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Observations
	Analyzing MPD's crime analyst (Published September 7, 2004) By CARRIE DEVORAH

When Ray Wickline was working on tactical approaches to crime solving, he used to brainstorm in his office with his lava lamp lighted, sitting in front of him. People would ask how he figured out a crime. Deadpan, he would look at them in his mystic guru aura and say, "My lava lamp told me."

If they stuck around long enough, he would clarify that he solved crimes with gut and intuition, two of the three scientific methods he relies on."A lot of the job is intuition," says Wickline. The third is science itself. "If the gut feeling doesn’t point me in the right direction, if the information isn’t there, I won’t have the conviction behind the science," Wickline says.Wickline is a natural-born crime analyst, one of those people whose job becomes him. Crime, so to speak, runs in his family. Wickline’s uncle retired from the Norfolk, Va., police department. When the opportunity came along for Wickline to combine his graduate degree in mathematics with computers, something he grew up around with his father being a computer technician, along with his uncle’s career, he jumped at the Roswell police department’s offer to replace its crime analyst."It had a nice-sized department with about 100 officers," Wickline says of that position, where he said the person he replaced wasn’t really doing much beyond compiling FBI Uniform Crime Report stats.Roswell was a far cry from where Wickline sits today, as the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime analysis supervisor, at police headquarters. MPD’s central crime analysis unit was organized about five years ago under the Office of Organizational Development. The crime analysis room is large, filled with desks, computers. Far in the back, to the right, is Wickline’s office. It is obvious an analyst is working there. "Crime analyst" is embroidered on his polo shirt.Crime analysis is the modern version of paperback gumshoes, figuring crimes out from clues laid on paper, in pictures and in print. Wickline’s job is to put pieces of the crime puzzle together, an adult version of the children’s game Memory – picking up one card, then returning it to its place, then remembering where that piece was put down when its match is found. Accuracy is integral to Wickline’s job. When Wickline establishes that the crime is a series, a one-of, or a pattern, he briefs his officers as to where the criminal or crime might appear next. Wickline, in his quarterbacking role, shares information on a confidential basis with crime analysts from neighboring jurisdictions.Wickline’s staff looks, but not on a day-to-day basis, at terrorism. They work with the information they get. "In time," Wickline says, "it will be easier to integrate terrorists specific data into a working system." MPD is working with the FBI, homeland security, the new national database and other things. They do not have someone dedicated specifically to it. They do share information when they get it.Wickline says he shares concern over the D.C. government’s recent decision to put everyone on the same computer server. There are official department backups for primary systems and personal backup for email communications. "Before 9/11, you worried about computer systems with computer files, about computers crashing. After 9/11 you have to start thinking about the building crashing," he says. "We actually looked at it and said we need to have something, assuming the personnel get out to another place and do the job. All data is backed up daily." Crime analysts need public cooperation to do their work. Wickline recommends that the public assist the police with crime – take time to tape record an event, write it down, anything you can do to capture those details as soon as possible before exchanging information with other witnesses.Wickline’s favorite story explaining "what is a crime" is his uncle’s experience. A hysterical woman called police, claiming she was robbed by a man who sold her bad dope. Wickline laughed, because it is the officer’s decision if a crime has been committed. The next step is calling dispatch. The officer takes a written narrative from the witnesses after the crime report number, CCN, is assigned. The written report is turned over for supervisory review, assuring all items are complete and correct. The reports are abbreviated into electronic transcriptions that make their way to Wickline at the end of each day. Interpretation of officers’ reports, into their own story by persons doing data entry, does skew crime solving, Wickline admits, a habit he is working very hard to break. Skewed information can prolong or prevent crime solving.A crime analyst’s day typically runs longer than 9 to 5. Some weeks, when a crime is begging to be solved, Wickline works over 90 hours. At Roswell, he personally handled every piece of paper filed by his officers. D.C. is different. Wickline supervises a four-person unit: himself, two sworn officers and one volunteer. They handle between 100 and 130 major crime reports a day from more than 3,000 officers responding to crimes within the District of Columbia, with a resident population of about 570,000 and a transient