"Person of Interest" (1970)
Bapopik at AOL.COM
Bapopik at AOL.COM
Mon Mar 13 13:25:50 UTC 2006
PERSON OF INTEREST--306,000 Google hits
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The NYC news (tabloids especially) is all over the murder investigation of a
graduate student. One person (a bouncer) had a positive blood identification.
Is he a "suspect"? No.
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He's a "person of interest."
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Who is a person of interest? Paris Hilton? Pamela Anderson?
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"Person of interest" is not in the revised OED. OED editors should check out
crime scene investigations more.
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There's an important article on "persons of interest" in a recent American
Journalism Review (see below). The article traces the term to the Atlanta
Olympics bombing in 1996 and Richard Jewell, but "person of interest" was used in
the Green River murder case in the 1980s and goes back to security
terminology from at least 1970.
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(GOOGLE NEWS)
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_Police: Bouncer's Blood Tied to Grad Student Case_
(http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1716274&page=1)
ABC News - <NOBR>14
... Littlejohn had been the sole "person of interest" in the sexually
motivated killing of St. Guillen, a 24-year-old graduate student. ...
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(GOOGLE GROUPS)
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_AMC: TAN: Nancy Kerrigan_
(http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv.soaps/browse_thread/thread/5837d389697206c6/04301880f4d274ed?lnk=st&q="person+of
+interest"&rnum=26&hl=en#04301880f4d274ed)
... (PORTLAND)- Portland figure skater Tonya Harding admitted last night
Detroit police
are naming her a person of interest in the investigation of last week's ...
_rec.arts.tv.soaps_
(http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv.soaps?lnk=sg&hl=en) - Jan 12 1994, 7:59 pm by AJ - 39 messages - 26 authors
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_Green River_
(http://groups.google.com/group/alt.true-crime/browse_thread/thread/c5da8137210ab0f4/9657952630151bb3?lnk=st&q="person+of+interest"&rnum=10&hl
=en#9657952630151bb3)
... absolutely riveting. Dave Bill Stevens, the person of interest, did die
of
cancer (pancreatic), according to newspaper reports. Good ...
_alt.true-crime_ (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.true-crime?lnk=sg&hl=en)
- Jul 28 1996, 1:03 pm by Stethmir - 3 messages - 3 authors
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_Mountian Tops..._
(http://groups.google.com/group/spk.phoenix/browse_thread/thread/543cb20589b8bb4/3ae71f4f15d59b9f?lnk=st&q="person+of+interest"&rnum=8&hl
=en#3ae71f4f15d59b9f)
... kind of agent I'd expect at my door, were I ever to be unfortunate
enough to be
'handpicked' by the FBI as a 'non-suspect' or a 'person of interest' It sure
is ...
_spk.phoenix_ (http://groups.google.com/group/spk.phoenix?lnk=sg&hl=en) -
Sep 14 1996, 12:42 pm by Dennis Mott - 9 messages - 7 authors
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(GOOGLE)
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_American Journalism Review_ (http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4042)
"Obviously, 'person of interest' is a number of steps from someone who has ...
Whether calling someone a "person of interest" is illegal remains to be seen
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www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4042 - 35k - _Cached_
(http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:-JOi0KZgke8J:www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4042+"person+of+interest"&hl=
en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=related:www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4042)
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(PROQUEST)
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_Surveillance of Citizens Stirs Debate; Government Surveillance of Citizens
and the Storage of Data Stir a Debate _
(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=82609424&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&
TS=1142255211&clientId=65882)
By BEN A. FRANKLIN Special to The New York Times. New York Times
(1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Dec 27, 1970. p. 1 (2 pages)
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Pg. 44:
The definition of "persons of interest" used by the United States Secret
Service, which has the mission of protecting the President, includes those who
might seek merely to "embarrass" the President.
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_Citizen File Kept By Police; Supervisors In Fairfax to Study System _
(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=119788766&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=
PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1142255385&clientId=65882)
By Judy Nicol Washington Post Staff Writer. The Washington Post (1974-Current
file). Washington, D.C.: May 9, 1974. p. C1 (1 page)
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The Fairfax County police department maintains an automated computer list of
"persons of interest to the police even though they may not have committed
crimes," and county supervisors are asking why.
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_Police Accept Suspect's Alibi in Green River Case_
(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=5&did=115473880&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=
309&VName=HNP&TS=1142255589&clientId=65882)
New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 23, 1989. p. A12 (1
page)
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_Stille a "Person of Interest"_
"He's still considered a 'person of interest,'" Mr. Ray said of Mr. Stevens.
"He is not being dropped."
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From AJR, _February/March 2006_
(http://www.ajr.org/index.asp?artType=2)
_Printer Friendly_ (http://www.ajr.org/article_printable.asp?id=4042)
Dilemma of Interest
Many law enforcement officials now use the vague term “person of interest”
to describe people caught up in their investigations. That poses a challenge
for journalists, who must try to convey a situation accurately without
unfairly tarring someone’s reputation.
By Donna Shaw
When Robert Lutner saw on the news that two close friends, Brenda Groene and
her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, had been bound and bludgeoned to death along
with Groene's 13-year-old son, Slade, he broke down and wept. Frantic, he
began calling other friends, trying to get more information. What had happened?
Who could have done such a thing? And where were two other Groene children —
Shasta, 8, and Dylan, 9 — both reported missing?
