YOU THINK WE HAVE IT BAD TODAY?

There's a lot of complaining going around these days, everything from politics to the economy. But when it comes to crime, like the rest, it's business as usual. This page from MAN'S LIFE (May 1969) shows the same things going on back then as they are now. Life goes on, brah.

POLICE INTERROGATIONS: FACT AND FICTION

We've all seen it in police shows, gangster movies and the like: the suspect is dragged into a tiny, claustrophobic room and detectives begin grilling him/her to force a confession (aka "the third degree"). As the questioning proceeds, if the suspect hasn't "cracked" by now things get a little more forceful and sometimes a "deal" is offered in exchange for the answer they're looking for, usually without a defense attorney present. Back in the 30s, detectives even used physical force (i.e. a whack on the back of the head with a phone book, a slap across the face, a rubber hose or other techniques) to coerce the subject to cave in and confess.

You might be surprised to know that Hollywood's version of this scenario is largely inaccurate (and much of it illegal in reality). Granted, some latitude is always used in lieu of the truth when it comes to movies and TV.

Retired detective and author David Swinson clears up much of the misinformation connected with police interrogations in this informative article from lithub.com.

THE ART OF INTERVIEW AND INTERROGATION

A retired police detective discusses his approach to interviews, in fiction and in life.

By David Swinson | April 2, 2026 | lithub.com

Several of my books have scenes where the investigator/detective has to interview or interrogate other characters. In my latest book, From the Dust, there are quite a few of these kinds of scenes. As a retired detective with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, a question I am often asked by readers and some writers is: Do those scenes in your books play out like they do in real life? 

I have tried to stay true to the reality of both interviewing and interrogating characters. It obviously helps that a lot of what falls onto the page is based on my experiences and the intensive training I received when I was on the job. I was sent to what were the latest classes on investigative interviewing and advanced interrogation techniques at the time. Those classes were certainly worth the time, but hypothetical scenarios are nothing compared to years spent actually interviewing victims and witnesses or being in “the box” or other debriefing settings with a suspect or defendant. It is one thing to attend classes for eight hours a day to learn about how to evaluate a subject’s verbal and non-verbal behavior (specifically suspects or defendants) and quite another to actually sit across from them in real life. The experience doesn’t always play out the way you think it will and, unlike fictional interview and interrogation scenes, it can sometimes take hours or even days. Sometimes not. There are, occasionally, those not-so-common situations where the interrogation is as quick as a subject’s bow of the head, followed by a quiet, “I did it” or some statement to that effect. One thing I have learned, though, which is something I now use in my writing, is how the little things matter- that sometimes they are not so little and can have a great impact. For instance, when interviewing a witness or a victim, but especially a victim, it is important to take copious notes. They will often, even subliminally so, feel comfortable seeing you do this and gradually open up more to you. The act of taking notes during an interview demonstrates to them that what they are saying is important enough for you to take the time to not just listen but also write it down. On the other hand, suspects and defendants become uncomfortable and may shut down when, after they say something, they see you stop to write down their response or take notes. They can start to think: What did I say? Should I have said that? Maybe I should just shut up. So, when you’re talking to a suspect whom you have reason to believe committed a terrible crime, or to a defendant who has already been arrested for committing a terrible crime, then your memory had damned well better be sharp. Fortunately, you don’t need a sharp memory to write a fictional procedural scene because you have already written about the circumstances leading up to it, so you can just look back. When I’m rereading one of my interview or interrogation scenes, I will sometimes catch a plot hole – something the subject had said earlier that the detective should have brought up again later and I can fix it. You don’t have that luxury during real life interviews and interrogations, though, the benefit of writing yourself out of a hole.   

