Are there any examples of crowd-sourced investigations? MIT Writer makes case for Pizzagate as "first ever fully crowd-sourced criminal investigation" ( pizzagate )

submitted by Psychanaut

https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-successful-crowdsourced-investigations-into-some-kind-of-crime/answer/Kim-Holleman

John Podesta Email Leaks

Wikileaks has also been credited with the leak of a cache of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, which supposedly uncovered evidence of pedophiles operating in elite circles. This has its analogue in the recent pedophile scandal(s), involving the British elite, which included more than one Knighted politician and a former Prime Minister, as well as Jeff Epstein friend, Prince Andrew. The British media historically silenced and attempted to cover up and obfuscate facts, before finally admitting it was true.

New investigations have revealed pedophile rings operating out of multiple UK children’s care homes with half-hearted investigations and thwarted prosecutions spanning the last 30 years. The UK has been plagued with child care home abuse scandals with multiple coverup accusations made against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, lost evidence, even suspicions that peodphile ring whistleblowers had been murdered.

Similarly, some US mainstream media began misreporting and then “debunking” misrepresentations of the allegations uncovered in Wikileaks. Some mainstream responses to the information were focussed on how the leaks occurred, rather than dealing with the content inside the materials.

Rise of the Citizen-Researcher

This left a gap in investigative journalism, prompting the rise of “Citizen-Journalists” and “Citizen-Researchers”. This independant, crowd-led investigation caught fire after it was revealed by researchers and other sites that Mark Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of the NY Times -which was denying the evidence of an American pedophile scandal- was the same Mark Thompson, Former Director-General of the BBC, accused of lying to cover up the British Pedophile scandal.

Highcard

Around 2002...the Danielle Van Dam "kidnap-murder" case.

Parents were confirmed swingers... mom got stoned and went out with her "girlfriends" (both of whom had previously bedded the father) while dad stayed home with the kids... also stoned... gals got wasted at the bar and tried to "pick up" both guys and gals to go back to moms house. They ended up bringing 2 guys back (her weed supplier being one) ...for...wait for it...PIZZA...at 2 am.

BTW... they had the lock to the garage door reversed, so the kids couldn't interrupt their "adult activities".

BTW... one of the gals went upstairs (right down the hall from the kids rooms) and climbed into bed with the father... but they only cuddled... yeah right.

BUT... for some reason LE didn't "focus" on the "lifestyle" and instead found a patsy from down the street (who did interact with mom at the bar)... and made the case that he (drunk as hell and never been in that house) snuck in... lucky guess on the reversed garage door lock and alarm not monitored and dog couldn't bark) found her room, hid in the closet, then grabbed her and took her to his house after the "pizza party people" left... then at around 730am went and got his motor home from a storage lot... went back home and put the still alive 9 year old in the motor home and kept her as he went to the beach and then the desert. Interestingly, he spoke to a neighbor when he came back to the neighborhood with the motor home and the cops were there already. Pretty risky stuff if you ask me.

Westerfield got convicted and is on death row in San Quentin.

Whole trial was streamed...I still think the dad did it

jangles

Kim Holleman tries yet continually says crap that won't build credit for her work . Kim Holleman pushes 9/11 conspiracies that do not make logical sense

Psychanaut

Sorry, what are you going on about? What 9/11 conspiracies? This is pizzagate. you are in the wrong place...

Psychanaut

What are you talking about, that makes zero sense. Sounds like you are jealous.

jangles

edited previous statement to make more sense.

Mad_As_Hell

In Ireland, there's a journalist who funded her own documentary about the case of an 8-year-old girl who went missing 40 years ago - basically it's an open secret who the perpetrator was but he's been protected due to political connections. The video was pulled from YouTube several times but has been watched by hundreds of thousands of people https://youtu.be/0vGORoCbpXw

She used to work for one of the main newspapers but her career was destroyed due to attempts to shed light on corruption in Irish politics, church and police - i.e. doing what we used to call journalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemma_O'Doherty

Psychanaut

WOW I just watched. Holy shit. Unreal...thank you for sharing. I'm glad I know. What a travesty..

DeltaBravoTango

Gamergate wasn't criminal, but it was an investigation. Plus all the times /b/ and /pol/ have identified people.

Psychanaut

Yep, seems like just an opportunity to talk about pizzagate in the mainstream

seekingpeace

I think "crowd sourced criminal investigation" started after 911.

possiblepizza

Didn't reddit crowd source an investigation of the boston marathon bombers?

wtf_is_happening

If only we could crowd source criminal trials.

vector3rector

Something tells me this will, to a degree, become an actual thing of the future. No near enough and probably not in our lifetime sadly.

srayzie

Awesome! SandyHook was investigated this way too right? It looks that way from documentaries I've seen.

pizzagater99

There are heaps of crowd-sourced investigations. The earliest I can think of is the Kenny Glenn case (Dusty the Cat)

Psychanaut

Yep this was an opportunity to talk about pizzagte in the mainstream...

Solentgreenispeople

Good stuff!

carmencita

Thank you for giving inspiration to the researchers on here, for without it we would not know what we have learned. This is one of the greatest things that has come out of this horrible mess of a rabbit hole.

Psychanaut

I know exactly what you mean. We did so much even though some days it feels as if we don't have what we need to take them down. But this helps remind of all of what we have done so far...

carmencita

I was telling my husband about the jerk that ignored the news of Jimmy Saville in the UK and was rewarded with the job as the head of the NY Times. Jimmy Saville who with his friends took little orphaned children on his boat and then they raped them and threw them in the water to drown. It is a wonder I and others on here can sleep nights. But not knowing, not working towards the end of this awful mess would not be an alternative.