Tracing the erasing

[Pierre]

If the police in 1888 had problems with erasing the traces of a killer it can be traced in the erasing of statements by various methods.

Erase-case A)

Lechmere said, on the night of the murder of Polly Nichols, that he saw a policeman in Buck´s Row. This has been interpreted as the "Mizen Scam" by Fisherman. Mizen said that Cross told him there was a policeman in Buck´s Row. But at the inquest, Lechmere said he had not seen a policeman in Buck´s Row.

Hypothesis 1: His testimony was erased before he entered the courtroom. Mizen did not lie.

Erase-case B)

Lawende was not allowed to give his testimony about the dress of the man that he saw together with Eddowes close to the murder site. Lawende was silenced by the city solicitor who said that for particular reasons evidence about the dress should not be given.

Hypothesis 2: His testimony was erased when he had entered the courtroom.

Erase-case 3:

Arnold told the Herald that he met a police officer in Fleet Street who warned him that another terrible murder had been performed in Backchurch Lane. He gradually "changed" his statement.

Hypothesis 3: His statement was stepwise erased, from having been a statement about a police officer in the Herald to becoming an "ex member of the Met" (!) and finally a "man dressed as a soldier" in the CID papers. When Arnold entered the police building to make his statement to the police, the police officer he had seen was totally erased.

So if the police wanted to erase something and let it disappear without a trace, there are still the traces of the erasing.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

Re. Erase-case A)

Lechmere never said, at any time, according to anyone's recollection, that he 'saw a policeman in Buck's Row.'

Hypothesis 1:

You are mistaken.

Re. Erase-case B)

Lawende was not 'silenced'; he gave his description to the police, and there were operational reasons for the description, which was not necessary for the jury to form a verdict as to the death of Eddowes, to be withheld from the public.

Hypothesis 2:

You are mistaken.

Re. Erase-case 3 (shouldn't it be Erasure-case C)?):

In Arnold we simply have a case of a man who kept changing his statement which you would normally tell us showed that he had a 'tendency' to tell lies.

Hypothesis 3:

You are mistaken.

Conclusion

You are mistaken.

[Pierre]

QUOTE=David Orsam;383680

Re. Erase-case A)

Lechmere never said, at any time, according to anyone's recollection, that he 'saw a policeman in Buck's Row.'

"Police-constable Mizen said that at a quarter to four o'clock on Friday morning he was at the crossing, Hanbury-street, Baker's-row, when a carman who passed in company with another man informed him that he was wanted by a policeman in Buck's-row, where a woman was lying.

A Juryman: Did you tell Constable Mizen that another constable wanted him in Buck's-row?
Witness: No, because I did not see a policeman in Buck's-row."

Source: http://casebook.org/official_documen...t_nichols.html

Hypothesis 1:

You are mistaken.

The erasing is visible in the excerpt. It is a good hypothesis. Mizen did not lie. He was a policeman and sworn.

Re. Erase-case B)

Lawende was not 'silenced'; he gave his description to the police, and there were operational reasons for the description, which was not necessary for the jury to form a verdict as to the death of Eddowes, to be withheld from the public.

There is no evidence for any "operational reasons". The original source confirms that Lawende did not say anything about the dress of the man in court.

Hypothesis 2:

You are mistaken.

The statements in the newspapers about how the city solicitor suggests that Lawende shall not describe the dress are excluded in the original inquest source. Erased. It is a good hypothesis.

Re. Erase-case 3 (shouldn't it be Erasure-case C)?):

Of course. C.

In Arnold we simply have a case of a man who kept changing his statement which you would normally tell us showed that he had a 'tendency' to tell lies.

And here you are using the technique of simplifying. But it is not "simply" a case of that. Why not, David? Because they found a body part in the area Arnold was told about by the man. And you are also trying to simplify the method of source criticism. I do not "normally" say one specific thing about sources generally. You can not deduce from the result of the source criticism of one source to another. Each source must be analysed separately at first.

And here you have sources with a common tendency: To erase the statement of the witness.

Hypothesis 3:

You are mistaken.

The tendency is there since it is in the interest of the police that no police officer should have been seen by Arnold and revealing a murder a year after the Chapman murder. It is a good hypothesis.

Conclusion

You are mistaken.

Conclusion: Since there are several sources for a longer time period - including the three cases of Polly Nichols, Catherine Eddowes and the Pinchin Street case - with the exact same type of tendency and since there is a good explanation for this systematic tendency, the hypotheses are good enough for postulating a theory about institutional protection of the police.

