True-crime lessons learned
the true crime that's worth your time
We talk a lot about the divisions in today’s world, but what I’m thinking about today is another division. I’m thinking about the one between folks like us — who closely follow issues of true crime, public safety, and criminal justice — and the rest of the world, who gets their crime info from general interest headlines, social media, and reruns of CSI.
I know I sound a little snooty and stuck-up there, like I think everyone else is a bunch of ding-dongs and we’re the only smart ones. And while I do think Best Evidence readers are the cream of the crop, I’m not suggesting that the rest of the world (I’m not talking about false conspiracy theorists or folks who buy fully into fanciful narratives for reasons of mental illness) needs to have an expertise in murder and mayhem, any more than I believe that we all need to learn how to play poker, or drive a big rig, or laminate dough. When one is passionate about a topic, one learns a lot about it. That’s just how it is, and we just happen to be passionate about legal transgression.
And in the same way that an expert at dough lamination is keenly aware that a kouign-amann and a croissant are super different things (while to you and me, they’re just breakfast in different flaky shapes), we true-crime considerers know things that others don’t. That’s why I have that Shotspotter stocks image up top — the first thing I thought about was how Shotspotter is shenanigans, something we have talked about here that is routinely ignored by broadcast media, Nextdoor users, or CBS procedurals, much to my grumbling and shouts at the TV.
So, your turn, smartypants. What’s some knowledge your true-crime expertise has blessed you with that you wish you could impart to the rest of the less-knowledgable world? Drop it in the comments, perhaps while enjoying a flaky pastry of one kind or another, name unknown. — EB