Harpster\u2019s unproven assumptions as actual science, the FBI finally decided to apply a bit of the old scientific method. What it discovered was that Harpster\u2019s 911 call theories were unscientific garbage \u2014 something it could have easily ascertained more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

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[The FBI] ended up warning against using that research to bring actual cases. The indicators were so inconsistent, the experts said, that some went \u201cin the opposite direction of what was previously found.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This fall, a separate group of FBI experts in the same unit tested Harpster\u2019s model, this time in missing child cases. Again,\u00a0their findings<\/a>\u00a0contradicted his, so much so that they said applying 911 call analysis in real life \u201cmay exacerbate bias.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The FBI, with its billions in funding, arrived with too little far too late. Damage has already been done. Prosecutors and cops relying on this so-called \u201cevidence\u201d were unlikely to reexamine cases based on 911 call evidence. The FBI, meanwhile, has never bothered to do anything more than suggest more research is needed. No one from the agency has contacted Harpster to tell him the stuff he peddles to cop shops isn\u2019t worth the paper local copy shops are charging him to produce brochures.<\/p>\n

The last thing the FBI said publicly about Harpster\u2019s voodoo logic continues to help cops lock up possibly innocent people.<\/p>\n

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Days after the arrest, he sent an email to Harpster, thanking him for analyzing Benning\u2019s 911 calls. \u201cIt significantly helped our district attorney to realize the indicators of guilt in the phone calls,\u201d Gibbons wrote, \u201cas well as suggestions on how to introduce the 911 calls to the jury during trial.\u201d He alluded to other forensic experts but said Harpster\u2019s consultation was \u201cinstrumental in swaying the prosecutor to file charges.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

[The Santa Ana PD detective] said he didn\u2019t just find out about Harpster by chance: The FBI\u2019s Behavioral Analysis Unit recommended him. Gibbons\u2019 email came two years after the bureau\u2019s own experts in that same division first publicly warned law enforcement not to use 911 call analysis in actual cases.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Harpster has no scientific leg to stand on. And that\u2019s according to the FBI, which has long given junk science and faux scientists a long leash. Yet, Harpster continues to stand sturdily on his remaining pseudoscientific, hunch-abetting leg. He\u2019s a tireless contributor to law enforcement investigations\u2026 even though he does not possess a single qualification that would make him worthy of law enforcement time, funds, or attention.<\/p>\n

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Harpster makes himself available day and night to take phone calls from police and prosecutors looking to validate a hunch or strategize for trial. He once hosted a former student from Florida at his lakeside vacation house in Michigan, where he claimed on his Facebook page that they \u201csolved a murder.\u201d Last year, a detective called him for input while standing over someone\u2019s body at a crime scene.<\/em><\/p>\n

Police often email him 911 tapes for consultations \u2014 men and women wailing on the phone as they plead with the dispatcher to save a loved one. Sometimes it\u2019s a parent holding a dead child. In one case, Harpster listened to an Ohio mother\u2019s desperate call for help and then wrote back, simply, \u201cCall me. \u2026 DIRTY!!!!\u201d The mother was not charged.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Keep this uncomfortable (for several reasons) fact in mind: violations of constitutional rights are crimes. That most may be handled in civil cases does not mean illegally convicting or incarcerating people isn\u2019t criminal activity. If Harpster was showing people how to avoid law enforcement attention while distributing drugs, he\u2019d be rung up on RICO charges. But somehow aiding and abetting law enforcement in violating rights isn\u2019t considered worthy of criminal conspiracy charges, even if the end result is plenty of illegal activity by cops and prosecutors.<\/p>\n

How does no one in law enforcement question testimonials like this these?<\/p>\n

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A police chief in Michigan said Harpster\u2019s class paid off immediately after a man called 911 and said he had just found his mother and sister dead. \u201cHe made the mistake of saying \u2018I need help,\u2019\u201d the chief explained.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What the actual fuck. A police chief claiming someone saying \u201cI need help\u201d while accessing the ne plus ultra<\/em> of help lines is evidence of criminal intent should be greeted with riotous laughter. Instead, it\u2019s just another feather in the cap of a guy who thinks he can hear lies through crackling phone lines during incidents nearly every private citizen is ill-equipped to handle.<\/p>\n

Read the whole report. It will make you want to carve your spleen out and convert it into zealous defense lawyers and firebombs. Cops don\u2019t care. Prosecutors don\u2019t care. Some random dude attended some courses at the FBI and wandered out of them with a headful of bad ideas. And these bad ideas were propagated by the FBI, which only realized its error more than a decade later. At that point it was too late. The damage was done. And, with a decade of full support for some random cop and his \u201cI can hear lies\u201d theories, the FBI\u2019s carelessness continues to do damage. Cops take the FBI\u2019s word as gospel, even when it\u2019s clearly horseshit. The only thing a cop trusts is another cop. So, when cops are wrong, cops will be the last to believe it. And while they come around to the uncomfortable truth, people\u2019s lives will be ruined.<\/p>\n

\nFiled Under: 911<\/a>, fbi<\/a>, junk science<\/a>, lie detector<\/a>, tracy harpster<\/a>
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