In this Sum it Up we focus on help to identify the unidentified that is coming from a new direction. “The computed tomography scanning machines at Inova Alexandria Hospital are typically used to diagnose strokes, blood clots and other internal injuries. But recently the hospital utilized its CT scanners for an unconventional purpose: to examine the skulls of deceased children who have gone unidentified for years.”
CT scans are an excellent tool to make a digital image from a skull especially when the skull is in extreme fragile state and should not be handled. One forensic artist who uses CT scans is Joe Mullins. “He uses Adobe Photoshop to reconstruct what the victim looked like, building virtual layers of muscle and skin based on the person’s presumed ancestry and age. A technology called FreeForm modeling allows him to feel the work he’s doing on the computer screen as if it were clay, via a joystick like arm called a Phantom.” Read more here.
For more on forensic artists, tune in for #cclivechat on September 16 when Ken Lang is our guest!
Exciting news from New Zealand: “Jurors will now be able to take a virtual walk through a murder scene, with the creation of interactive software by Kiwi scientists. With the click of a mouse, observers can tour a site, moving through rooms, zooming in on weapons and blood spatters, and learning just whose DNA has been discovered where.” Read more here.
The state of New Hampshire wants you to know it has not forgotten its victims from unsolved homicides. Authorities are checking tips and have found that using a website that includes a victim lists, has helped generate even more tips. That story can be found here.
Of course, the past few days my thoughts were in London. Luckily, most of my friends checked back in and everyone seems to be alright. The riots’ origin is for some the death of Mark Duggan. Duggan was shot to death by police during his arrest. Did the peaceful protest result in the riots and the looting or, was there more going on?
The BBC posted an interesting read about how exactly protesters turned into looters. In short, the protests brought out leaders and the powerless felt empowered as the peaceful protests turned into more action oriented movements. The results is that people in a sense shed their individuality with their own standards of normalcy, integrity and respect for others and they turned into a de-individualized crowd. Those who emerged as leaders do not actively have to lead. Their determination is being sensed and picked up by others. If those perceived to be leaders run into one direction, the majority will follow. A minority may go in the opposite direction but will eventually join the others. The crowd starts to bond and turns into a group with values, an opinion, and a sense of what they deem right and wrong. This is accompanied by an enormous energy that is so powerful that people who would normally never consider taking what isn’t theirs, start to see that slight discrepancies are deemed normal by the group. Even if they doubt whether this is right, they eventually join the group. This signals a new “normalcy” and after a while, it is adopted by the group. So now we have collective behaviour.
Please do not mistake this for a social movement. A social movement is a group of individuals brought together to attempt to change society by presenting their cause in an organized manner to society. An example is people fighting for animal rights. They have a common goal, wish to educate society and ideally, change society. To achieve that, they get organized. There is however, no collective behaviour. There is a common goal but how to reach that goal hinges on how well all these individuals can work together. Their team work is not collective behaviour either because when asked, they all had their own individual input in the ultimate strategy that the group adopted.
Back to the looters.
We have a new normalcy and the acceptance of the normalcy makes the group behave according to the contagion theory from Gustave LeBon. The contagion theory means that individuality gets lost and the collective mind takes over. Read the book “The Crowd; a study of the popular mind” to find out more: “their conscious personality vanishes … a collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory … the gathering becomes an organized crowd … it forms a single being and is subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds.” Make no mistake, this crowd does have a mentality, sentiment, and even morality.
Not all the people in the crowd will at the end of the evening sit back and wonder what made them do what they’d never phantom they could. Some had made it known all along that if the opportunity would present itself, they would grab it and with that action show government how they feel. Others, with a less strong determination to make a point, allowed their opportunistic behaviour to emerge. They feel the empowerment in the group. The “free stuff” (as some have labelled the stolen property) is not just a bonus but a confirmation to some what it took to possess such an item.
I think that we saw three waves: the peaceful protesters’ actions became energized and allowed some leaders to emerge. Those leaders had their own motives. To make a point in this case or, to make a point in general. And they were joined by those who saw an opportunity to just grab and take whatever they could.
A very sad situation that did far more damage than people realize. Just look at these before and after photographs. The monetary damage is enormous but can be managed. However, the shattering of trust in the community may not heal.