This theory can be built on the three hypotheses above and it can also be used for trying another hypothesis: that the police would have been able to take further steps in the same direction. I think that the silence of Abberline at the Kelly inquest, for instance, can be analysed from that perspective.

I understand that you do not like me, David, but that is not enough for discarding what you read in this thread.

Regards, Pierre

[CommercialRoadWanderer]

...and so the ripper was a policeman and the police was trying to cover him.

Very nice Fisherman-style indeed, Pierre .

[Robert St Devil]

Hi Pierre

Presenting the 3 points of your argument in this manner suggests cooperation between City and Metro police officials in erasing or concealing aspects of the cases, in addition to presenting London police forces operating en masse. Would the City Solicitor have been working with the benefit of both agencies in mind when he deferred Lawende's description of Catherine Eddowes' dress?

Or, could this have been an indirect objection against the manner of inquests that were being driven by Wynne Baxter? During the Chapman inquest, Dr. Phillips refused the description of Annie Chapman's abdominal [injuries] at his first appearance before Mr. Baxter; however, Mr. Baxter insists on their description at Dr. Phillips second inquest appearance. Is "the silence of Lawende" at the Eddowes inquest more indicative of the manner of investigation that the City Police were conducting?

RStD

[David Orsam]

Re. Erase-case A)

Thank you for confirming that Lechmere never said that he had spoken to a policeman prior to speaking to Mizen. Telling Mizen that he was wanted by a policeman (and then denying it) can easily be explained by Lechmere wanting to get to work without having to accompany Mizen back to Buck's Row.

Re. Erase-case B)

The original inquest source is a deposition of Lawende. How would it be possible for a comment by the City Solicitor to be included in Lawende's deposition? (Clue: it's not possible because it was Lawende's deposition not the deposition of the City Solicitor). Lots of information could be lawfully withheld from the inquest for obvious and sensible operational reasons because the police did not want the public or the perpetrator to know details of the investigation or of the crime scene.

Re. Erase-case C)

Arnold was not told that a body part would be found "in the area". He was told that there had been a murder in Backchurch Lane. There has never been any evidence of a murder in Backchurch Lane. A body part was later found in an adjacent street. The details are all recorded in police documents and nothing has been erased.

Conclusion

You are quite wrong to say I don't like you Pierre. As I've said many times before, it seems to me that you have a tendency to leap to conclusions based on information and documents that you have failed to understand properly and this thread is another classic example of that. In your evident desire and eagerness to wrongly accuse a police officer of the Ripper murders you are imagining some sort of conspiracy to "erase" evidence when no such conspiracy exists.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Robert St Devil;383752]

Hi Pierre

Presenting the 3 points of your argument in this manner suggests cooperation between City and Metro police officials in erasing or concealing aspects of the cases, in addition to presenting London police forces operating en masse. Would the City Solicitor have been working with the benefit of both agencies in mind when he deferred Lawende's description of Catherine Eddowes' dress?

Hi Robert,

As I see it, there is no possibility to answer that question. There are two problems: the police handled the sources and they decided what people should be allowed to know about the details of the case. Isn´t this still a problem? Or did the Yard give out the sources that Trevor Marriott asked for?

Or, could this have been an indirect objection against the manner of inquests that were being driven by Wynne Baxter?

Anything "could have been" but you need sources for it.

During the Chapman inquest, Dr. Phillips refused the description of Annie Chapman's abdominal [injuries] at his first appearance before Mr. Baxter;

That is an entirely different problem.

however, Mr. Baxter insists on their description at Dr. Phillips second inquest appearance.

Is "the silence of Lawende" at the Eddowes inquest more indicative of the manner of investigation that the City Police were conducting?

You will need a set of comparable sources to answer that question and to be able to construct a "manner of investigation of the City Police" to confirm such an hypothesis. This set must be randomly selected and tested for significance. So you must construct variables, otherwise you will have bias in the results.

Also, there are big problems with the operationalization especially at the lowest level of definitions. You may not get any validity at all even if you perform factor analysis on the statistical data.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

QUOTE=David Orsam;383765]Re. Erase-case A)

Thank you for confirming that Lechmere never said that he had spoken to a policeman prior to speaking to Mizen. Telling Mizen that he was wanted by a policeman (and then denying it) can easily be explained by Lechmere wanting to get to work without having to accompany Mizen back to Buck's Row.

