Pc Long and the piece of rag.

[kjab3112]

Guys, if you are truly arguing about late Victorian police procedure, I suggest you both step back and look at Monty's comment above. He has literally written the book

[harry]

Kjab,
I haven't read the book.What are the basic differences to what I have written.
Having been a uniformed patrol officer myself,on night shifts,it is mainly a duty of walking and observing,and acting on reported or observed suspicions.

What was acted upon by Long was the finding of a piece of apron at or in a building,at a stated time.What has been the subject of dispute,is whether the apron piece was there when that officer(Long) passed that building previously.
My opinion is that it could have been.
Am I wrong?

[harry]

The approximate length of Long's beat and the approximate time it would take to walk is not guesswork.It is a combination of what was reported on a web site,and what Long himself states.I made that clear. That is that beats were normally near to two miles in length,and an allowance of half an hour's w alking to complete.Long states he took 35 minutes on that particular pass.
So 5 minutes unnaccounted for.Big deal.

[Fisherman]

Kjab,
I haven't read the book.What are the basic differences to what I have written.
Having been a uniformed patrol officer myself,on night shifts,it is mainly a duty of walking and observing,and acting on reported or observed suspicions.

What was acted upon by Long was the finding of a piece of apron at or in a building,at a stated time.What has been the subject of dispute,is whether the apron piece was there when that officer(Long) passed that building previously.
My opinion is that it could have been.
Am I wrong?

Has anybody at all, at any time and in any way, claimed that you are wrong in saying that the rag COULD have been there, Harry?
The debate is not about that.
The debate is about how it is more likely that the rag was NOT there on account of what Long said, and on account on there not being any evidence to the contrary.
The debate is about whether we are free to ditch primary evidence in favour of our own ideas.
ThatŽs what under discussion, not if the rag could have been there. We all know that.

[Michael W Richards]

Kjab,
I haven't read the book.What are the basic differences to what I have written.
Having been a uniformed patrol officer myself,on night shifts,it is mainly a duty of walking and observing,and acting on reported or observed suspicions.

What was acted upon by Long was the finding of a piece of apron at or in a building,at a stated time.What has been the subject of dispute,is whether the apron piece was there when that officer(Long) passed that building previously.
My opinion is that it could have been.
Am I wrong?

According to the language used by PC Long, he disagrees with your opinion....and since he is the ONLY person who knew what actually transpired, we should put some merit into his version.

Why people don't want to accept a later drop is because they believe the cloth represented a marker on the killers trail home directly from the square.

[David Orsam]

What has been the subject of dispute,is whether the apron piece was there when that officer(Long) passed that building previously.
My opinion is that it could have been.
Am I wrong?

That's not the issue of the discussion between us. The issue is that in #191 your argument was essentially that the apron must have been there, or at least that Long could not possibly have seen it if it was there because he didn't have time to find it (i.e. "No time then to check doors, windows and empty spaces"). That is the argument which has failed.

[Michael W Richards]

So if he hadnt been tasked with looking there was no reason for him to look in the recess was there. So if he didn't look at 2.20am he was not able to say if it were there or not.

As Simon Wood says "Its not rocket science"

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Seems a moot point since he did say "it was not there'.

[David Orsam]

The approximate length of Long's beat and the approximate time it would take to walk is not guesswork.It is a combination of what was reported on a web site,and what Long himself states.I made that clear. That is that beats were normally near to two miles in length,and an allowance of half an hour's w alking to complete.Long states he took 35 minutes on that particular pass.
So 5 minutes unnaccounted for.Big deal.

You have entirely missed the point.

Firstly, there is no "5 minutes unaccounted for" because you haven't established the duration of Long's beat at normal walking pace, excluding any checks, as being 30 minutes (or any other length of time).

Secondly, in his beat which took him 35 minutes, Long found the apron! So let's work back. If his beat took 35 minutes then he was in Goulston Street at 1.45 then back there at 2:20 and then again at 2:55. If he found the apron at 2:55, and it had been there at 2:20, why would he not have found it at 2.20? There might be a reason but your argument was that he didn't have any time to find it. That argument has failed because he clearly had sufficient time to find it at 2:55.

[Abby Normal]

Ironic that a lot of the folks here that think long missed it, or could have missed it , or wasnt doing his proper job or sucked as a cop etc., are cops.

Why is that?

[Abby Normal]

Ironic that a lot of the folks here that think long missed it, or could have missed it , or wasnt doing his proper job or sucked as a cop etc., are cops.

Why is that?

Disclaimer.. I love and respect the police. I'm in the DOD INTEL world but never worked in local law enforcement.but do a lot similar.

