Post by HeadMarshal on Apr 20, 2017 14:37:37 GMT -5
This has been discussed on the forums here before, and if you took a look at the largest cities in the US, very few of them have a detailed listing of fugitives. What I mean by detailed is cases that are current (within the last few months and years) to cold (at least ten years back, generally no earlier than late 1970s is realistic). San Diego is one of the few cities that has a detailed fugitive listing with actual case summaries going back to the late 1970s. Houston has a detailed fugitive listing but very few of those cases have actual summaries, which has led me to google search and check newslibrary for many of those cases that I have posted here.
So which cities definitely need a better fugitive listing, you are going to be shocked by some of these mentions.
New York City: NYC actually had a detailed fugitive listing from 1997 to 2008 according to web.archive.org, but has been since replaced by a current crimestoppers page, that still has to update that the killer of Rashawn Brazell was identified and arrested. There's no question that there must be a very large amount of fugitives wanted for murder and other serious felonies. It's gotten to the point with New York State that I notice aside from say Suffolk or Westchester County, that New Jersey has actually gotten better listings (and we've complained about the lack of information regarding New Jersey cases before during our research).
Chicago: Aside from the fugitives from justice series by the Chicago tribune, the last time the police department made a serious effort to publicize multiple cases was back in the early 2000s from what I've seen on web.archive.org. To be fair, the Chicago Police Department has to contend with a very large amount of violent crime, so profiling fugitives from the 1990s for example probably isn't at the top of their priorities.
Dallas/Fort Worth: I've never seen Dallas, Texas authorities seriously publicize their fugitives on a large scale, aside from crime stoppers where you'll get a mix of serious and non-violent felonies. Fort Worth actually posted their cold case fugitive murder suspects for several years, but like Houston did not post their case summaries so the details on most of those cases remain unknown.
Washington D.C.: For a number of years, the U.S. Capitol did a good job with fugitive publicity, but since then has not really posted detailed reports on wanted fugitives.
Miami: I generally am able to look a lot of fugitives throughout Florida, plus they have their statewide warrant search. Miami for the most part has generally been a pain to research fugitive profiles on. In around 2000 they made a Most Wanted List but since then did not publicize it. Then they were in the Florida T.H.U.G.S. website which listed violent fugitives from across the state, but again no case summaries.
Atlanta: Back in the early days of the internet, Atlanta did have a detailed fugitive listing, but since then have only their Crimestoppers page, which Scumhunter and I have both confirmed needs to be updated. They also featured from 1992-1998 in their local newspaper, various weekly fugitives wanted by the FBI that may have been in Atlanta, but have since ended that program.
Boston: Over the years they did have a somewhat detailed fugitive listing, but since then haven't made much efforts to publicize wanted fugitives to the public. The Massachusetts Most Wanted list hasn't even managed to do much featuring on their cases.
San Francisco: Like Miami this has been a pain to get any fugitive information on. The best hope we have is they upload some more cases to Northern California's Most Wanted (which thankfully still gets updated).
Phoenix: I'll classify Phoenix as "hit or miss". One of their news stations is doing Arizona's Most Wanted, they have Silent Witness and on and off have had detailed state websites on various fugitives, but nothing really aside from current cases that is accessible from one current website.
Detroit: I believe there was once a detailed Crimestoppers page that listed various Detroit fugitives, and I know they did a newspaper media campaign on cases back in the early 1990s, but nothing that much since then.
Seattle: To be fair, Washington's Most Wanted has been a phenomenal success, but the city of Seattle itself hasn't really publicized their fugitives that well. A nearby city called Tacoma has actually done a better job.
Portland, Oregon: Clackamas County has been a very good source on fugitive cases to profile, but Portland and Multnomah County has really not done that well on an effort of fugitive publicity. It's really bad when Alvaro Israel Alvarado just gets a paragraph mention in the cold cases section with no photo on their website.
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Those are just some cities I wanted to mention. As we can tell from San Diego and to a lesser extent Houston, I feel most police departments can do a detailed fugitive publicity campaign on their official websites. The whole point is that these websites are visible around the world, and if a fugitive's photo isn't on the internet, then how are people around him/her supposed to recognize them?
So which cities definitely need a better fugitive listing, you are going to be shocked by some of these mentions.
New York City: NYC actually had a detailed fugitive listing from 1997 to 2008 according to web.archive.org, but has been since replaced by a current crimestoppers page, that still has to update that the killer of Rashawn Brazell was identified and arrested. There's no question that there must be a very large amount of fugitives wanted for murder and other serious felonies. It's gotten to the point with New York State that I notice aside from say Suffolk or Westchester County, that New Jersey has actually gotten better listings (and we've complained about the lack of information regarding New Jersey cases before during our research).
Chicago: Aside from the fugitives from justice series by the Chicago tribune, the last time the police department made a serious effort to publicize multiple cases was back in the early 2000s from what I've seen on web.archive.org. To be fair, the Chicago Police Department has to contend with a very large amount of violent crime, so profiling fugitives from the 1990s for example probably isn't at the top of their priorities.
Dallas/Fort Worth: I've never seen Dallas, Texas authorities seriously publicize their fugitives on a large scale, aside from crime stoppers where you'll get a mix of serious and non-violent felonies. Fort Worth actually posted their cold case fugitive murder suspects for several years, but like Houston did not post their case summaries so the details on most of those cases remain unknown.
Washington D.C.: For a number of years, the U.S. Capitol did a good job with fugitive publicity, but since then has not really posted detailed reports on wanted fugitives.
Miami: I generally am able to look a lot of fugitives throughout Florida, plus they have their statewide warrant search. Miami for the most part has generally been a pain to research fugitive profiles on. In around 2000 they made a Most Wanted List but since then did not publicize it. Then they were in the Florida T.H.U.G.S. website which listed violent fugitives from across the state, but again no case summaries.
Atlanta: Back in the early days of the internet, Atlanta did have a detailed fugitive listing, but since then have only their Crimestoppers page, which Scumhunter and I have both confirmed needs to be updated. They also featured from 1992-1998 in their local newspaper, various weekly fugitives wanted by the FBI that may have been in Atlanta, but have since ended that program.
Boston: Over the years they did have a somewhat detailed fugitive listing, but since then haven't made much efforts to publicize wanted fugitives to the public. The Massachusetts Most Wanted list hasn't even managed to do much featuring on their cases.
San Francisco: Like Miami this has been a pain to get any fugitive information on. The best hope we have is they upload some more cases to Northern California's Most Wanted (which thankfully still gets updated).
Phoenix: I'll classify Phoenix as "hit or miss". One of their news stations is doing Arizona's Most Wanted, they have Silent Witness and on and off have had detailed state websites on various fugitives, but nothing really aside from current cases that is accessible from one current website.
Detroit: I believe there was once a detailed Crimestoppers page that listed various Detroit fugitives, and I know they did a newspaper media campaign on cases back in the early 1990s, but nothing that much since then.
Seattle: To be fair, Washington's Most Wanted has been a phenomenal success, but the city of Seattle itself hasn't really publicized their fugitives that well. A nearby city called Tacoma has actually done a better job.
Portland, Oregon: Clackamas County has been a very good source on fugitive cases to profile, but Portland and Multnomah County has really not done that well on an effort of fugitive publicity. It's really bad when Alvaro Israel Alvarado just gets a paragraph mention in the cold cases section with no photo on their website.
--
Those are just some cities I wanted to mention. As we can tell from San Diego and to a lesser extent Houston, I feel most police departments can do a detailed fugitive publicity campaign on their official websites. The whole point is that these websites are visible around the world, and if a fugitive's photo isn't on the internet, then how are people around him/her supposed to recognize them?
