TO CATCH A BLACK KILLER…

To catch a Black killer… is harder than you think. Especially when it is a serial killer. Why is that? Because racial profiling believes, inappropriately, that Blacks are too inferior and not intelligent enough to be serial killers. The law believes that it takes a certain amount of wit and intellect to get away with committing murder more than just once or twice. They believe that Black people just don’t have what it takes to become serial murderers. Racial profiling also believes that Blacks are unable to commit hate crimes. They are, of course, obviously wrong, and such thinking is prejudicial in origin.

The recent case in Louisiana is a perfect example of the inadequacy of today’s forensic racial profiling. For an entire year the authorities were unable to catch a serial killer who was wreaking havoc, fear and despair in Louisiana. Hundreds of people rallied on the steps of the state Capitol with victims’ families and friends expressing frustration at the lack of progress in the police investigation, as well as in the unsolved deaths of more than 60 other women in the area over the last decade.

The U.S. Attorney David Dugas responded to complaints that federal officials didn’t seem to be offering enough assistance. Baton Rouge Mayor Bobby Simpson said police need help from area residents to catch the killer. Since when do the authorities need the help of civilians to catch a killer? When the authorities are ill-equipped to handle the concept that it is possible in these changing times that perhaps racial profiling does not work in our multicultural society anymore. That a true sign of equality in the races is when there are now equally the possibility of Black serial killers and rapists as well as White ones.

If this notion is too alien to our establishment, than perhaps we need to look at why. Why is it that our society and its law enforcement cannot accept the equal ability of the races to commit crimes? Why is it that racial profiling of serial killers prevents authorities from catching a killer when the killer is Black? That in itself is a crime.

FBI behavioral scientists had said they were working with local law enforcement to develop an idea of what type of man is responsible for the murders of Pam Kinamore, Charlotte Murray Pace and Gina Wilson Green, whose deaths have been linked by DNA evidence to one person. These three women had more than the serial killer in common. These three women were White. This being the case, racial profile stereotyping of serial killers told officials to look for a White man because serial killers supposedly do not kill outside their own ethnic group.

It wasn’t until the Hispanic girl was murdered and linked by DNA to the same man who had killed the 3 White women did they suspect that the man in question might not be White. They quickly changed their tune. Police then announced that the killer was a White or possibly Hispanic male, 25 to 35 years old and physically strong, capable of lifting 155 to 175 pounds. They said he wears a shoe size 10 or 11. Police said the man likely will display agitated behavior in the days following the release of his profile.

They said this, assuming that the profile was accurate, and that it would therefore make him nervous. Since the profile was completely inaccurate, it therefore did not make him at all agitated, it would have done the exact opposite. It must’ve made him more comfortable in his ability to not get caught. And so, while everyone was looking for an extremely agitated White and/or Hispanic male, this Black serial killer was walking about calm as can be, confident that they would not suspect him, a Black man.

How was he finally caught? My theory is this:

After the police realized that the Hispanic girl’s death was linked to the serial killer, they changed the racial profile from “White male” to “White, possibly Hispanic Male.”

When the (see above photo) Black girl’s body was found and linked to the same suspect, they changed the racial profile again. This time they were no longer looking for a White or possibly Hispanic male. They began looking for a Black male, because racial profiling dictates that serial killers do not kill outside their ethnic group. It is not a coincidence that after he had killed within his own ethnic group, that he was found. Because it was only then that they began to look for a Black man.

The strict adherence to the outdated racial forensic profiling caused the police to overlook clear evidence that pointed to a Black man as the killer. The athletic shoes the killer could have been wearing during one of the homicides: a shoe print matching a $40 pair of “Adidas-type” basketball shoes that can be purchased in a number of stores around Lafayette and Baton Rouge was found. How many White males between the age of 25 and 35 do you know that have the fashion sensibility of a Black man? In addition, there were numerous tips and sightings in the area describing a Black man at the scene of the crime. These tips were not racist in nature, as law enforcement racial profiling has been taught to assume. A Black man had killed outside his ethnic group and the tips and witness accounts began to un-ignorably add up. Someone who saw the suspect had apparently tried to describe him as a Black man. But the police artist, being taught to racial profile serial killers, chose to draw him as a White man with a large flat nose and a tan, in the first attempt to draw up a profile from witness accounts.