Honestly, I never really liked the word interrogation. It’s not the meaning that bothers me because it is completely accurate. It is simply the word itself, and how it must sound to the person being interrogated, whether they are a person of interest in a crime that has been committed or they are someone who has already been charged with a crime. I have always preferred to use less negatively charged terminology like I’d like to interview you; let’s have a conversation. Those phrases are not so uncomfortable or foreboding. Although, sometimes, depending on the person, leaving them with a feeling that something bad can happen can be a good thing. Learning that, though, first comes with knowing who you are talking to. That is why framing interviews and interrogations as friendly conversation was a better approach for me. In fiction, it can work out that way too. It’s all about communication and, like I said, just plain simple conversation and trying to develop a trusting relationship. Again, this is something that worked for me as a detective and now in my writing.

Something I used to do in real life as a detective, and now something I do while writing, is to act out the conversation in my head, posing questions I want to ask and getting the response I would give based on the hundreds of hours I was involved in interrogations and interviews. This was/is something that usually took place in bed after I turned the light off. It often keeps me up very late at night, especially when writing, because then I’d usually have to stop, turn on the light, and note the answer the fictional subject would give me, or I’d forget it by morning. For some reason, this compulsive behavior has helped me in both the real life interview scenarios and when writing them.

I mentioned earlier that some of these conversations do not always pan out the way you want them to. They can take a turn. Sometimes an awful turn that leads to the subject shutting down or lawyering up. That can also happen when I’m writing, so that is something that is very similar to real life. My characters can surprise the hell out of me. Sometimes I have to find my way out of a deep hole. I try not to delete the scene because I want it to feel authentic so, unfortunately, my dear protagonist has to find a way out just like I did when I was a detective in that same situation. Regrettably, sometimes they cannot. I both hated this and at the same time loved it because that meant the story had taken on a life of its own.

One thing I want to mention here that irks me to no end is when I’m reading a book or watching a television series or a movie, and the detective(s) have a suspect or defendant in the box and, during the course of the interview, the subject shuts down and lawyers up and the detective(s) either become more persistent or make promises that should never be made, like being able to get them a deal, or even flat out lie about something. In real life, even with a half-assed defense attorney, that subject would later walk. Then there’s ‘good cop, bad cop’. Sure, that can sometimes work. It has never worked for me in reality, though it has in my writing – as long as I don’t cross the line and have my characters break police procedure.

Interview and interrogation are simply conversation, but it is also an art, and I have been fortunate to have been able to experience both firsthand and now draw on my real-life experiences and education when writing fictional scenes. So many of those faces from which I sat across from are still with me. Some of those faces I don’t want to see anymore, but they are there for me when I need to go back to the feelings they gave me to use in my writing. I have never related any actual events from cases I’ve worked in my fictional interview and interrogation scenes. The mental and psychological experiences were more than enough for my fiction and I am thankful for both the good and not-so-good memories. 

***

David Swinson is a retired police detective from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, having been assigned to Major Crimes. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Frank Marr Trilogy, including, The Second Girl, Crime Song, and Trigger, and the standalones City on the Edge and Sweet Thing. He lives in New York. His latest book is From the Dust.

GRAB N' GO, BUT PAY FOR IT FIRST!

Trust me, I was ready to put this topic away for a while since my last post, but what I'm sharing with you today is yet another complete jaw-dropper for any rational, law-abiding citizen to bear.

I'm talking about shoplifting, a problem big enough to have a fancier term for it: "retail theft". This property crime has gotten so bad in the state of Washington that it's now #1 in the country. In fact, the problem is so bad that numerous retail stores in the area have been forced to close for that reason alone.

Before we feel compelled to start rationalizing the situation by saying that the current state of the economy has created this monster, the opposite is true; shoplifting--at least here--has gone largely unpunished for decades, even before the big numbers you'll see below. Right along with jaywalking (a much lesser offence), it has historically been considered a "nuisance crime" and not a big enough deal for our understaffed and over-work law enforcement to bother with. No one considered the devastating impact it had on retail stores, I guess.

And let's not forget the notorious "flash robs" that were occurring with alarming frequency a few years ago. A 2025 FBI report analyzed data from 2020-2024 and found over $8 million in stolen goods and $51,000 in property damage from these incidents. Clothing and fur were the most frequently stolen items. Not food, luxury items!

