From a special Street Survival Newsline report on a Midwest Gang Investigators Association conference
Part 1 of this series focused on enhancing your ability to gain convictions against criminal gang members we discussed the importance of intelligence gathering and informant development.
In Part 2, Inv. Patrick McCarthy, a veteran Chicago cop and past president of the International Assn. of Asian Crime Investigators, who lectures on gang and organized crime issues, explores interview and interrogation techniques that work.
Interviewing
The purpose of interviewing is to gather information and leads for more information, not to get confessions. It’s a matter of asking good questions and of timing and location, as well. “The way you go about it may determine whether you solve cases.”
Formal interviews are conducted at the station, and a formal statement is taken. Informal interviews, which require a different approach, occur on the street, in someone’s home, possibly at a place of employment--somewhere that the subject is under less pressure and hopefully feels less intimidation.
“When you interview people on the street, don’t start by asking for a driver’s license or other ID, like a lot of cops do. Also don’t take any notes until after they have told you everything. Notes are a permanent reminder about the importance of what they are telling you. They start getting scared and worried about going to court, getting sued, having serious problems, so they start holding back information.
“Get the ID after they have gone through the whole story. After you’ve heard it once, ask them to go over it again and take your notes this time. By now they’re more comfortable with you, and the second time through they’ll remember things they forgot to mention initially.
“Don’t interrupt someone who is talking real fast. Let them tell you the story as fast as they want, because they are going to tell it to you again. Slow them down the second time around if you need to.”
McCarthy criticized officers who “shoo people away from crime scenes, yelling and screaming, ‘Get out of here!,’ ‘What are you looking at?,’ etc.” Actually, he said, “we want people there because they may be helpful. This may be the only opportunity to talk to people and get good witnesses.
“At a formal interview, you should take notes after every question you ask them. If you only take notes on the stuff you think is important, they will attach significance to that information and be more guarded.
“Taking notes makes you pay a lot more attention to what you are being told.” It gives you a chance to check a subject for accuracy by comparing what he says at different points in the interview and challenging him on inconsistencies. Because you’ve been writing as he speaks, he’s less likely to deny or “not remember” what he actually said.
Plus, there will be “lapses of silence while you are writing which will make a guilty, lying person uncomfortable. They may start adding things. An innocent person being truthful has no problem with silence.” (As we have pointed out in our Street Survival Seminar, adversary attorneys use a version of this technique when cross-examining you--they stare silently at you after you have given a response, “wanting you to think that you are not through answering,” as McCarthy put it.)
If you use an interpreter for the interview, never have the interpreter facing the subject. Seat him or her behind the subject, where there’s less chance that they might recognize each other or that the subject can nonverbally intimidate the interpreter or verbally challenge him or her in a language you don’t understand. “Tell the interpreter you want to know EXACTLY what the suspect is saying, not an abbreviated or paraphrased version.”
2 questions you should ask “anytime you interview anyone:"
1. Who do you think might have done this [crime]? Tell them that mere suspicion on their part does not mean you are going to target whomever they name or bring that person in. “When you give them an opportunity to offer a name, to answer with their opinion, it can often be productive.” With any opinion offered, you should explore “why they think as they do.”
2. Is there anybody you’d like to get even with, anyone who has done you wrong lately or pissed you off? “This promotes them telling you dirt. They are happy to get even with someone and, believe me, they’ll lay people out sometimes” that you want to know about.
Regarding alibi witnesses, McCarthy’s advice was to “try to break the alibi BEFORE you get it down on paper in a formal statement.” If it is on the record, “you are giving a gift to the defense attorney” because he’ll go out and find these people and get them on the stand to back his client’s story.
McCarthy’s approach is to “be real nice to potential alibi witnesses when they come in.” Explain that you are “trying to clarify what happened on the night in question, when So-and-so says he was with you.” Make clear that in order to do so you are going to have to ask a LOT of questions: “Did you get any phone calls when So-and-so was with you?...Did you eat or drink anything together?...Did anyone come up to talk to you?...What clothes was So-and-so wearing?,” etc.--maybe 30 or more questions in all.
Then explain that “this is going to be an official statement and be part of the court record, exactly as you tell me. Of course, if I find out later that you lied to me, you could be charged with obstruction of justice.” Reinforce the consequences that could lead to. “They never realized before that they could get in trouble by standing up for So-and-so. Once you start asking questions, their memory won’t be so clear about that night” and the alibi, if it is phony, will likely fall apart. “They may even get up and leave without saying anything.”
Interrogation
“There are certain ways to conduct interrogations that will make us much more productive. In major cases, I like to mind-screw suspects I am working on. They are usually trying to scam me, so I feel no guilt about scamming them. The Supreme Court has ruled that we can legally lie, trick, deceive during interrogations, and I see no reason we shouldn’t. We should be doing whatever we can to put criminals in prison, legally.”