The second police artist sketch, which is computer generated, is no better. See below picture of the second police profile sketch next to actual photo of Lee. Even the second attempt is obviously drawn to make suspect look White.

The racial forensic profiling used in this case (and many others) is terribly inadequate and inaccurate. The supposition that only Whites can be serial killers is unfounded.

Think of this: rape and serial killing are psychological crimes based upon deep-seated hatred and violent impulses that are difficult to control. How can anyone ignore that to be a serial killer and/or a rapist is to be filled with hatred and violence? Thus, how can anyone dispute that Black people, being equal to whites, would have the same abilities and thus be prone to the same psychotic maladies, such as violent crime? Unless you are a racial profiler, that is to say, a racially prejudiced crime fighter.

Serial killers, all of them, regardless of race, all kill for the same reason. Killing fulfills a deep psychotic need for sexual gratification or power. The killing itself turns them on. Just like rape, it is not just about sex, but it is more about power. The act of killing lets the killer enact or play out psychological fantasies of power. These fantasies are shaped by the killer’s cultural environment. How a killer was raised and what images he sees around him all contribute to the types of fantasies and psychological needs he has. The impulse to kill and rape stems from the killer’s sense of identity and specific need to dominate others.

If serial killers are motivated by sexual impulses connected to their identity and feelings of power, then why is it so hard to believe that a Black man might target White women? There are many reasons why a Black man with a mental illness might feel more gratification in overpowering a White women than a Black woman. With all this racial tension in America today and kill whitey rap lyrics in popular music and even award winning CD’s fueling the racial hatred. There is motive. It also has become quite common and acceptable for many Black men in our culture to have sexual relations with White women. Today, it is quite common to see multiracial couples with multiracial children in our society. Then why are we applying ancient forensic racial profiling techniques to modern day serial killer profiles? Perhaps the theory that a serial killer did not target outside his or her ethnic group in the 70’s was accurate. But to have this theory in the 90’s and 2000’s is completely inaccurate profiling. It does not apply to our present multiracial standard of living. Today, what we have is this; applying ancient racial profiling techniques to crime fighting makes it impossible to catch a serial killer who is targeting victims outside his or her own ethnic group. And this, my friends, is why it is so difficult to catch a Black serial killer in modern day society. The Black serial killer is wearing the perfect disguise. His own skin.

“All African-American and Asian males please sit down.” Sigourney Weaver is quoted as saying, in her role in the movie Copy Cat, as a forensic specialist giving a speech regarding the racial profile of all serial killers. The movie came out in 1995 at the height of the popularity craze of serial killer portrayals in American culture’s main stream media. The times have changed since then. Killings don’t shock people anymore, in America, now we expect it. Multiculturalism has grown and expanded so much, to the point that there is now a very large majority of the population that is not easy to ethnically categorize, such is the state of the Nation and the way things are. We are living within the American melting pot cultural ideal and Black people are no longer considered to be inferior to Whites. Then, if this is the state of our society, why haven’t law enforcement ideals caught up with American mainstream culture ideals? Why is it, that in our multicultural, equal opportunity society that the law, when hunting for a serial killer, does not hunt for a racially equal, equal opportunity, serial killer? Why do they still apply the racial profiling of old to modern day social standards? The racial profiling of the 70’s, the 80’s and the early 90’s should no longer apply to the forensic profiling of the late 90’s and early 2000’s when our culture has clearly changed dramatically since the mid 90’s in regard to our new and very multiethnic culture. When hunting for a killer, we should therefore not be prejudiced in so doing. It has been proven that serial killers do in fact come from all ethnic groups, classes and cultures. It has been proven that serial killers do in fact kill inside and outside their own ethnic groups.

So now, we know that Derrick Todd Lee, accused of five serial killings in Louisiana is a Black serial killer. And now we know that Black serial killers do exist. And now we know that serial killers do kill outside their own ethnic group. Will this be enough to teach forensic specialists not to be prejudicial in their hunt for serial killers in the future or do more people have to die?

I believe that if Lee had not killed within his own ethnic group he would still be at large today, and forensic specialists and law enforcement officials would still be searching for a White male. More innocent women would be dying in Louisiana still, today. Racial forensic profiling needs to change in America today. The times have changed: the profile needs to change with the changing times, or there will be more innocent lives lost to sloppy — and racially prejudiced — police work.

In freedom and liberty … we speak!

- Angela Valkyrie