You misunderstand it and probably on purpose. Read it again.

Re. Erase-case B)

The original inquest source is a deposition of Lawende. How would it be possible for a comment by the City Solicitor to be included in Lawende's deposition? (Clue: it's not possible because it was Lawende's deposition not the deposition of the City Solicitor). Lots of information could be lawfully withheld from the inquest for obvious and sensible operational reasons because the police did not want the public or the perpetrator to know details of the investigation or of the crime scene.

And since you say the same thing over and over again you will go back and read my answer to it again.

Re. Erase-case C)

Arnold was not told that a body part would be found "in the area". He was told that there had been a murder in Backchurch Lane. There has never been any evidence of a murder in Backchurch Lane. A body part was later found in an adjacent street. The details are all recorded in police documents and nothing has been erased.

Purposely misunderstanding again, perhaps. In the area is where Backchurch Lane met Pinchin Street and around it. "Nothing has been erased" is very misleading. The stepwise changed testimony is the issue here, which you could have understood if you wanted to. Go back and read.

Conclusion

You are quite wrong to say I don't like you Pierre. As I've said many times before, it seems to me that you have a tendency to leap to conclusions based on information and documents that you have failed to understand properly and this thread is another classic example of that. In your evident desire and eagerness to wrongly accuse a police officer of the Ripper murders you are imagining some sort of conspiracy to "erase" evidence when no such conspiracy exists.

You do not know anything about what I want so do not speculate about it.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

You misunderstand it and probably on purpose. Read it again.

I have misunderstood nothing Pierre. You need to read it again. At no time does anyone say that Lechmere claimed to have spoken to a policeman.

And since you say the same thing over and over again you will go back and read my answer to it again.

What you said was:

"There is no evidence for any "operational reasons". The original source confirms that Lawende did not say anything about the dress of the man in court."

The original source does not confirm that Lawende was silenced or that he was not allowed to say anything he wanted to. If the City Solicitor had wanted to silence Lawende do you really think he would have done so openly in front of the press? I am saying that there are often operational reasons for evidence to be withheld.

You also said

"The statements in the newspapers about how the city solicitor suggests that Lawende shall not describe the dress are excluded in the original inquest source. Erased."

What the City Solicitor did, according to the extract you reproduced, was suggest that unless the jury desired it, he would rather that the evidence was not given in open court about the suspect's dress and was withheld from the public. That means that if the jury had wanted to hear it, Lawende would have been asked about it. He wasn't silenced at all and it is quite utterly ridiculous for you to say that he was.

Nothing was erased.

Purposely misunderstanding again, perhaps. In the area is where Backchurch Lane met Pinchin Street and around it. "Nothing has been erased" is very misleading. The stepwise changed testimony is the issue here, which you could have understood if you wanted to. Go back and read.

I haven't misunderstood anything Pierre. Pinchin Street is not Backchurch Lane. There is no "testimony" involved in this matter. Nor was there a "silence of Abberline" as you mentioned in your previous post. Something which has been demonstrated to you clearly but you never seem to take anything on board.

You do not know anything about what I want so do not speculate about it.

It's hardly speculation, your motives are transparent and I note that you do not deny what I said.

[CommercialRoadWanderer]

The more i read about the Mizen charade, the more I'm convinced that the cops made the right call when they decided to ignore it completely back in the days. It's the jarring that today someone is still trying to know it better about it, but whatever.

[GUT]

The more i read about the Mizen charade, the more I'm convinced that the cops made the right call when they decided to ignore it completely back in the days. It's the jarring that today someone is still trying to know it better about it, but whatever.

But don't you know....

Depending who you listen to the cops were either covering up or idiots.... O give me a break.

[Pierre]

The more i read about the Mizen charade, the more I'm convinced that the cops made the right call when they decided to ignore it completely back in the days. It's the jarring that today someone is still trying to know it better about it, but whatever.

They had reasons not to investigate Lechmere.

[Pierre]

But don't you know....

Depending who you listen to the cops were either covering up or idiots.... O give me a break.

"The cops" - who are they?

[Robert St Devil]

"The cops" - who are they?

According to this thread, the Metropolitan and City police comprise the police. Metro erased A and C. City eraced B.

[CommercialRoadWanderer]

They had reasons not to investigate Lechmere.

Because someone tied with the police just bullied Lechamere into changing his version and "erase" the policeman at the scene, as that policemen was technically a suspect, and this someone avoided to bully Mizen too cause doing so was arguably more risky?