Charlie Harger is a daily radio host on Seattle's KIRO Newsradio. Earlier this month he reported on one city (east of Seattle) that's quite had enough, thank you, and they're starting to detain, arrest and--wait for it--prosecute the offenders. Read below how they are dealing with the issue. Three cheers for Issaquah!

WA leads the nation in retail theft. Issaquah shows how to fix it

By Charlie Harger |January 6, 2026 | Mynorthwest.com

The Issaquah Police Department posted on Facebook last month, which made me take note.

They ran a shoplifting sting at Marshalls and HomeGoods in the Highlands. Here’s the line that got me: “A common reaction we get when arresting shoplifters is their shock and surprise to learn they are really under arrest and will be booked into jail.”

Shock. Surprise. That they’re going to jail. For stealing.

These aren’t dumb people. They’ve done the math. In most cities around here, you can walk into a store, fill a bag, and walk out. Maybe a security guard yells. Maybe a cop shows up 45 minutes later with a citation. Maybe you get a court date and skip it. Maybe a warrant gets issued that nobody serves. At every step, the odds favor walking away. Thieves know this. They’ve learned it.

Then they try it in Issaquah. Different rules.

Why Issaquah’s shoplifting enforcement is different

Issaquah has its own jail. They run stings with loss prevention. They book you on the spot. And suddenly, all those outstanding warrants from Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett pop up in the system.

Shoplifting in Issaquah dropped 15% last year. Not a coincidence.

Some background. King County lifted its misdemeanor booking restrictions last February. During COVID, the jail wouldn’t take low-level offenders. Staffing shortages. Capacity issues. Fine. But that ended over a year ago. Seattle can book shoplifters now. The policy changed. The culture didn’t.

And we’re paying for it.

Fred Meyer closures and the cost of retail theft in WA

Fred Meyer [Kroger] is closing stores across the region. Theft was a major factor. Nobody who’s shopped at one of those stores is surprised. I talked about this last year. It was the drugs driving the problem. Still is. But it’s also the stealing. And it’s also the complete absence of accountability that lets both spiral out of control.

When the same people walk in day after day and walk out with merchandise, the store eventually does the math, too. They leave.

Washington loses $3 billion a year to retail theft. We run 40-48% higher than the national average. Washington consistently ranks No. 1 nationally for retail theft impact. Target closed stores. Seattle lost its 24-hour pharmacies. The stores that stay open are starting to look like prison commissaries. Everything behind plexiglass. Push a button, wait for someone to unlock it. Detergent. Toothpaste. Deodorant. Razors. Socks. Underwear.

Is this really who we are now?

Issaquah proved shoplifting enforcement works

Issaquah proved it doesn’t have to be this way. Enforce the law, and people stop breaking it. Not because they suddenly become model citizens. Because they learn the odds have changed.

The rest of us have the same tools now. We have jail beds. We have laws on the books. We have stores begging for help. The only thing missing is the will to act.

We get what we tolerate. And right now, we’re tolerating way too much.

The shoplifters in Issaquah were shocked they got arrested. Maybe the rest of us should be shocked that in a lot of places around here, they wouldn’t be.

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But wait! That's not all.

When I was putting together this post, this hit my news feed and it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The shame of it is that this pathological criminal got away with so much before they had enough on him for a case to stick. I wonder if we'll ever find out what his sentence is--that is, if he's convicted.

Photo of the suspect on his way out of the store with a bag full of cosmetics.

Man charged with organized retail theft after repeat shoplifting at Ulta stores

by KOMO News Staff | January 17, 2026 | Komonews.com

SEATTLE — A King County man accused of repeatedly shoplifting from Ulta Beauty stores across the region has been charged with multiple felony counts of organized retail theft following a weeks-long investigation, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors charged David Joseph Gama on Thursday with three counts of first-degree organized retail theft.

The charges stem from an investigation that spanned 55 days and included 24 reported theft incidents, beginning Nov. 10, 2025, and ending Jan. 4.

Court documents say Gama is accused of taking merchandise from Ulta Beauty stores ranging from north Seattle to Federal Way.

