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How Science Will Foil the SKYJACKERS

To see how new techniques and technology will thwart a potential air pirate, start here

By PAUL WAHL
ILLUSTRATION BY ROY DOTY

Ninety-seven passengers showed up for the flight, but 96 were on the Miami-bound plane when it took off from a New York airport one recent evening. Left at the gate, in the custody of two deputy U.S. marshals, was a gun-toting traveler. They nailed him after the loaded .38 revolver in his shoulder holster triggered a new weapons detector—one of the ingenious countermeasures devised by science to keep in-flight crime from getting off the ground.
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Off to Prison Convicts Ride in Rumble Seat “Jail” Cage

Oklahoma has a jail on wheels to take its convicts to prison. Instead of a rumble seat, the prison transfer car has a barred steel cage mounted behind the coupe body. Alex Watson, in charge of the transfer of prisoners, can watch his wards in the cage by a mirror from the driver’s seat. The traveling jail accommodates four convicts, having a padded seat on each side. The floor is carpeted and the back door is covered by a drop curtain of heavy duck for protection from the weather.

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Solving Crimes By Hypnosis

By George J. Barmann

TWENTY YOUNG POLICEMEN were sitting in the bright, comfortable classroom of the County Coroner’s Building, on the campus of Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, listening to a lecture on methods of questioning witnesses to a crime.

A psychotherapist, Dr. Dezso Levendula, was conducting the lesson in scientific law enforcement, one of the regular courses given by the university’s noted Law-Medicine Center. He was speaking that morning about the difficulty of getting witnesses to recall accurately what they have seen. Behind him, on a sofa facing the class, were two stenographers, busily taking notes on the lecture. The audience of patrolmen and several guests was attentive, but relaxed. Only the occasional hum of an automobile outside the windows cut into the professor’s talk.
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SPIES OF INDUSTRY IN ACTION

A Former Operative Reveals Espionage Methods of Unusual But Important Phase of Detective Work Often Required to Keep Up With Procession in Bitter Business Rivalry, FOR several years I was one of those individuals who style themselves “process investigator,” but which in most cases is only a polite name for an “industrial spy.” The structure of our industrial business is such that large manufacturers must know not only what his competitor is doing in order to keep pace with him; but he must also know whether that competitor is using any processes patented by the former.
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Cops’ COLD FEET Heated by electricity

CLOTHED in a new electrically heated uniform, recently developed by the General Electric Company, a policeman can stand at street intersections directing traffic all day long in the coldest weather and keep as warm as if he were inside.

Several thin rubber strips about 1/2 inch wide and very flexible, with a heating element vulcanized inside, are sewed into the uniform, and thin insoles of the same material are fitted in the shoes. These are connected by small insulated wires to metal plates attached to the heels of the shoes, the positive wire leading to one foot and the negative to the other.

If cold, the officer merely steps on two insulated plates set flush with the pavement. One plate is connected to the positive terminal of a 12-volt storage battery placed in a box below the plates, and the other to the negative terminal. The sole plates form the contacts and within 15 seconds the heating units begin to warm up.

Trained to Get Their Man on the Run. Members of the Berlin, Germany, police force are taught to shoot at running objects by pictures thrown on a screen by a movie projector that gives an illusion of life to the targets. Sharpshooters are required to make good scores at this practice work before they can join the regular squad. Animals racing across a small screen are difficult to hit even at short distances, us here.

BIBLE HIDES DRUGS
Mechanical ingenuity of narcotic smugglers is constantly being tested in devising new methods of bringing their contraband goods safely into the country. The picture shows a Bible which has been hollowed out in the center to provide a hiding place for thousands of dollars worth of morphine and other opiates. The book was confiscated by Internal Revenue inspectors.

Desperadoes Attempt Jail Break With Home-made Pistols

MECHANICAL ingenuity serves many purposes, the latest and strangest being its application to plans for a jailbreak at Folsom Prison, California.

Two desperadoes, Marty Colson, in for murder, and Lloyd Sampsell, “Yachting” robber, worked for months with their own hands and prison tools making pistols for the big day. Finally, armed with these weapons, they made a desperate attempt at freedom, held up five employees in the administration building, and sent a message to summon the warden. Read the rest of this entry »

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Amazing Secret TRAFFIC in Gang DEATH MACHINES

If you are an honest, law-abiding citizen, you can’t buy a sub-machine gun—but if you’re a gangster you’ll have no trouble. The author tells here how the underworld carries on an amazing secret traffic in machine guns and other deadly weapons.

by STERLING GLEASON

FOUR men walked down a busy city street. Except that their right arms hung rather stiffly at their sides, their appearance would have attracted no attention anywhere.
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Weird Unseen RAYS Trap Master Crooks

How “Black Light” Brings New and Strange Magic to Aid Scientifically Trained Police in Solving Mysterious Crimes

By Edwin W. Teale

IN NEW YORK CITY, not long ago, perfume bootleggers hatched what they thought was a perfect plot, one that was absolutely undetectable.

Under direction of the gang, a small glass factory turned out imitations of the bottle used by a noted perfumer in selling one of his rare blends at $100 an ounce. Filling these with a cheap substitute, the crooks played their trump card.

Instead of counterfeiting the labels, they bribed the perfumer’s printer and obtained the original plate he had used. As a result, not even the most powerful microscope could find the slightest difference in the exteriors of real and bootleg bottles. The gang thought detection impossible. And it would have been but for a dramatic new weapon recently enlisted in the war against crime.

In his New York City laboratory, Dr. Herman Goodman, skin specialist and a pioneer in this thrilling new method of scientific crime detection, examined bottles brought by the frantic manufacturer.
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Outshooting the Guns of Gangland

by STERLING GLEASON

The radio police officer is a new breed of marksman, expertly trained to snapshooting at fleeing targets from emergency positions. The six-gun man of the old West originated this deadly technique, which is simply draw and shoot without seemingly taking aim. But constant practice makes a man a dead shot regardless of the target.
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Newest Tricks of the G-men

Criminals who duel with the FBI buck an ultra-modern crime lab served by tough men competent in 88 sciences.

By J. Edgar Hoover, as told to James Nevin Miller

SOME months ago thieves broke into an Ohio metal-working concern and stole a number of valuable copper ingots. The local sheriff’s office found a pair of gloves at the home of a suspect. A preliminary study indicated the gloves were impregnated with what appeared to be copper filings which might have been wiped from the surface of an ingot.
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