CLPEX Chat Board

Hi, all. I am a LPE currently working towards my Master's Degree in Criminal Justice Studies. For my Capstone Practicum (which is basically a thesis) I am writing on the field of latent prints. For my introduction, I am discussing the media/entertainment industry's portrayal of the subject. The rest of the paper will focus on the real world aspects of latent print identification. As I am working on this throughout the rest of the year, I may occasionally post questions and would greatly appreciate any help or responses.

Right now, I am wondering if anyone can recall any movies which feature the use of fingerprints to solve crimes, and also if you remember any of the inaccuracies shown in the movies? It is easy to discuss CSI and other tv shows, but I'm having a little trouble remembering specific movies.

Thank you now and in advance!

-Rebecca

Hello Rebecca, the movie that jumps to mind is Beverly Hills Cop. There is a scene where Eddie Murphy puts superglue in a fish tank and fumes a match book. In seconds a complete fingerprint shows up on the matchbook, in black no less. He called it an old street cop trick.

Good luck, Steve.

Die Hard 2. Bruce Willis inks the deceased suspect and circles the whorls (I don't know why) before faxing that off to his friends back home to ID the bad guy-which they do in seconds complete with the guys picture and full foreign criminal history.

There are a couple of them mentioned on this page:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fingerchip/biom ... s_1900.htm

If you click on the "movies" link on the side, you'll find more.

It's easier to find fingerprints used in ways other than solve crimes. James Bond uses latex fingerprints applied to his fingers. Jill St. John sprays some unspecified aerosol on a glass and an image immediately appears for her to compare to the prints of the man Bond impersonates. Similar gimmick in National Treasure. There's a fingerprint eraser machine in Along Came a Spider. In the monumentally silly film, The Crawling Hand, set in the sixties, the sheriff sends off a fingerprint from a murder scene and *the very next day* gets back an identification to a dead (blown up) astromaut whose disembodied hand is doing the killing. Fingerprints Don't Lie features suspected forged latent prints.

And a list of works featuring fingerprints and other biometrics:

http://www.caslon.com.au/biometricsnote10.htm

[quote="Steve Skowron"]Hello Rebecca, the movie that jumps to mind is Beverly Hills Cop. There is a scene where Eddie Murphy puts superglue in a fish tank and fumes a match book. In seconds a complete fingerprint shows up on the matchbook, in black no less. He called it an old street cop trick.
quote]

There's a very similar scene in the more recent National Treasure. I think they portray the superglue print in black because that's what the public expects a fingerprint to look like.

Just to make your search a bit easier...

It's "Beverley Hills Cop II" that features the superglue in the terrarium; the next scene also feaures the running of the print on the local AFIS system and a comment from Foley that in Detroit it would take a room full of guys a week to do the same job.

The Bond movie is "Diamonds Are Forever" which is, to my knowledge, the earliest portrayal of an AFIS type system in popular film.

There's a fingerprint thread in "Hannibal" when the Italian cop is trying to confirm his suspicions about Lechter being in his city.

Sounds like an interesting read. Any chance you could let Kasey put it in our newsletter "The Detail"?

David

Sounds like an interesting read. Any chance you could let Kasey put it in our newsletter "The Detail"?

David- Definitely. The paper should be done by December 2006 and will end up being quite long, but I think it would be great if some portion of it could be published.

Thank you, everyone, for your help!

-Rebecca

Rebecca W wrote: it would be great if some portion of it could be published.

Rebecca,

I look forward to seeing it! Enjoy the hunt.

-Kasey

From some friends:

In 'Double Team', Jean-Claude Van Damme 'outwits' a thumbprint scanner
by x-acto blading his own print off and attaching it to some Rube
Goldberg device that presses it to the scanner at the appropriate
time. Y'know, so he can escape The Island and get Mickey Rourke before
the latter kills his family, yadda yadda yadda.

Whether this is 'good' or 'bad' is left as an exercise for the reader.

In 'Sea of Love', they bag the glasses used by all of Pacino's 'dates'
while trying to track down a serial killer.

Oh! Oh! In 'Batman', the Penguin has scrubbed his fingerprints off
with acid. That way, no one will suspect that the short, round man
going 'waugh, waugh, waugh' could *possibly* be one of Gotham's most
dastardly villains.

Re: Double Team, this feat can be addressed in your study by looking into liveness detection. Most scanners these days can tell the difference between a live finger and a dead one, and they are configured to only "pass through" a live person that matches.

Re: Batman, I have an un-published draft (several years old) on fingerprint mutilation that might be interested if you want to look into this in any depth. There are probably several instances in movies and TV shows you will come across that deal with mutilation. One episode of CSI was based on the "triangles" study I published in the JFI about 7 years ago... "an extreme case of permanent, intentional fingerprint mutilation" or something to that effect. If you are interested, e-mail me privately and I'll attach the paper(s).

-Kasey
(kaseywertheim@aol.com)

The Bourne Supremacy - when there is a perfect match.
Seven
Murder by Numbers

I did my Thesis on latent print and technology. Good luck with it.