population from Maryland and Virginia of nearly two million.The most serious categories of crime are homicide, sex abuse, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, theft, theft from auto, stolen auto, arson. Hate crimes fall under case-by-case categories such as personal attack or damaged property. The wild card is whatever the day’s topic is. Wickline chuckles over diehard Police Blotter fans, recently having a change in their daily diet. Names and other data that might let someone recognize a neighbor are no longer being released to the public.Wickline is concerned with quarterbacking in an era of heightened security, with some levels of information not being lowered to his department. "We get information that is not complete. There are times when you feel you can do more if you just knew a little bit more and what was going on," he says. "One of the hardest things with any crime analysis is getting that good information … if the information you are trying to work with doesn’t have all the information, then you are kind of working blind." Wickline is making progress bringing in data sets from traditional sources along with field interview cards, crime reports, arrest reports. "We’re starting to be able to reach out to other agencies and negotiate access to their data traditionally police departments haven’t had access to," he says.Wickline is too familiar with D.C. concerns over Homeland Security. He tries to get as much information as is accessible to the officers on the street. He shares the concerns of MPD Special Operations Officer Jeff Herold, aware they receive limited information from higher levels of security. As Herold puts it, "working with one arm tied behind their back."MPD is working toward the technological advancement that the Los Angeles police have had in force for several years now, permitting officers to transmit completed reports for supervisory review directly from the road. "We’re working very hard towards that," says Wickline.Wickline set out in life to become a rocket scientist. While studying aerospace engineering, his plans blew up along with the Columbia. He took himself out of school, moved to New York, got married and studied philosophy, music and mathematics, with a couple of other minors thrown in along the way. He ended up at the State University of New York in Binghamton, a student of algebraic and geometric topology – what Wickline calls "the far-out math that says your coffee cup and your dining room table are really the same thing if you just know how to look at them right."Crime analysis is to Wickline as solving Rubik’s Cube is to Mensa members. At the Georgia police department, Wickline, as a temporary data entry worker, was catching the officers up on backlogged paperwork. About one and a half months into his job, Wickline approached a detective saying, "Why don’t you guys go arrest this guy because he’s the same guy that did these other five things?" Wickline showed the detective five or six reports and said, "This is your guy." The investigation proved correct, "and a few weeks later I was asked if I was interested in being a crime analyst." Media plays a role in Wickline’s work. "They can be extraordinarily helpful and can also be the biggest problem," he says. The D.C. area sniper case is an example of police departments asking, with the best of intentions, for news media to put information out -- believing there was a white van involved. The media was effective in convincing the public, albeit inaccurately, that a white van was involved. Unfortunately, opportunities to apprehend John Malvo and John Mohammed earlier were overlooked because of it. The three things a crime analyst wants to do are (1) identify and help arrest the suspect, (2) pattern the crime to a point to dissuade people from committing the next crime and (3) make sure the public is so well informed of what’s happening that the criminals are thwarted by citizens on the lookout. When asked how it feels to have quarterbacked a successful arrest, Wickline answers, "Absolutely wonderful. The first time I convinced my department – who had never really considered a crime analyst could say ‘go to this location, your person is going to walk up, and you can arrest their behind right there’ – I went home just as nervous as can be. I had convinced people to dedicate resources on my opinion. I had not been home for two hours when the phone rang. I was just ecstatic, elated, this was good."Wickline is a big guy when it comes to admitting most people are clueless as to what he does for a living. Dinner party chatter used to be complicated when he would answer with "I try and understand everything about every crime that happens for the police department. My job is to know every detail about every crime that happens. When, where, who, what… and be able to synthesize that information from raw data into workable product to help officers, detectives and command staff do their job better and more effectively."

He laughs as he shares the simple answer that no longer chases people away: "You ever see the TV show ‘The District’? Well, I’m the little black lady crime analyst on TV that Chief Banyon drug up out of the basement to brief the officers."

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator