Pegasus Research Consortium

General Category => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: zorgon on December 28, 2014, 09:34:19 PM

Title: FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook
Post by: zorgon on December 28, 2014, 09:34:19 PM
Interesting is true...

I posted this because I didn't want to lose it until I had time to track it down. Suposed to be able to see this at the FBI reading room...

(https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10672198_356141787877728_7122245795267630678_n.jpg?oh=2af5109ec9e1e8da1bada188a8a127c8&oe=55390977)

https://www.facebook.com/YoungChizzFanPage/photos/a.116696451822264.23110.116658271826082/356141787877728/?type=1
Title: Re: FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook
Post by: Amaterasu on December 29, 2014, 12:48:57 AM
At this point, anyOne who thinks Sandy Hook was a real event either has done zero research or is willfully blind.
Title: Re: FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook
Post by: space otter on December 29, 2014, 04:46:19 AM

not entering an opinion on either side .. (waste of time)
just looking to where this piece came from
and I found this


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/10/mass-killings-missing-data/12990815/


In FBI murder data, mass killings often go missing

Meghan Hoyer, USA TODAY 11:51 p.m. EDT September 10, 2014

When 26 teachers, students and administrators were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School, it made national news for weeks. But there was one place 2012's largest mass killing was never mentioned: the FBI database that tracks all U.S. homicides.

And that isn't the only major case missing. The 12 people who were killed in an Aurora, Colo., movie watching the premier of a Batman movie aren't listed either, raising questions about the accuracy and usefulness of the federal data.






USA TODAY

Parents who do the unthinkable -- kill their children


Information on more than 13,000 murders from 2012 is in the FBI's supplemental homicide data, which was released earlier this year. The data provides researchers and policymakers the age, race and sex of victims and offenders, the types of weapons used, the circumstances behind a killing and the relationship between killer and victim – information used to craft weapons laws, define the severity of gang killings and research issues such as domestic violence.

A USA TODAY investigation into mass killings has found that the FBI's homicide data over the past decade has only a 57% accuracy rate when it comes to recording the killings of more than four people in a single event. That takes into account cases that aren't there, such as Sandy Hook, and cases that are recorded as mass killings but shouldn't be, such as the July 2012 fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Cleveland girl at a birthday party, erroneously entered as a slaying with four teen-age victims.

The records are voluntarily submitted by police agencies, and FBI officials say the Connecticut State Police and Aurora police departments initially provided the information on the year's two largest killing incidents – only to request that it be deleted.

In Aurora, Sgt. Chris Amsler says his department provides data to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations monthly. The FBI database contains information on 18 other homicides in Aurora in 2012.

"We checked our records and found that all data related to the theater shooting was submitted," he said, adding that investigators were still trying to figure out why the incident was later deleted from FBI records.

Connecticut's homicide count is correct, but the FBI's detailed supplementary material includes only the shooting of Adam Lanza's mother at her home in December 2012, just before Lanza went to the elementary school. Lt. Paul Vance says his department submitted a six-page report on the Newtown school victims to the FBI but later identified a mistake. Updated data was provided too late to be reflected in the database, Vance says, but the information should be added soon.

Missing information in the homicide data isn't unusual. The entire state of Florida, for instance, does not submit data to the FBI. And for many years, Nebraska and Washington, D.C., didn't either. But the 57% accuracy rate is based on dozens of cases between 2006 and 2012 that were not reported to the FBI, which USA TODAY found through other records. It also includes erroneous FBI data based on coding errors. Nationally, there are about two dozen mass killings every year.

Criminologist James Alan Fox said his research has found that roughly 90% of homicides are captured through the data, although many more cases are missing pieces of information, such as suspect and relationship details. He has devised a statistical method that accounts for both missing cases and missing information, to give researchers the ability to look at the full scope of the problem. Mass killings are rare among homicides, and missing such data is especially troublesome in such a small subset.

"We can still look at trends and recognize that they are not infallible but they are pretty good," says Fox, a Northeastern University professor and a member of the USA TODAY board of contributors.
Still, Fox says, the loss of major cases was a concern. "I'd certainly hope somebody would ask why" the mass killings weren't included, he says.

The FBI's data system is notoriously old and can keep data only on up to 11 victims per incident – meaning other large-scale mass killings, such as the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, had to be broken up over several records. The agency hopes to have a new computer system running by the end of the year, FBI spokesman Stephen G. Fischer Jr. said. That system will keep detailed homicide data in nearly real time, eliminating the current 15-month lag in releasing details of crimes to researchers and policy makers.

Contributing: Paul Overberg





USATODAY

Interactive: Mass Killings Since 2006
Title: Re: FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook
Post by: spacemaverick on December 29, 2014, 05:03:46 AM
Uniform Crime Reports
Annual publications containing criminological data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and intended to assist in identifying law enforcement problems, especially with regard to: murder and non-negligent Manslaughter, forcible rape, Robbery, aggravated assault, Burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and Arson. These studies provide a nationwide view of crime because they are based on statistics submitted by law enforcement agencies across the United States.

Critics of the Uniform Crime Reports have argued that local police departments may shape their record-keeping practices to produce results that will lend support to departmental positions on issues relating to crime and crime control. Most observers generally acknowledge, however, that the potential for manipulation in record keeping is not so great as to detract from the essential accuracy of the overall trends depicted in the Uniform Crime Reports.The FBI makes current and historical reports available online at <www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm>

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Uniform+Crime+Reports

Any database is only as good as the original information entered.
Title: Re: FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook
Post by: Wrabbit2000 on December 29, 2014, 05:03:46 PM
Quote from: spacemaverick on December 29, 2014, 05:03:46 AM
Uniform Crime Reports
Annual publications containing criminological data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and intended to assist in identifying law enforcement problems, especially with regard to: murder and non-negligent Manslaughter, forcible rape, Robbery, aggravated assault, Burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and Arson. These studies provide a nationwide view of crime because they are based on statistics submitted by law enforcement agencies across the United States.

Agreed on this, and to a very frustrating level. I've found myself using and relying on the Uniform Crime Reporting sets many times for this thing, or that one. What is frustrating is to look at the tables of data that break down into jurisdictions and agencies. Giant holes of 0 info for entire parts of a state ..or, just for parts of the data set one agency turns in.

The FBI ought to require a standard on that reporting and perhaps tie federal funding of some sort in with it to give the rule teeth. Sadly.. The UCR won't prove anything negative while participation is purely as agencies feel they want to.