JtR was Law Enforcement Hypothesis

[Trevor Marriott]

Goulston street is a long street, it is quite easy for one person to be leaving the top end while another is coming up from the bottom, or vice versa.

The length of Goulston Street from end to end is approximately 280 yards. The distance from its junction with Wentworth Street and the archway where the apron piece was found is approximately 70 yards. But of course that is the max distance, and for that both officers would have to be at each end of the street. The nearer they were to each other the more chance of seeing, or making contact with each other.

I fail to see how at that time of the morning neither officer saw or heard anything of each other, or did they?

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[Wickerman]

The length of Goulston Street from end to end is approximately 280 yards. The distance from its junction with Wentworth Street and the archway where the apron piece was found is approximately 70 yards. But of course that is the max distance, and for that both officers would have to be at each end of the street. The nearer they were to each other the more chance of seeing, or making contact with each other.

I fail to see how at that time of the morning neither officer saw or heard anything of each other, or did they?

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The beat constable knows where he is on his beat every day, he must be at the same spot to keep on schedule. As this was Long's first day on that route he would have been told where to be at certain times. He knows the routine, he just has to adapt to a different route, and he had been on this route for about 4 hours.
So, if he knows he was in Goulston street at 2:20, because his schedule required it, then we should take that as reliable.

On the other hand, Halse is conducting a search of every street and he came up Middlesex, into Wentworth and it seems he entered Goulston street from the top end. But he is not on a schedule, so the time he was in each of those streets must be an estimate.

Obviously, I don't know what the procedure is, but would he really check his watch every time he enters another street and write the time down?
Or, is he expected to remember the time he entered every street he ran through on that night?

Halse says, "I came through Goulston street at/about 20 minutes past 2".

Why did he pick 2:20 as a time?, he could just as easily said, "I might have passed through Goulston street about that time", which would be more likely, as opposed to choosing that precise time - 2:20.

Long is on a schedule, Halse is just rushing through the backstreets. If we have to pick the more reliable time it must be PC Long.

[Batman]

How did JtR manage it?

1. Constrained in a small 9^2 km area.
2. Avoids PCs on the beat. Avoids increased numbers after Chapman. Avoids overdrive operations after Eddowes.
3. Avoids plainclothes detectives and officers.
4. Avoids stakeouts on the streets from within buildings looking out windows.
5. Avoids baiting him.
6. Could somehow work in total darkness without a lamp?
7. Can last an evening walking around for a 40 min with maybe a bag or parcel of human organs without being stopped and searched?
8. Is not seen by witnesses and isn't mobbed down?
9. Totally avoids Lusk's vigilante group.
10. Silent and vanishes into the night?

How could he not have inside knowledge?

[J6123]

1. Constrained in a small 9^2 km area.
2. Avoids PCs on the beat. Avoids increased numbers after Chapman. Avoids overdrive operations after Eddowes.
3. Avoids plainclothes detectives and officers.
4. Avoids stakeouts on the streets from within buildings looking out windows.
5. Avoids baiting him.
6. Could somehow work in total darkness without a lamp?
7. Can last an evening walking around for a 40 min with maybe a bag or parcel of human organs without being stopped and searched?
8. Is not seen by witnesses and isn't mobbed down?
9. Totally avoids Lusk's vigilante group.
10. Silent and vanishes into the night?

How could he not have inside knowledge?

Don't forget his victims facilitated him. The prostitutes likely new the area and the police beats pretty well.

[Batman]

548 men in H Division

Don't forget his victims facilitated him. The prostitutes likely new the area and the police beats pretty well.

No quarrels with that point and it had to matter.

Yet by the 'end' of the murders 'H Division' had a force numbering some 548 men, comprising of Superintendant Arnold, 30 Inspectors, 44 Sergeants and 473 Constables.

Here are most of H Division personnel.

They were sure to be watching nearly every woman out on the street at night at that stage. Like human CCTV around the place.

[Trevor Marriott]

The beat constable knows where he is on his beat every day, he must be at the same spot to keep on schedule. As this was Long's first day on that route he would have been told where to be at certain times. He knows the routine, he just has to adapt to a different route, and he had been on this route for about 4 hours.
So, if he knows he was in Goulston street at 2:20, because his schedule required it, then we should take that as reliable.

On the other hand, Halse is conducting a search of every street and he came up Middlesex, into Wentworth and it seems he entered Goulston street from the top end. But he is not on a schedule, so the time he was in each of those streets must be an estimate.