Gama is accused of retail theft at the following Ulta Beauty stores:

• 15 repeat shoplifting incidents at the store on Aurora Ave N
• 5 repeat incidents at the West Seattle location
• 1 shoplifting incident at the Tukwila location
• 1 shoplifting incident at the Federal Way location

Investigators allege Gama was responsible for $18,4260.80 in losses during the investigation, while only $1,678.80 worth of merchandise was recovered at the time of his arrest.

One Ulta Beauty store manager told investigators that approximately $25,000 to $30,000 worth of fragrance had been stolen during the thefts.

Gama has an extensive criminal history in Washington state, according to probable cause documents. He has been arrested 50 times since 1985 and has five felony convictions, 19 gross misdemeanor convictions and 11 misdemeanor convictions.

Gama pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday.

A defense motion to reduce or release bail was denied, and he remains in the King County Jail on $50,000 bail. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

In a statement, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said most shoplifting cases are handled as misdemeanors at the city level and do not reach county prosecutors.

“The overwhelming majority of shoplifting cases are misdemeanor offenses under the law, meaning that they are handled at the city level and do not come to King County prosecutors,” the office said. “When you have evidence to show organized retail theft allegations in cases such as this one, a case is referred by police investigators as a felony referral.”

Click to view larger image.

Prosecutors also pointed to a broader rise in property crime cases. Last year, King County prosecutors charged 640 cases in which the most serious offense was an economic or property crime, the highest number since 2019. In 2024, there were 506 such cases — a 26% year-over-year increase — compared with 367 cases in 2023.

“These are not ‘just property crimes’ as we sometimes hear in court,” the prosecutor’s office said. “These are real crimes that affect employees of businesses large and small, and those costs are passed on to consumers, or stores close. There needs to be appropriate accountability, and King County prosecutors are one step of that.”

Browse the ABNORMAL BRAIN archive HERE.

IT'S TOUCH AND GO!

Ray Bradbury's tale of murder, obsession and paranoia, "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl", appeared in ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE (January 1953). Since it was first published as "Touch and Go" in DETECTIVE BOOK Winter 1948, it has proven to have some longevity, being reprinted numerous times in books, magazines, and adapted for a TV episode of THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER broadcast on January 28, 1988, starring Michael Ironside and Robert Vaughn.

I first read it in this paperback edition of THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN (Bantam, 1967).

Here is the story as it appeared chronologically in three different magazines:

DETECTIVE BOOK (Winter 1948)

ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE (January 1953)

CAVALIER (February 1960)

It was also adapted in EC's CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #17 (April–May 1953) as "Touch and Go",  with script and art by Johnny Craig.

CRIME AND (LACK OF) PUNISHMENT

I read the news today oh boy, and it's not good for folks who live here in Seattle. I've lived nearby, on the east side of Lake Washington, for over three decades and I've watched as the crime rates--especially violent crimes--has steadily risen during that time. I fail to get exited when crime statistics are massaged to show how well Washington is improving "overall". Sorry, I'll save my crock for baked beans.

The population has grown tremendously here, and mathematically-speaking, the ratio of criminals was bound to grow right along with the rest of the law-abiding citizens. Moreover, as much as it was cheered in certain circles, the defund the police initiative has ultimately backfired miserably and crime has risen accordingly (Duh!). At one point, Seattle police, in their frustration, bailed out of the department in droves. The city is still trying to recover, and they've even resorted to pop-up adds on several apps I've noticed to recruit and fill the ranks. Still, you can have 20,000 cops on the street, but the catch-and-release program seemingly favored by the courts just perpetuates the circle jerk.

And just who are the victims here? It seems to be the current belief that violent criminals, many of them homeless, deserve to be treated as equally as the rest of the public who is stuck with footing the bill for this nonsense with "public safety taxes". While city officials raise their hands in surrender to the startling statistics right in front of their faces (see below), there seems to be no effective solution forthcoming.

