Time-gap between Eddowes murder and Goulston Graffito

[Sam Flynn]

I suppose the main question is whether the graffito would have been connected to the murders if the apron had not been there.

A very good point! I suspect not, as there's nothing intrinsically "murderous" about the graffito at all.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn:

But there is ample evidence that he could have missed it.

Ample evidence that he could have missed it ...!? Wow.

That "ample evidence" would be pointings out that people have missed things before.

How about there is ample evidence that he could have NOT missed it?

There are very many recorded events of people looking for their hats on hatshelves, and actually finding them.

Letīs agree, once and for all, that there is no way in hell that anybody here is going to be able to establish to what degree it is probable that Long would have missed the rag. Nor is there any establishable degree answering to the likelihood that Long would have found the rag.

That part of the discussion - although hugely entertaining and quite revealing at times - is totally moot.

We can establish that people who say "there was no apron there at the time" will much more often be right than wrong. That is beyond discussion - when we say a thing like that, we have in almost all cases made a check, and that check has turned out in favour of the apron not being there.
It is more or less comparable to people saying "the car was red" - then the car probably WAS red, much more probably so than any other colour - although it COULD have been green, blue or yellow too. People do misremember and get things wrong. But the better suggestion is and remains that the car was red.

In our case, we have an easy enough scenario: A PC, a small floor and a rag of sizeable dimensions. That does not open up for mistakes more than to a very, very limited degree, if we are speaking of the theoretical proposition that Long actually checked the doorway.

A huge amount of suggestions can then be added, but they are all nothing but suggestions with no substantiation in terms of hard evidence:

Long may have been drunk - but we have no knowledge of it.
Long may have been guessing - but we have no knowledge of it.
The rag may have been partly hidden - but we have no knowledge of it.

Etcetera, etcetera. These are all just baseless suggestions. Not baseless in the sense that we do not know that Long was a drinker at times, but in the sense that we do not know that he was intoxicated on the night in question. And people do guess - but we dont know if it applied to Long on the night. Plus rags may be partially hidden - but we donīt know if our rag was.

We have NOTHING to go by when it comes to hard facts on the evening in question, other than our knowledge that Long stated in a determined phraseology that the rag was not in position at 2.20.
Each and every suggestion that has been made in order to point to a possible mistake on Longs behalf, has been a suggestion where may and may not are equally worthy claims.
If any of these suggestions can be leaned one way, then it is the suggestion of a drunken PC, since this would in all probability have been picked up on by his colleagues.
But letīs look away from that fact, and simply say that ALL suggestions have equally worthy alternatives in may or may not!

That makes it easy enough to see that the suggestions all belong to a discussion that is totally moot. Itīs all good and well to know that Long could have been intoxicated, but "could have been" is an argument that owns no specific weight when there is an equally worthy counterweight in the argument that he could also have been sober.

Basically, we may add any number of equally weightless arguments:

Long may have been disturbed by somebody as he was about to check the doorway.

Long may have mistaken New Goulston Street for Goulston Street.

Long may have suffered from alcohol-induced lapses of memory.

Itīs all perfectly human, just as you say about the other, more common suggestions.
It is, however, also perfectly human to tell the truth, to stay sober on the odd night, and to be a diligent PC.

The vital point is that we canīt tell what applies when it comes to all of these suggestions. We must therefore settle for the things we DO know applied. It is and remains all we have.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

wow he cant get a break can he?
here we have people knocking his character bringing up his faults in trying to bolster their arguments that he probably missed it the first time around and now you are trying to down play the fact that it was HE, no one else that found it, realized its potential and was diligent and dutiful enough to bring it in, all the while also noticing the graffiti.

I don't buy your idea that 'someone would have found it " and done the same thing. the rag could have been gone by that time and or it could have been found and merely thrown out, without ever being brought to the police.


Also, someone can have faults that are unrelated to their ability to do their duty and be diligent and perceptive, and yet still get them canned from their job.

Long was fired for being drunk on duty, despite the warnings.

His ability to heed said warnings was lacking.

He wasn't that diligent.

Monty

[Michael W Richards]

Despite the fact that Long is dismissed after the fact for whatever reason, (drinking on duty for street police of that era and district wasn't rare, in fact some were encouraged during that "Jack" period to spend some of their time plying information about the murders from pub dwellers at play), I see no compelling reason in all the contrary posts made here to assume that he didn't tell the truth when he stated "It was not there", while being cross examined.

The size of the section of cloth taken surely must factor into any assumptions as to whether it would be clearly visible as he passed, as would its state at the time...being bunched up, or lying relatively flat...etc.