Obviously, I don't know what the procedure is, but would he really check his watch every time he enters another street and write the time down?
Or, is he expected to remember the time he entered every street he ran through on that night?

Halse says, "I came through Goulston street at/about 20 minutes past 2".

Why did he pick 2:20 as a time?, he could just as easily said, "I might have passed through Goulston street about that time", which would be more likely, as opposed to choosing that precise time - 2:20.

Long is on a schedule, Halse is just rushing through the backstreets. If we have to pick the more reliable time it must be PC Long.

Way back then the police officers on the beat would work on what was called fixed points, this was so supervising officers could keep track of them.

Fo example in the case of Long his fixed points might have been one end of Goulston Street on the hour and the other end of Goulston Street on the half hour. Giving him 30 minutes beat time to check his property around the area.

But of course officers could not always keep to these times, for example if something had detracted the officer and he had been delayed he would not get to that next fixed point. In that case if a supervisor out on patrol checking on officers, might go looking for that officer or later enquire as to why he was not as his fixed point.

Halse stated that he first passed through Goulston Street via Middlesex St and then went into Wentworth St. Did he go via Aldgate, or did he go via Stoney Lane, either way he would have to have entered Goulston Street via New Goulston Street, which puts him in close proximity to the Archway on not one, but two occasions, furthermore if he is checking likely places where the killer might be hiding why did he not check the archway, either on his first pass, or his second pass.

Can we assume that at that time of the morning the streets were deserted? because Halse didnt stop and check anyone else en route to Wentworth St, and that is some considerable distance from Mitre Square, likewise Long doesn't mention checking anyone, or seeing anyone for that matter. So I fail to see how they could not have seen, or heard each other, but as i said perhaps they did!

We get back to the value, and reliability of witnesses in the whole of this ripper mystery and it is quite clear than many including police witnesses deliberately lied, and to many people want to readily accept and rely to much on the evidence of police witnesses, when right from those at the top of the tree in Scotland Yard we can see major conflicts.

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[Sam Flynn]

How could he not have inside knowledge?

No amount of inside knowledge can mitigate against being caught by a random passerby.

Besides, it was simply impossible for the police to have every base covered, even after reinforcements were brought in. It's not as if we're talking about hundreds of extra officers, either.

You rightly say that the killer was confined within a small area, but let's not forget that within that area was a warren of interconnected streets and alleys. These would increase the potential number of routes and hiding places at the killer's disposal, only a small proportion of which would be actively patrolled by police or vigilantes.

A human lung has an external area of perhaps two square feet, but when one takes into account the internal structure, the available area is more than 300 times greater. Now, I'm not saying that the inner structure of "Whitechapel" was as anywhere near as complex as a lung, but you get the picture.

[Sam Flynn]

No quarrels with that point and it had to matter.

Yet by the 'end' of the murders 'H Division' had a force numbering some 548 men, comprising of Superintendant Arnold, 30 Inspectors, 44 Sergeants and 473 Constables.

Here are most of H Division personnel.

They were sure to be watching nearly every woman out on the street at night at that stage. Like human CCTV around the place.

They worked in shifts, and not all would be on duty at the same time, 24/7.

[Sam Flynn]

It's not as if we're talking about hundreds of extra officers, either.

By which I should clarify that I mean "not all on duty at the same time, 24/7" (as per my immediately preceding post).

[Batman]

No amount of inside knowledge can mitigate against being caught by a random passerby.

If JtR was LE, then inside knowledge is what he needs to avoid his peers and colleagues. A random passerby wouldn't think him JtR if he was in uniform, and if not, he could just flash his credentials if someone was starting to sound the alarm.

It is understandable that the 500+ official ripper staff can't work 24/7, but this is important if JtR is LE, because he would need time outside of his beat operating hours to commit some of the crimes. We know they fill-in for others and some might even be part-timers and reserves.

I actually thought JtR only killed on weekends and was doing a 9-5 (despite most Whitechapel working 6-7 days per week) and this was a barrier to LE being JtR. I learned this is wrong. That JtR killed on working days also. Knowing that not all LE would work every day and that they may have had days off during the week suddenly made that barrier evaporate.

It is not really the dodging of society that speaks to inside knowledge but dodging all the undercover operators, their stake-outs, their bait, and the general police officer beats. I use to subscribe to the 'just lucky' idea, but now I think it is a clue and it is pointing to inside knowledge, not some 'lucky' madman.