Lutner, who had been at Groene's Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, home on May 15, 2005,
the day before the bodies were found, called the hotline set up by the local
sheriff to offer any information he could. He says no one called him back.
So he and some friends drove around the area, searching for the children. They
found nothing.
Shocked and emotionally drained — Brenda Groene and McKenzie "were like
family," Lutner says — he went home and did something he knew he shouldn't: He
got drunk. Lutner, 33, is on probation for unemployment fraud and is forbidden
to drink. So when his probation officer called that evening and said he
needed to see him immediately, Lutner ignored him and turned off his phone.
"The next thing I know, I turn on the TV and see that I'm a 'person of
interest,'" says Lutner, a concrete worker and father of two. "It was like I was
in a dream world."
Like a growing number of people caught up in such investigations, Lutner
wasn't being called a suspect — or even a target, witness or subject, terms
often used by prosecutors. And since he wasn't charged with a crime, he certainly
wasn't a defendant. But police were handing out his mug shot and
descriptions of his vehicles, telling reporters that Lutner might know the whereabouts
of the two missing children.
Once heard primarily in connection with federal cases involving terrorism
and national security, many local police departments now use "person of
interest" routinely in investigations ranging from murders to brush fires.
Journalists — confronted with high-profile cases and competitors hot on
their heels — must decide how to handle the vague term to describe what could be
the central figure in their stories. A "person of interest" hasn't been
charged, much less convicted, of a crime. But the term clearly casts suspicion,
even when police insist they "just want to talk" to the person in question.
Last year, news reporters used the term to describe dozens of people in more
than 40 cases in 19 states, according to news database searches. The media
referred by name to the vast majority of these people, even though at AJR's
deadline at least half had not been charged with any crimes. In most instances,
reporters appeared to use the term without pressing police to define it,
leaving the interpretation up to the audience.
>From that list, Lutner was one of at least seven who were exonerated,
including three in a single case. One "person of interest" killed himself. Like
Lutner, many "persons of interest" have previous criminal records — raising the
additional question of whether they ever can escape their pasts.
Officially, "person of interest" means..well, nothing. No one has ever
formally defined it — not police, not prosecutors, not journalists. The terms
"accused," "allege," "arrest" and "indict" all are dealt with in the Associated
Press Stylebook, but there is no listing for "person of interest." Similarly,
the U.S. Attorneys' Manual — the official guide to federal criminal
prosecution — uses the terms "suspect," "subject," "target" and "material witness,"
but "person of interest" gets no mention. So what are reporters to do?
"The reporter should be on notice that it is a vague term that has no real
understandable definition," says Gerald B. Lefcourt, a New York defense
attorney and past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers. His advice to journalists: "You have to ask the police what they mean."
Kristin Gazlay, the AP's deputy managing editor for national news, says that
before naming anyone, "we need to look at why this person is a 'person of
interest'..also we have to recognize that police sometimes use this as a
technique to pressure people to talk." She says that "in cases high profile and low
profile," AP editors routinely discuss whether to use the names.
"Obviously, 'person of interest' is a number of steps from someone who has
been charged," Gazlay says.
Jim Kouri, a spokesman for the National Association of Chiefs of Police,
says "person of interest" often is a euphemism for "suspect."
"If it's a suspect and you say 'person of interest,' you're using the
euphemism to avoid problems down the line," says Kouri, a former New York housing
police officer. What problems? Police sometimes "try to maintain that the
person really isn't a suspect" in order to get him to agree to questioning
without Miranda warnings, Kouri says. "You don't want the guy to lawyer up."
Kouri says across the country, "it's the legal counsel telling police chiefs
that they should instruct their officers and train them to use that term."
Although the Justice Department has said it does not know who coined the
phrase, it came into prominent use after the July 1996 Olympics bombing in
Atlanta. The FBI leaked the name of security guard Richard A. Jewell, who for
nearly three months was the unofficial but primary suspect in the case (see
_"Going to Extremes," October 1996_ (http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=437) ).
During that period, Jewell was the subject of numerous news stories that
strongly suggested he was the bomber. Eventually the real culprit was
apprehended, tried and convicted. Jewell sued several news organizations, most of which
reached out-of-court settlements with him, and eventually got an apology
from then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
But judging by the increasing numbers of people identified as "persons of
interest" since then, neither the authorities nor the media have resolved how
or whether to use the term.
In September 2002, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to then-Attorney
General John Ashcroft, asking him to produce any policies or other written
materials that defined "person of interest" as used by the FBI to describe
scientist Steven J. Hatfill in connection with the anthrax mailings that killed
five people in late 2001. (See _"Into the Spotlight," November 2002_
(http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=2690) .) The Justice Department responded three
months later, prompting a press release from Grassley.
"There is no formal policy, level of evidentiary standard, procedure, or
formal definition for the term 'person of interest,'" the release stated.
"Government agencies need to be mindful of the power they wield over individual
citizens, and should exercise caution and good judgment when they use that
power."
Whether calling someone a "person of interest" is illegal remains to be
seen; Hatfill has sued the Justice Department, Ashcroft and the FBI, alleging
they violated his constitutional rights by publicly implicating him "without
formally naming him as a suspect or charging him with any wrongdoing." Hatfill
says the government unconstitutionally deprived him of earning a living by
leaking false information to divert media attention from the fact that the
government has failed to solve the case.
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