As I recall it was at leas 2 feet in either length or width, and approximately the same in the remaining measurement. Not a hanky..or a tissue...but something like a small shirt size.

Cheers

[Wickerman]

Long was fired for being drunk on duty, despite the warnings.

His ability to heed said warnings was lacking.

He wasn't that diligent.

Monty

PC Long dashed off to Commercial St. and was surrounded by superiors for the next 4 hours.
Shouldn't we expect at least one of them would smell drink on him? Especially the Inspector who helped him correct the wording.

[Wickerman]

....Neither should we invent controversies, where none exists.

But Gareth, this is precisely why we are here. You are inventing a controversy over the location of the apron, it has been officially located by Long & Warren.
As is typical, all other suggestions are vague and imprecise, not worth building a theory on.

You are also inventing a controversy about "if, Long missed the apron at 2:20".
That is pure modern speculation the issue was not raised at the time.
The controversy is a modern creation, so I think the reason we are here is due to yourself

And, the threshold is where the building begins, anything under the arch is within the building.

... No report says the graffito was directly above the apron,...

It doesn't have to, that's what "above" normally means.

If it was just off to one side then it would have been "near", not "above", not at "15 degrees to the perpendicular", not at "2 o'clock", not "diagonally related", not "24 bricks up and five bricks to the left", just "near".

But it wasn't any of these, it was "above".
And we all do know what "above" means.

[Wickerman]

Same with waitstaff. But, it does depend on what kind of apron this was. Was it functional or decorative?

Mike

I think the petite fancy aprons were only worn 'upstairs' by servants. The kitchen staff and cleaners wore the plain calico apron.

[harry]

The piece of cloth found in Wentworth building, was not identified as being part of the apron,until the Sunday afternoon.so why did Long rush to the police station with it at about 3AM the night of the killing?H e says at that time he had not heard of,or discovered, any incident of violence having occurred.

[Wickerman]

The piece of cloth found in Wentworth building, was not identified as being part of the apron,until the Sunday afternoon.so why did Long rush to the police station with it at about 3AM the night of the killing?H e says at that time he had not heard of,or discovered, any incident of violence having occurred.

Not sure what 'violence' you refer to Harry.

[Coroner] Before going did you hear that a murder had been committed? - Yes. It is common knowledge that two murders have been perpetrated.
[Coroner] Which did you hear of? - I heard of the murder in the City. There were rumours of another, but not certain.

http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_eddowes.html

[Barnaby]

Letīs agree, once and for all, that there is no way in hell that anybody here is going to be able to establish to what degree it is probable that Long would have missed the rag. Nor is there any establishable degree answering to the likelihood that Long would have found the rag.

We can establish that people who say "there was no apron there at the time" will much more often be right than wrong. That is beyond discussion - when we say a thing like that, we have in almost all cases made a check, and that check has turned out in favour of the apron not being there.

The best,
Fisherman

Of course there is no way to establish even ballpark absolute probabilities but in terms of relative probabilities I think you just did this and I agree with you.

In signal detection research, a signal (a beep) is or is not presented in static noise and the participant's job is to state if she heard a beep. There are four possibilities: a hit, a miss, a false alarm, and a correct rejection.

Several factors point to the overwhelming likelihood that the apron was not there. First, one has to take into account base rates. On any given beat, what is the probability of something of possible evidentiary value being there to be potentially discovered? I have no clue, but I think we can all agree that this is low. Just because of this, a correct rejection is going to be more likely than a miss.

The problem with the question people are asking "What is the probability of Long missing the apron?" is that it presupposes the apron was there and ignores the much greater likelihood that it simply wasn't. But we can begin to tackle that conditional probability, and the answer to the question I believe is very low.

By the sheer nature of their jobs, the police will have a liberal decision making bias (bias to report seeing/hearing something regardless of whether or not it is there). This leads to a high hit rate (they tend to find things when they are there, such as aprons and bodies) and also a higher false alarm rate (questioning innocent people, etc.). This is a good thing. I'd rather my airport security make false alarms and pull people out of line to do additional searches than having them miss a terrorist. In this case, if there was something to be found, the police would be biased to find it, as Long did.

[Monty]

PC Long dashed off to Commercial St. and was surrounded by superiors for the next 4 hours.
Shouldn't we expect at least one of them would smell drink on him? Especially the Inspector who helped him correct the wording.

That's not my point Jon,

Long wasnt diligent enough to keep his job.

