Reading the KC Star - June 3, 2005

Headline - Stay fit, not fat, CDC insists. April report flawed, Director concedes.

"Weighing a little too much might not kill you, but there's nothing healthy about it, the head of the nation's health agency said Thursday."
Lead sentence by Marilynn Marchione, AP Reporter.

The article professed that, "Julie Gerberding, chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, distanced herself from an April report that being overweight wasn't so bad." Is this not the same person who distanced herself from the flu vaccine debacle of last year? Are we beginning to see a pattern? One would expect proactive, rather than reactive, oversight from the CDC chief.

By the way, the definitive article ahead of "nation's health agency" should have been caught by the article's editor and changed to the indefinite 'a'. CDC is merely one of several national government health agencies.

Headline - Precious Doe Case: Lessons Learned

"The tipster who provided key information in the Precious Doe murder investigation called police 50 times starting last year, Kansas City police acknowledged Thursday."
- Lead sentence by Christine Vendel, Reporter.

The Precious Doe case was a four year police effort to identify a girl's headless body left in a wooded area near houses. The child's identity was key to solving the crime. The tipster was the murdered girl's great-grandfather who started calling police in July, 2004, after he became suspicious about the girl's whereabouts.

The homicide detective who led the investigation claimed, despite the fact that only three of the tipster's 50 calls were logged and only 1 returned, "Yes, we dropped the ball, but we picked it up and ran it in for the game-winning touchdown." Sounds to me like they fell on their own fumble in their end zone. Final score: Tipster 2, Police 0. Let's give credit where credit is due.

The detective is quoted further: "Is there a way to do it better in the future? That's what I want to look at. I have some ideas in mind." Well, well, well, what a wonderful place for an idea.

A deputy chief suggests having two different detectives talk to tipsters who call multiple times for a "second opinion". Sounds to me like a different mind-set is needed. How often are kids or the elderly dismissed as incompetent solely because of their age?

In defending the police's incompetence, the detective is quoted, in regard to the fact that the tipster's 50 calls were among 1,100 tips policed received in the case, " When you have the number of tips we had, detectives need to prioritize and use their judgement." Sounds good, but how many of those 1,100 tips came in the last 10 months before the case was solved? More than 50? Judgement without intelligence is like soap without water. Sounds to me like selection criteria for police detective should include critical thinking skill and analytical ability. Do you want to bet the latter traits get short shrift when picking who moves up from beat officer to detective? Indeed, let's hope lessons are learned from Precious Doe.