While we know that there were many passages in and out of streets not marked on any maps, the idea JtR moved through these without anyone noticing, is luck that he made himself, but still, he needs piles of luck on top of that to avoid the police net, which he did.

I don't think someone could get away with what he did, with such traps about the place, without at least one of them snaring him. The only other serial killing case I read with such a deployment of police in an area where the killer was operating almost weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, failed to catch him because he had inside knowledge. Everything else like that usually catches them within a time period or they get such good hits from witnesses that the composite is major break-through.

JtR seems to me to be someone who was actually operating in plain view which is why he got away with it.

[Sam Flynn]

Would someone with insider knowledge have chosen to kill in Bucks Row, which coincided with PC Neil's beat, or Mitre Square, which coincided with those of PCs Harvey and Watkins?

Not that I have a particular problem with the killer evading the police anyway, due to the layout of the neighbourhood, the sheer number of potential locations and the near-impossibility of their being monitored.

[John Wheat]

Would someone with insider knowledge have chosen to kill in Bucks Row, which coincided with PC Neil's beat, or Mitre Square, which coincided with those of PCs Harvey and Watkins?

Not that I have a particular problem with the killer evading the police anyway, due to the layout of the neighbourhood, the sheer number of potential locations and the near-impossibility of their being monitored.

I'm with Sam. Also factor in the fact that prostitutes tend to do business away from the police in secluded spots.

[Batman]

Would someone with insider knowledge have chosen to kill in Bucks Row, which coincided with PC Neil's beat, or Mitre Square, which coincided with those of PCs Harvey and Watkins?

Not that I have a particular problem with the killer evading the police anyway, due to the layout of the neighbourhood, the sheer number of potential locations and the near-impossibility of their being monitored.

JtR could be one of those officers. He could have been an officer nearby, say down by Aldgate, a minute or two away. He could even have been the one that arranged their beats or knew when someone new was on a particular beat. JtR was confident enough to know he could get away with it. That confidence isn't luck, IMO. He knew things about LE.

If it was near-impossible to monitor suspected locations in Whitechapel then they wouldn't have done it. They pulled in a huge number of people caught in these nets, not to mention the public practically lynching whoever they thought a suspect. They were able to find Leather Apron and nearly anyone that they had to find except for maybe the Batty St., lodger.

You are basically saying JtR could luckily avoid every single trap, beat, plain-clothed officer, bait and stakeouts while avoiding Lusks men, the general public and nearly everyone on the lookout in case JtR gets them, by luck and knowing alleys.

If he was looking like a typical Jew in the appearance of the time, then it's even more unlikely he can just walk across Whitechapel and using every secret alley in the book without people taking notice.

Having read 'Scotland Yard Investigates' by Rumbelow and Evans, there is no doubt in my mind that Whitechapel was one big stakeout with many officers working on at least every major street to stop the ripper. Such undertakings were never seen again in London I would say until the start of this century because of Islamic radical terrorism.

Can you give an example of a JtR type mass stakeout in parts on London before the turn of the millennium?

[Sam Flynn]

You are basically saying JtR could luckily avoid every single trap, beat, plain-clothed officer, bait and stakeouts while avoiding Lusks men, the general public and nearly everyone on the lookout in case JtR gets them, by luck and knowing alleys.

Unless the police/vigilantes had someone permanently on point in every street and alley the killer would have had every opportunity to hunt, kill and escape undetected. (I say "some one permanently on point", when in reality a number of officers would have been needed to watch the longer thoroughfares.)

The police did the very best they could, but even with their number swollen to 500+ (perhaps only a third of whom were on the streets at any given time), the situation wasn't remotely akin to blanket coverage.

[Batman]

Unless the police/vigilantes had someone permanently on point in every street and alley the killer would have had every opportunity to hunt, kill and escape undetected. (I say "some one permanently on point", when in reality a number of officers would have been needed to watch the longer thoroughfares.)

The police did the very best they could, but even with their number swollen to 500+ (perhaps only a third of whom were on the streets at any given time), the situation wasn't remotely akin to blanket coverage.

You don't need blanket coverage for JtR to eventually get caught in part of the net. You just need enough nets to reduce the probability of getting away. Each time that net went up, JtR 'luckily' avoided it, despite not knowing anything about the net, apparently and it got bigger reducing his probability of getting away time.

Let's say 200 officers are working in Whitechapel at any one time. Divide Whitechapel up in a 20 x 20 grid with one officer in each square. JtR avoided all that by luck?