Monty

[The Good Michael]

Monty,

Maybe this isn't the place for it, but I don't care really. Do you have a general sense of what it would have taken to get dismissed, and would the rules have been roughly the same for metro and city? I am of the impression that there was a lot of covering up for each other and that tale-telling would have been really frowned upon. If that is so, it would seem to me that it would take one super-egregious offense, like grand theft or something, but that drinking offenses would be tolerated for a time unless committed in conjunction with some huge event. I'm reminded of Brown resigning and committing suicide (allegedly) just after Kelly's funeral and that he was charged with dereliction (I believe). Anyway, too much speculation there, but what would it take during normal circumstance, to get dismissed? Was there a 3 strikes and you're out concept?

Mike

[Monty]

The piece of cloth found in Wentworth building, was not identified as being part of the apron,until the Sunday afternoon.so why did Long rush to the police station with it at about 3AM the night of the killing?H e says at that time he had not heard of,or discovered, any incident of violence having occurred.

Longs testimony-

Witness: I thought the best thing to do was to proceed to the station and report to the inspector on duty.

The Juror: I am sure you did what you deemed best.

Mr. Crawford: I suppose you thought it more likely to find the body there than the murderer? - Witness: Yes, and I felt that the inspector would be better able to deal with the matter than I was.


Long was concerned that another murder had occured nearby.

Monty

[Monty]

Monty,

Maybe this isn't the place for it, but I don't care really. Do you have a general sense of what it would have taken to get dismissed, and would the rules have been roughly the same for metro and city? I am of the impression that there was a lot of covering up for each other and that tale-telling would have been really frowned upon. If that is so, it would seem to me that it would take one super-egregious offense, like grand theft or something, but that drinking offenses would be tolerated for a time unless committed in conjunction with some huge event. I'm reminded of Brown resigning and committing suicide (allegedly) just after Kelly's funeral and that he was charged with dereliction (I believe). Anyway, too much speculation there, but what would it take during normal circumstance, to get dismissed? Was there a 3 strikes and you're out concept?


Mike

Pretty much it Mike.

Sometimes examples were made, however it depends on the severity of the offence, the Superintedent in charge, the strength at that time and so on, but yeah, you are correct.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Monty,

Maybe this isn't the place for it, but I don't care really. Do you have a general sense of what it would have taken to get dismissed, and would the rules have been roughly the same for metro and city? I am of the impression that there was a lot of covering up for each other and that tale-telling would have been really frowned upon. If that is so, it would seem to me that it would take one super-egregious offense, like grand theft or something, but that drinking offenses would be tolerated for a time unless committed in conjunction with some huge event. I'm reminded of Brown resigning and committing suicide (allegedly) just after Kelly's funeral and that he was charged with dereliction (I believe). Anyway, too much speculation there, but what would it take during normal circumstance, to get dismissed? Was there a 3 strikes and you're out concept?

Mike

I agree with you and Monty on the overall issue here, Mike. It probably took more than small matters to have you sacked from the force.
I would go so far as to say that keeping the staff in employment in spite of various shortcomings would have been more common in the police force than in most other occupations. It goes without saying that the police are supposed to set an example for the rest of the citizens about how to conduct yourself, and it wouldnīt look good if half the force was kicked out on account of being drunk, procuring stolen goods, using prostitutes etcetera.

Of course, there would be a counterweight to this mechanism present too; if it became common knowledge that policemen were being shielded from consequences that reasonably should have come their way, then the public would loose confidence in the force too.

So, practically speaking, the order of the day would be to try and make the PC:s shape up instead of kicking them out, and to carefully keep the information about these procedures under wraps.

However, Mike - what it seems you are after here is an understanding that Long very easily could have been a very bad egg, and that this would increase the probability that he was under the influence on the murder night. And technically speaking, you may have a point.

But we are nevertheless still left with the exact same scenario as I described earlier:

Maybe he was affected by drinking on the murder night.

Maybe he was not.

Itīs an open question, and the jury will stay out, no matter how we discuss the matter. Plus, of course, we have evidence of Long contacting his superiors and consorting with colleagues thoroughout the evening, none of who seem to have complained about him perhaps not being sober. Instead, he and the force in general were commended on their efforts at the inquest.

Anyhow, since we do not know either way, it is a non-issue. Itīs one of a thousand negative things that may have attached to Long, just as another thousand good and commandable things may have. May being the operative word.

Once the fog clears, we are left with statistics and evidence only:

-Normally, people who say "it was not there" say so since they have checked and not found.

-Long stated "the apron was not there at the time".

Everyting else is and remains baseless conjecture.

In his recent post, Barnaby made a very clear and useful assesment about things like these. Itīs well worth reading. And pondering.

All the best,
Fisherman