NYPD "Cannibal Cop"

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The officer used the National Crime Information database to make profiles of at least some of the over 100 women he planned to kidnap, cook, and eat. He also hoped to become a professional kidnapper.

Good thing he was caught before he had a chance to actually do it. Cell phone records showed he was already stalking one of the women. His wife found the information on his computer and turned him in.

Wow, Yankees fans are really disturbed this year.

They are really struggling with getting swept by Detroit.

I've seen some suggestion (including by the defense attorney) that it's just fantasy, we don't have conclusive proof he was going to do it.

Maybe so. But he apparently made some pretty clear steps towards stalking these women, including illegally using criminal databases to obtain their info. So we know that he's willing to break the law in pursuit of this fantasy. I think this falls within the reasonable range of "intent."

I'd like to learn more about what kind of proof is needed to convict on that claim, though.

There seems to be quite a bit of the weird and terrible in the news lately.

While this may be a possibility, I believe that at the very least he has just belatedly failed the psych evaluation for being a police officer.

Eek!

Protect and serve medium rare, I guess.

The Lifetime network might actually make a decent movie out of this.

ahahahaha

I'm wondering how he passed the psyche eval in the first place. I was in the NYPD Academy and they give you a battery of tests before you can even start regular academy training.

Cash would know a bucketload more about this than I would, but I presume it's different, as in, they're not just interested in the face-value answers, but in reading between the lines. It's an evaluation rather than just a series of questionnaires.

According to the story, this guy was a 6-year veteran. I was in the academy 10 years ago...so I'm going off the assumption that they didn't significantly change the process in the 4 year gap.

The only time I've spoken to a mental health professional (hold your jokes, smartasses,) was in dealing with the police academy. It was a pretty in-depth interview...and you don't always know the reason for the questions they ask. It's not as simple as "Do you think you might be crazy?" For example, after my interview...the Doctor said "Ehh...I think you might have a tendency to drink too much, I'd keep an eye on that." She was correct.

The intake process was also the first time I'd learned that I had any kind of a hearing deficit. It's not significant...but there's definitely a deficit.

What does all this mean? Nothing really....hopefully it just goes towards my point that the intake process for the NYPD isn't just a formality. They are pretty thorough...and for this guy to make it through...is alarming.

"Yes. Wait! I mean...











no..."

Wasn't this the plot of a 70s Italian horror film?

Well, he could still be convicted of the inchoate offense of attempt. The elements of Attempt in New York State are:

"Actus reus" is the guilty act, which when combined with "mens rea", or the subjective intent, combine to form criminal liability. Here, the prosecution must prove that he had both the intent (i.e., he wasn't just fantasizing), and that he did something to reveal that intent (in this case, using those criminal databases would probably qualify). These two prongs are obviously inter-related, in the sense that the prosecution can say "well, clearly he wasn't just fantasizing, he did x and y to further his plan" in order to prove both the mens rea and the actus reus elements.

Conversely, the defense's strategy will likely focus solely on the intent element. That's why he's suggesting that it's just a fantasy. Because he's not going to win by suggesting that there was no actus reus.