[Abby Normal]

Seems a moot point since he did say "it was not there'.

apparently it is rocket science to some. monkey science more like it:

So if he didn't look at 2.20am he was not able to say if it were there or not.

LOL. backasswards no?

[Damaso Marte]

According to the language used by PC Long, he disagrees with your opinion....and since he is the ONLY person who knew what actually transpired, we should put some merit into his version.

PC Long is a fallible human being. While I agree we should give some level of deference to his statement, I don't buy the idea that we must take it as gospel unless we have evidence to the otherwise. I think we're within our rights as armchair Ripperologists to call PC Long's statement into question based merely on the implausibility of what it implies.

Why people don't want to accept a later drop is because they believe the cloth represented a marker on the killers trail home directly from the square.

I can't speak for anyone else. Personally, I question the later drop because the idea of the killer returning to within a few blocks of the crime scene, with a piece of evidence in his hand, is implausible to me. It's not that I don't want it to be true: its that it seems preposterous. An extraordinary claim, and I don't think that PC Long's insistence that it was not there earlier is extraordinary proof.

(And while I certainly post all the time about how I think the killer was a Whitechapel resident, and usually cite the apron when I say this, I think that even if the killer did drop the apron later, that is still evidence for a Whitechapel based murderer)

[Fisherman]

Damaso Marte: PC Long is a fallible human being. While I agree we should give some level of deference to his statement, I don't buy the idea that we must take it as gospel unless we have evidence to the otherwise.

Evidence to otherwise in this context must mean that you demand evidence that we must take it as gospel that the rag was not there, right?
What kind of evidence would that be?

I think we're within our rights as armchair Ripperologists to call PC Long's statement into question based merely on the implausibility of what it implies.

Given that most people agree that he stayed on the streets after killing Stride, just how implausible is it...? I think much depends on what kind of circumstances the killer lived under. If he had a house and a family, then he would not be likely to return home with blood on his clothes and innards in his pockets. It would be more plausible to suggest that he had a bolthole to clean up in and where he could hide hos trophies.
If he was living alone and in a place where he did not have to meet anybody at all when returning home, it would be more plausible for him to return there and hide his trophies there.
So the inplausibility you perceive goes away in some contexts, while it remains in others.
However, regardless whether he lived alone or with a family, he STILL chose to stay out in the streets after killing Stride, which is what most of us believe he did.


I can't speak for anyone else. Personally, I question the later drop because the idea of the killer returning to within a few blocks of the crime scene, with a piece of evidence in his hand, is implausible to me. It's not that I don't want it to be true: its that it seems preposterous. An extraordinary claim, and I don't think that PC Long's insistence that it was not there earlier is extraordinary proof.

Regardless if he went home directly, chose to stay out in the streets, hid in a doorway or went to a bolthole of his, he would have carried the rag from Mitre Square to Goulston Street. That applies whichever way we look at it. And it is only if he walked the streets surrounding Mitre Square after the strike that we need to accept him having carried the rag any longer than that. The one option that covers all bases is that he killed Eddowes, went to a bolthole of his, cleaned up and then went home afterwards. It raises the question why he did not discard of the rag there, but there may be several answers to that, two of them being that he 1/had cut homself and used the rag as a makeshift bandage (there was wet blood in it as it was found, remember) or 2/that he felt that he was connected to the bolthole and so he did not want the rag to be found there.

(And while I certainly post all the time about how I think the killer was a Whitechapel resident, and usually cite the apron when I say this, I think that even if the killer did drop the apron later, that is still evidence for a Whitechapel based murderer).

22 Doveton Street. IŽd check there first.

[MysterySinger]

Or he lived at Goulston Street. Dropped his trophy inadvertantly on his way up to his home. But beforehand he used it to rub out the word Jews he had just written and replaced with Juwes just to confuse everyone. Saucy!

[harry]

Nothing I have written essentially points to me as claiming the apron piece must have been there at 2.20.I have stated I am of the opinion it might have been.Long's words are not a statement of fact it was there at that time.It was a claim that has not been substanciated by information.He could have been mistaken,or he could have lied.
There is no missing 5 minutes in my calculations.There is an extra 5 minutes,and my calculations are not based on guesswork,nor am I the originator of the means by which beats were laid out and timed.

I have never been a policeman,but to the best of my knowledge and information,entering and searching was not a normal and essential part of every pass.The security of premises were as now, the responsibility of the owners.Police intervened ,as Trevor has pointed out,on suspicion,request or direction from a superior.None of these three conditions were stated by Long,to have been present at 2.20.So what evidence is there that Long needed to search the premises at that time?

W hat is my point.It is that we should not,as Fisherman stated,begin with a presumption that Long told the truth,and the apron was not at the premises in Goulstan Street at 2.20.(or words to that effect).