Making Sense of Crime in the News

In this week’s article, I want to look at a spate of assaults, which are currently happening in Waltham, Massachusetts. Over the past two weeks there have been a number of assaults – somewhere around ten/eleven, based on media reports - where an assailant(s) has seemingly assaulted random men without warning, sometimes using a weapon, and sometimes not. In several of these cases, the attacks have come from behind, and when they have occurred from the front or side, there was no preceding verbal exchange. In this article I want to look at how we can make some sense of the possible motivation and nature of these attacks, from the scant information we have.

One of the first questions to ask, is whether these assaults are being carried out by the same person, or by different individuals. One of the tools that we have to engage in to do this is, “crime linkage”, where we look at the similarities of the assaults, and see if there are any commonalities. There are two basic commonalities that we can potentially observe: “modus operandi” and “signatures”. A person’s modus operandi i.e. how they commit their crimes/assaults, isn’t always a stable factor e.g. if we assume, that in the Waltham attacks, they are being carried out by the same perpetrator, we can see that the attacks have changed in a number of ways; for instance, the first attack involved a knife, subsequent attacks have been carried out unarmed, and later attacks have involved some form of impact weapon, etc. Again, if we assume the attacks are carried out by the same individual, there may be “rational” reasons for the modus operandi changing. In the first attack, where a knife was used, the victim ended up getting slashed across their lip, which would have resulted in a lot of blood being spilt. If the perpetrator ended up getting covered in blood, they may have decided that this was something they didn’t want to experience again, maybe because they realized how much damage a knife can do – and they weren’t looking for their attack to be fatal, or they might have realized that after exiting the crime scene, they would now be easily identifiable as the attacker due to their blood-stained clothing etc. This may have forced them to change the way they make their assaults e.g. using fists, or blunt trauma weapons to generate concussive force. Different modus operandi can also indicate, that it is different individuals committing these assaults, which is why it is important when engaged in crime linkage to try and identify a “signature”.

A “signature” is something that is distinct to an offender, and that is common across crime scenes (possibly despite different modus operandi). It could be something obvious, such as after committing the assault, and rendering the victim unconscious, the offender always removes the victim’s shoes, or always leaves them in a certain position etc. The signature is viewed as something which is more stable in crime linkage than the modus operandi. In most cases those who are investigating the offenses will not want the signature to become public knowledge, as if there is a copycat offender(s), who is aware of the signature, they may then incorporate it into their offending behavior, making it difficult to separate one set of crimes from another. It can also take time for a serial offender to develop a consistent signature, as their initial crimes may be more chaotic and disorganized, and it is only as they become more comfortable with their offenses – as they realize their victims rarely fight back etc. – that they feel they have more time at the crime scene than they initially thought at the start of their offending campaign.

Without a motive, there isn’t an offense. It appears that in none of the assaults, were items/resources taken i.e. the assaults were not financially motivated. Also, in none of the attacks, was there any “overkill”. That is, after the victim was rendered unconscious, unable to fight back, the attacker(s) left. This suggests that anger is not the primary motivation behind these assaults. If this was the case, the attacker(s) would likely continue to beat, and attack the victim, until their anger/rage was dissipated, rather than simply leave. The absence of these two motives, suggest that the violence is “recreational” in nature, and motivated by the need to be seen, or recognized by others in some way – whether they are present at the time of the assault, or are told about it later. The nature of the assaults, demonstrates that the assailant(s) is concerned about being identified – the attacks have happened largely from the rear/side, and on the few occasions where they have occurred from the front, the attacker has had their hood pulled up. The speed at which the attacks are carried out, with the offender leaving the scene as soon as the victim is rendered incapable of defending themselves, suggests that they are extremely concerned about being observed and caught. All violence accomplishes something, and attacks of this nature, are carried out so an individual can either assert or assure themselves of their identity, and this is usually done to a larger audience, rather than the individual. This might suggest that it is a pair of individuals performing for each other at the scene or recalling the events afterwards to another or a group. The fact that there is a strong emphasis on anonymity may suggest that the individual committing these assaults, and the larger group to which they belong are well known in the areas where they commit these attacks.

The assaults have all happened between 4:30 pm and 11:30 pm, this again reinforces the idea that the violence is recreational and designed to fill time e.g. the individual(s) responsible is not waking up in the middle of the night with the urge/desire to attack somebody – if this was the case it is likely that anger would be a more present motivator, and the attacks would be more prolonged; this would be one of the reasons that the assaults would likely happen at these times, when there were fewer people around and the offender would have more time to spend assaulting their victim. The fact that these assaults occurred at times when the assailant had a good chance of being disturbed, or observed, suggests that this is an activity they are engaging in as a leisure pursuit e.g. it may be that they meet with a few friends, engage in public drinking together, and then possibly dare each other to go off and find a victim etc. This type of recreational violence is a young person’s game, and for the attacks to be so frequent, suggests an energy that comes from a pair or group, rather than one that is maintained by an individual. It is also worth noting that the first five attacks happened in a relatively small geographic area. It is often the case that offenders start their offending relatively close to where they live, in areas that they know well e.g. so if they are spotted they know the best escape routes and ways to evade law-enforcement etc. After awhile they will move on to other areas, as the risk of getting caught – by increased police patrols, or by locals recognizing them – increases. However, at some point, they will return to these areas, as they become more comfortable with their offenses, and want to put less effort into them (by not travelling so far afield).

There is obviously much, much more that could go into developing a profile of an offender(s), and understanding their motivation(s) e.g. I have not touched upon the victimology of those who they have targeted – ethnic, racial, demographic similarities etc. and have only briefly covered the geographic profiles of the offenses etc. however, hopefully it can be seen, that from a few pieces of information, we can start to build up a fairly full picture concerning these types of offenses.