McCarthy entertained the audience with some of his favorite interrogation ploys. Some examples:
1. Let a suspect “get going pretty good” on his yarn, then suddenly interrupt him with a nonsensical distractor calculated to throw him off-balance and make him nervous, like asking him if he is right or left handed and then telling him to take off his right shoe. While he’s doing this, you ask him when was the last time he had a haircut. If he doesn’t know, tell him it’s important and to think about it.
While he’s wondering what this is all about, start talking about police work and particularly how law enforcement technology has changed in recent years (“What we have now is unbelievable. I can’t even keep up with it.”) Convincingly tell him about wholly imagined “science” that might relate to the type of crime you’re investigating--"Did you know that they can now lift prints off a steering wheel even if you were wearing gloves?” or “Did you know that dogs can follow your trail by sniffing your DNA?” or “Did you know there is a pile of DNA right under your chair right now, flaking off your body just by your moving around?” or “Did you know we now have a laser beam that can detect fingerprints even after 3 months?” or “Did you know that we now use a robot vacuum cleaner developed by NASA that vacuums up all the hair and DNA at a scene, even off the walls and ceiling?”
“Throw out something like that and then say, ‘Maybe you’ve heard about that or seen it on TV’ and a lot of times these mopes will say, ‘Yeah, I heard about that.’ It doesn’t usually take long before you get them believing that this stuff is really possible.”
Then you actually apply some of the pseudo-science you’ve convinced them exists. In a drive-by investigation, for instance, ask the subject when was the last time he fired a gun. He’ll probably say, “Never” or maybe “A year ago.” Then produce what you claim is “a lotion created by the FBI laboratory in Washington” and tell him, “I can rub this on your hand and tell if you’ve fired a gun in the last 3 months.” McCarthy’s experience: “If he gets real shakey when you rub the cream on his hand, he’s your shooter.”
If he’s not the guilty party, he may now be primed to give up who is. McCarthy has used a scam where he sprays the back of a subject’s neck and tells him he “can see gunshot residue because you were in a car when a gun was fired.” This often redirects the conversation along more truthful lines.
2. You have several gangbangers you suspect are involved in a major crime. Take the first guy out of the interrogation room where all are being kept temporarily and bring him to your desk, out of sight of the others. Don’t ask him anything. Just let him sit there for 30 minutes, while you stay silent. Then put him back with the others.
Of course, they’ll want to know what happened, what he was asked, what he said, etc. When he says nothing happened, they won’t believe him. “Often they’ll start fighting because they think he’s lying to them.”
Then bring the second guy to your desk and tell him, “I’ll be right with you. I’ve got to finish up your partner’s statement.” Then type like crazy for a few minutes on what purports to be the first guy’s statement.
When you finish, gesture to the “statement” and ask the second subject: “Did you ever do anything really bad to your buddy here?” Whatever his response (probably a denial), tell him, “Well, you must have really pissed him off somehow, because he says you did it [whatever crime you’re investigating].” He may then give up someone else.
3. Somewhat similar format, except this time when you take the first guy to your desk, you ask him a multitude of trivial personal questions about one of the others, keeping the inquiries going for perhaps 30 minutes. Then take this subject to a separate room and pull the second guy (the one you’ve been asking all the questions about) out of the room where the others are being held. Take him to where the first guy is, open the door and ask the first subject: “Is this the same Johnny (or whatever his name is) you were just talking to me about?” The first guy will say, Yeah.
“Close the door real fast and tell the second guy that his buddy just ratted him off. Chances are that suspect Number 2 will then start talking.”
4. This requires some timing coordination between you and your partner. You are standing in a hallway at the station with one suspect. By prearrangement, your partner comes out of a room into the hallway with one of the other suspects--just at the moment you shake hands with your subject and tell him loud enough to be overheard, “You’re doing the right thing,” as you pat him on the shoulder.
Your partner pretends to be startled and quickly shoves his subject back into the room--"too late,” of course since that subject has already witnessed your little tableau. You start berating your partner: “He wasn’t supposed to see that. You go in there and tell him that if anything happens to this individual (your subject), I’m going to take it personally.”
Your partner then starts breaking down subject Number 2 while you work on subject Number 1.
“I only use these techniques on real bad guys, serious cases. I’m selective,” McCarthy claimed. “I use them because I got tired of seeing bad guys walk out without punishment because we couldn’t get a confession or an incriminating statement. I’ve seen too many victims over the years to feel sorry for the bad guys. If we don’t put them away, nobody else is going to do it.”
McCarthy added that he never reveals to suspects that he has used trickery to trap them. If they do realize they’ve been duped, they rarely bring it up in court “because they don’t want to feel stupid.” Instead, they will claim they confessed because of “police brutality,” which they generally can’t document.
He also suggested some tactical deception you can use on the street when you think you are getting bogus ID information from someone. “Pretend to run the name you’ve been offered and then tell the subject that he’s got a warrant. This may prompt him to admit that he was claiming a false identity. Then make him prove it.”
Note: McCarthy teaches seminars under the auspices of John Reid & Associates on developing informants and improving interviewing and interrogation skills. You’ll find more information on his Street Crimes program Web site.