The proliferation in recent years (especially since COVID, it appears) of mentally unstable individuals, whether as a result of physiology, drug and alcohol addiction or all three is quite alarming and it has become increasingly critical to provide programs where they can get off the street, recover and make something better of their lives. But the city council and the current justice system just can't--or won't--provide the means to make the transition in any significant way. In the meantime, the entire matter remains an open wound and will do nothing but fester as all untreated injuries do.

Police are failing to solve most violent crimes in WA

Over 49,000 incidents remain unsolved since 2022, including murders, rapes and robberies.

By Jake Goldstein | December 5, 2025 | Washingtonstatestandard.com

More than half of violent crimes in Washington state are going unsolved. 

That sobering data point, shared with state lawmakers Thursday, comes as violent crime has dropped but remains far ahead of pre-pandemic figures. 

Police in Washington solved just 44% of reported violent crimes last year, said Marshall Clement, director of the Council of State Governments’ Justice Center. That amounts to solving 62% of homicides, 51% of aggravated assaults, 31% of robberies and just 25% of rapes.

“How low can this rate go before the entire criminal justice system is rendered useless?” Clement told a state House panel. “Nothing else in our criminal justice can even happen, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, unless we have a system that actually solves the majority of violent crime.”

Before the pandemic, Washington slightly outpaced the national average in its clearance rate for reported violent crime. Like the rest of the country, the percentage of cases Washington authorities were solving dropped during the pandemic, and has gradually rebounded since. 

Still, since 2022, over 49,000 violent crimes remain unsolved in Washington, including more than 400 homicides, nearly 29,000 aggravated assaults, almost 7,000 rapes and over 13,000 robberies, said Clement, citing FBI data.

Police departments in Seattle, Tacoma, Kent and Auburn are among those with particularly low clearance rates, defined as the percentage of crimes for which an arrest has been made, not necessarily a criminal conviction.

Washington isn’t alone. Half of states have slipped in their clearance rates since 2019. Nationwide, solve rates have been dropping consistently for over half a century.

After years of rising crime since the pandemic, Washington saw some declines last year. Murders statewide dropped nearly 19% from 2023, with a total of 312 people killed, but that figure is still more than 50% higher than 2019, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

Robberies were down 16%, creeping closer to 2019 levels. Meanwhile, a yearslong rise in assaults since the pandemic slowed but didn’t abate.

And preliminary figures show those drops continuing in 2025. 

Routinely not solving violent crimes creates a cycle of distrust in law enforcement that causes people to no longer cooperate with police, thus exacerbating the issue, Clement said. And people who commit crimes may feel emboldened to do more if they think they can get away with it. 

It’s up to the state to step in and help solve the problem, Clement said.

“This is not something local law enforcement can do alone,” he told the House Community Safety Committee. “It’s not something that state police can do or prosecutors can do alone. This is going to require leadership from you all to really make this a priority and to focus resources on improving these outcomes.”

It’s not just about throwing money at the problem. While law enforcement expenses statewide have risen, better clearance rates haven’t come. And Washington continues to lag the rest of the country in police staffing. This contributes to longer response times, which leads to lower clearance rates, said Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst.

Asher called for creativity in using police resources to free up time to focus on these unsolved investigations. For example, New Orleans hired a civilian contractor to respond to car crashes that don’t cause injuries, so officers don’t have to.

“This isn’t the 1990s, it’s much harder to hire officers in 2025 than it was 30 years ago,” Asher told the committee. “So we need to think outside the box.”

After much strife, lawmakers this year approved a new $100 million grant program to boost police hiring. But the money can go for more than officers, like peer counselors, behavioral health personnel, crisis intervention training, emergency management planning and community assistance programs, among other spending options.

House Community Safety Committee Chair Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, said he’d like to see more of that money go toward criminal investigations, as opposed to patrol. He thinks that would increase solve rates.

“I’m going to be making noise about that,” he said.

At this stage, it’s unclear if that would mean less state funding for the other spending ideas progressive lawmakers pushed to avoid the money solely going toward hiring more cops. 

“It’s all embryonic in its formulation right now,” Goodman said after the hearing.

