A few months ago, Netflix released a true crime series: Night Stalker, A Hunt for a Serial Killer, relating the investigation of the sickening crimes and the eventual apprehension and trial proceedings in the mid-1980s of Richard Ramirez in Los Angeles, notoriously named ‘The Night Stalker’.He is considered one of the worst serial killers the world has ever known.
Whilst the series received mixed reviews in the way the makers depicted the scenes of the crimes, what was pleasantly inspiring was the way the public helped the police eventually arrest him.After months of evasion from the police, he was spotted by members of the public, who aided police in finally apprehending him, to the rejoice of the city and the country.
It was a brilliant effort, without which, as the lead detective admitted, Richard Ramirez would have absconded and possibly never caught.
The reason? The public paid attention to media and news reports and so he was recognised straightaway.
Evidently, the brutality of his crimes made for prime news material, so it was by no means difficult avoiding copious updates on the case.Today, however, the question arises as to whether people follow news enough to help police in solving crimes.
Before social media, members of the public learnt of crimes, perpetrators at large and missing individuals via mainstream media, neighbourhood watch schemes and programmes such as Crimewatch.
However, mainstream media has seen a sharp decline in viewers, listeners and readers over the last few years.
Viewership figures in 2019 for BBC News fell to 18 million from 25 million and CNN have just recently reported a 49% decline in viewership in the key 24-54 age group.
Crimewatch, once one of the BBC’s longest running shows was axed after 33 years on air. At its peak, it drew an average of 14 million viewers per week and by its final series in 2017, viewership dramatically fell to 3 million and was axed that same year.
Newspaper readership is steadily declining: in 2019, Ofcom revealed that circulation of national newspaper titles has decreased by 52.5% over the past eight years.
Just as people are turning to digital media for news, so have the way in which people report crimes.
Within the last ten years, Neighbourhood Watch Apps and messaging systems have come into effect: Neighbourhood Alert, set up in 2010, is an advanced community messaging system for police forces, local authorities and Neighbourhood Watch and reaches 16.4 million UK citizens as of November 2020.
In 2016, Southwark Neighbourhood Watch Association and its Swedish counterpart created a free app called Trygve: a digital platform where users collaborate in real time, empowering and supporting community members to collaborate to solve local issues and tackle crime.
In June 2020, InYourArea established a similar feature in partnership with Neighbourhood Alert, users in 25 different police force areas in the UK view real time community messages from their local officers, address community concerns and alert people about possible criminal activity within their neighbourhoods in their InYourArea live feed.
The system is also used by major organisations including Neighbourhood Watch and Action Fraud.
As well as apps and digital alert messaging systems, in recent years, Neighbourhood Watch and local communities established WhatsApp groups across the UK, with many crimes stopped in their tracks or prevented as a result.
For instance in 2018, Redbridge residents formed a WhatsApp Neighbourhood Alert to report and combat crime, carrying out daily walking patrols and using WhatsApp to assist each other in reporting crimes to the police and forge a sense of community responsibility to deter criminals.
This successful scheme operated without the need of outside funding and more importantly, the level of crime reduced.
In October 2020, a burglar in Horsforth, Yorkshire was hindered by residents who were alerted on a neighbourhood watch Whatsapp group as he was caught on camera breaking and entering.
The owner himself was alerted on a security app on his phone through which he accessed CCTV cameras at his home and saw the burglar peering through the window. He activated the alarm system and sent a massage on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group stating: ‘Intruder around property.’
A neighbour asked another resident to call police while he took photographs of the burglar, who was eventually arrested.
People also typically post videos or images of known criminals and people committing suspicious behaviour online.
In November 2020 in Mitcham, a woman filmed and shared online a confrontation of herself challenging a man over an attempted ‘abduction’ of a young girl, which went viral. Later that day, the man was charged with rape and kidnap.
This sort of sleuthing has been equally popular on the Internet, with numerous so-called ‘internet sleuths’ forming online groups to solve bigger crimes that have already attained national and international notoriety.
In December 2019, Netflix released a true crime documentary, Don’t **** With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. The three-part docu-series relates the events following a crowd-sourced amateur sleuth investigation into a series of animal cruelty acts committed by Canadian Luka Magnotta in 2010, culminating in his murder of Chinese international student Jun Lin in 2012.
Following the cat killings, Deanna Thompson, from Las Vegas, and John Green, from Los Angeles consequently started a Facebook group to uncover evidence and find the perpetrator. They examined the details of the video, including the objects in the room, to help solve the mystery.The case took a perturbing turn as the fatalities altered from animal ones into a human victim, whose death was also streamed on the Internet.
It was one of Netflix’s Top 5 most-watched documentaries of 2019.
Over the years, there has been a systemic change to digital platforms, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the way ordinary members of the public report and investigate crimes has made this advance as well.
As technology advances, nobody knows how this could all alter in the future, but what has not changed is an undeniable sense of community and a dedication to protecting neighbourhoods and even solving baffling crimes.
So the next time you find yourself looking at posts, articles or reports about crimes, perhaps consider joining a Neighbourhood Alert app or WhatsApp group.
In these days of isolation, what better way to further protect our neighbours?
Anandi Shah
Feature Image via Steven Wright on Unsplash. Image license is available here. No changes were made to this image.
