Police searching for a black man

[ophion1031]

I was just curious to see what some of you guys thought about this. Why do you think dispatch said that the suspect was black? Could it have been just purely accidental? I would like to think so, but how the hell do you make a mistake like that?

[capricorn]

I could not figure that one out either.

[TruthSeeker]

My theory is that the dispatcher asked for a description of the perp, the child on the phone probably responded with some form of "dark, dressed in black/dark clothing" and it was misinterpreted as dark skinned.

[ophion1031]

My theory is that the dispatcher asked for a description of the perp, the child on the phone probably responded with some form of "dark, dressed in black/dark clothing" and it was misinterpreted as dark skinned.

That would make sense. I was just wondering if anyone knew for sure. Looked through a bunch of other threads and it didn't seem like there was a definite answer.

[duckking2001]

Some people...I don't know who, probably Horan... think that it never happened and they just said that later to cover up that the guy just walked away past them.

That is in some way believable. It seems pretty odd that SFPD would reveal that info to the public, but it kind of makes it seem like they screwed up even worse than if they hadn't said it at all, so I'm not sure about that.

[Quagmire]

Personally I think the dispatcher was almost certainly quickly writing down notes as the kid gave info. He would have written WMA for white male adult which was standard LE notation. However, I think that when he relayed the full description to all available police cars, he simply misread that part out as NMA (negro male adult).

Depending on your handwriting it can be very easy to mistake W's, M's or N's when scrawling down info quickly.

[Coffee Time]

Has anyone ever asked the witnesses if Pelisetti ever said anything to them about a black suspect when he first arrived on the scene? I'm guessing "No," since it's never come up, but if he did, then it obviously couldn't be some cover-up story.

[Holmes201]

I was just curious to see what some of you guys thought about this. Why do you think dispatch said that the suspect was black? Could it have been just purely accidental? I would like to think so, but how the hell do you make a mistake like that?

I think I can answer that with a pretty good guess. Back years ago people drank during work. You just don't see it so prevalent these days. Cops in the 1950's and 60's drank on duty. I know all about it. From the horse mouth I got that info. Watch the show Mad Men on television, they show all the drinking that went on. I saw all the men drinking all day at work
when I was a kid. My dad was A lineman for the electric light company. All those guys did all was drink. Some smoked pot, the young guys at the time. In the afternoon they would finish early and come back to the house to drink before they went in to the garage with the big line trucks. I think in San Francisco it would have been party central in the 1960's. One can only imagine. We are in good strong unions up here so we can do these things with little fear of repercussions. I started work in the 1970's and I did my share of drinking on the job too. But anyway, that's why they screwed up in most probability.

[Tahoe27]

You're saying you think the dispatcher who took the call was drunk?

[Norse]

Some people...I don't know who, probably Horan... think that it never happened and they just said that later to cover up that the guy just walked away past them.

That is in some way believable. It seems pretty odd that SFPD would reveal that info to the public, but it kind of makes it seem like they screwed up even worse than if they hadn't said it at all, so I'm not sure about that.

Yes. There are several things they could have said which would have made them seem less incompetent if the intention was to cover up the presumed blunder on Fouke's part - they could have just flat out denied ever having driven past Z in the first place, if they were so inclined.

There's another, specific problem with Horan's claim: According to Horan, the man Fouke passed was not Stine's killer, but a random passer-by who had nothing to do with the murder and who looked nothing like the man witnessed by the teens. Well, if that's true - why on earth didn't Fouke/the SFPD simply go with this story (which even had the great advantage of being perfectly true)? He wasn't stopped because there was no reason to stop him: He looked nothing like the perpetrator and clearly had nothing to do with the crime. Problem solved, no embarrassment for anyone involved.

My take on the NMA/WMA mix-up is simply that it's too...stupid, to flukey, not to be true. It was one of those things - and that is that.