To access the grants, cities and counties need to either implement a new 0.1% sales tax for public safety or have already imposed a similar tax. They also need to follow state model policies as well as collect and report use-of-force data. 

None of the $100 million has been spent yet [italics mine].

UPDATE: I wrote this post a while back. Since then, this horrific bit of nastiness was perpetrated by a convicted felon on an innocent, 75 year old woman. The video is sanitized so you don't actually see the impact of the weapon to her head (a piece of wood with a screw protruding from one end). The resulting injury caused the victim to loose her sight in one eye. For as blood-thirsty as the American public is, I'm surprised that the media still insists on censoring these gruesome images from viewers so they can see for themselves just how heinous these types of crimes are.

And just a couple of weeks before that . . .

No end of this madness in sight . . .

___________________________________________

BREAK OUT THE BARF BAGS DEPT.

And finally, if the last article didn't turn your stomach, this one just might depending which side of the fence you're on.

In their seemingly boundless wisdom, and in efforts to remain relevant to their shrinking readership, the staff of the brilliant senior editors of TIME magazine have selected "The Architects of AI" as their 2025 Person of the Year in their less imaginative version of SI's swimsuit issue. At first I thought it was a joke perpetrated by the brilliant senior editors of MAD, but nope, it's for real.

Nothing much fazes me anymore, but I did have to stop for a second and allow my jaw to drop. Maybe TIME could increase that shriveling readership of theirs by giving it up to AI to publish their monthly supply of fish wrap.

I know that AI has some promising benefits for certain applications, but at what cost?

Here's part of the answer from the MIT Technology Review:

Using AI for certain tasks can come with a significant energy price tag. With some powerful AI models, generating an image [that's just one, people] can require as much energy as charging up your phone, as my colleague Melissa Heikkilä explained in a story from December. Create 1,000 images with a model like Stable Diffusion XL, and you’ve produced as much carbon dioxide as driving just over four miles in a gas-powered car, according to the researchers Melissa spoke to. 

Moreover, while EVs are all the rage, we keep being assured that that they are "greener" to operate than gas-powered vehicles. While technologies like fracking get a bad rap from the media, what we're not being told is the inconvenient truth that Mother Earth is similarly being raped of lithium, the element used in the manufacture of batteries to power these same EVs. Gee, I wonder were all the millions of batteries will end up when they lose their charging capacity?

UPDATE: This headline just in from Yahoo! Finance . . .

$1.5 trillion lithium deposit found in U.S. supervolcano crater — site could supply batteries for decades

On a final note: A couple of months ago, the blog you are now reading was invaded for over two weeks with thousands of page views according to my Blogger stats. Now, there's no way in hell there could have been that many people interested in my content. Instead, I'm pretty sure my posts were being scraped by AI. Since Google owns Blogger, it could be they were having their way with the rapacious ChatGPT.

So, those are my rants for this time around. As always, you're welcome to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

STARING AT MARLI RENFRO

Born on April 3, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, actress and pinup model Marli Renfro has the distinction of being hired as Janet Leigh's body double for the infamous PSYCHO shower scene (read more about that HERE) as detailed in Robert "Zodiac" Graysmith's THE GIRL IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S SHOWER (Berkley True Crime, 2010). It focuses on her life and career and included the assumption that she was later murdered. Fortunately, it was a case of mistaken identity and she turned up, quite alive and living under the media radar.

Miss Renfro enjoyed a number of hobbies, including deep-sea fishing, bare-back horse riding and motorcycling. She was also an enthusiastic nudist and counted among her friends Diane Webber and her husband Joe.

During her modeling career, Marli showed up in one of Martin Goodman's adult humor magazines.

STARE (19-years old, August 1957):

STARE (25-years old, February 1964):

EXTRA!

Before she danced her way to infamy in Ed Wood's ORGY OF THE DEAD (1964), actress, pinup and nude model Mickey Jines appeared in a one-pager in STARE (October 1961). One source of her biographical data has her birthday as May 4, 1944. If this is correct, she would have been 17 in this photo.

A bit more about Mickey Jines HERE.