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"It's a turn-around jump shot, it's everybody jump start, it's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts. Medicine is magical and magical is art, think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart and I believe, these are the days of lasers in the jungle, lasers in the jungle somewhere. Stacatto signals of constant information, a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby. These are the days of miracles and wonders. This is a long-distance call. The way the camera follows us in slow-mo. The way we look to a song. The way we look to a distant constellation as it's dying in the corner of the sky. These are they days of miracles and wonders, and don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't cry." --- Paul Simon, "The Boy in the Bubble"

NYPD-PID Internal Memorandum

TO: PID INVESTIGATORS, OFFICERS
FROM: GR SUTTON
[ Grant smoking a cigarette ] RE: Coping With Telepaths On An Investigation

PID files now include information regarding three known telepaths, two of which have been recruited as informants and are, following NYPD procedure, referred to using pseudonyms. Telepathy in this context includes both mind reading and projection of thought. Many difficulties in confidentiality have arisen since we have discovered the existence of these abilities. However, with some preparation, the telepathic informant or subject can in fact make investigation of a crime much simpler.
1. COMPARTMENTALIZE. Very simply, this means that if a telepath is suspected of a crime, the primary investigator into their involvement should not be the one directly interviewing them. This rather basic decision will reduce most confidentiality problems to a bare minimum. The primary investigator should brief the interviewer before and after the interview.

2. RECORD EVERYTHING. Write memos, file them in triplicate, show them to other officers, talk them over with your superiors and inferiors. Communicate every idea to as many others as you can. Wear a recorder to interviews with telepaths. Voice stress analysis can detect if you've been 'pushed' to believe or forget something. Interview in pairs, where possible. Have another officer monitor the interview from a distance via a shotgun microphone or a radio transmitter where possible. Some telepaths are capable of using many minds at once over great distances - make them do this if they want to interfere with your case. The 'hostile telepath' should have their goal made as difficult as possible. Thankfully, if they miss even one of the methods listed here, it is trivial to make the whole rest of the house of mental cards fall. (Be sure to use multiple instances of these methods if it is feasible! Rule 2a is "record everything again".)

3. INTERVIEW TELEPATHS EARLY IN THE CASE. If you have a choice, interview telepaths before other witnesses. This will keep them from reading what other witnesses have told you out of your own mind.

4. BE CONFIDENT AND FORCEFUL. Change subjects quickly. Ask impulse questions and say exactly what is on your mind. They can read it anyway, and it will throw them off balance to hear the "echo" so swiftly in your words. If you suspect they are reading your thoughts, suddenly think of something very strange or vile and watch for their response. Be spontaneous. Control the mental space of the interview as you would with any other suspect, witness or informant, and telepathy does not in fact help the telepath. The good-cop/bad cop routine remains surprisingly effective, because although intellectually they may be able to discern that it's a fake, the emotional component of having someone get in your face remains exactly the same. This is an important general principle: the ability to read your mind does not in and of itself imbue the telepath with special emotional or intellectual protections against an active investigator.

5. BACKUP ALL TELEPATHIC ALLEGATIONS WITH TRADITIONAL EVIDENCE. The District Attorney's office has issued a tentative internal opinion that telepathically acquired evidence is probably inadmissible in court for two reasons: first, it is hearsay, and second, its collection with respect to suspects and perpetrators violates the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on self-incrimination. However, as with any other kind of informant who provides hearsay evidence, their information can be used to investigate and build a case based on physical or other evidence. At present there are no plans to use telepathic informants as direct witnesses in court cases, though with time the situation is bound to arise.

6. PLAY TELEPATHS OFF THEIR ENEMIES. The telepaths currently on file in the PID appear for the most part to be part of small "mutant communities" which are springing up in response to the actions of "The Roofer" at the United Nations and the Low Library. These communities are vying for influence over the "mutant community" (PID files indicate that this is a gross misnomer), and therefore can be used to uncover crimes in "opposing" communities, similar to using informants from warring corporations in fraud and insider trading cases.

As with any other PID investigation, always use backup when making any significant arrest of any kind.

I've talked to some guys at the university who have crunched the numbers on telepathic incidence for me. The way the statistics break down is this: 3 telepaths are in New York State that we know of. (One potential telepath has not yet been confirmed, so I am not factoring that person into these calculations.) The population of New York State is a little over 18 million. Thus we can expect there to be one telepath for every 6 million people. There are 270 million people in the United States. Therefore we can expect that there are at minimum 42 telepaths in the United States. (Since there are 6.2 billion people in the world, we can also expect that there are, at minimum, about 1,033 telepaths worldwide.) Incidents of mutancy in general are more difficult to extrapolate, because the broadness of mutant abilities make them very difficult to identify and certainly place accurate numbers - presently - beyond the reach of the PID.

Further suggestions from investigators in the field should be distributed via e-mail and will be attached to this memo in the file.

Thanks, guys. Good luck out there.

GRS

Grant Sutton

[ Picture of Denis Leary as Grant]
"Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room. He said 'I have no opinion about this. And I have no opinion about that.' Sad as a lonely little wrinkled prune. He said 'Well, I don't claim to be happy about this, boys. And I don't seem to be happy about that.' I don't want no part of this crazy love. I don't want no part of your love. I don't want no part of this crazy love. I don't want no part of your love. I don't want no part of this crazy love. I don't want no part of this crazy love. I don't want no part of this crazy love. She says she knows about jokes, this time the joke is on me. Well, I have no opinion about that. And I have no opinion about me. Somebody could walk into this room and say 'Your life is on fire. It's all over the evening news. All about the fire in your life on the evening news.' I don't want no part of this crazy love. I don't want no part of your love..." --- Paul Simon, "Crazy Love"
I play Grant Sutton, formerly a detective in the NYPD on Xthulhu: End Times. This rather quirky little MUX is a fun little place to play, and doesn't take itself too seriously, which is a good thing considering it's rather wacky theme, which can be summed up as "What if 'The Uncanny X-Men' was a horror comic book?" It incorporates Lovecraftian mythos and bits of the RPG "Delta Green", too.

Grant's a former Brooklyn detective who gained mysterious abilities due to an unauthorized brain surgery on him as a child that meshed part of his brain with part of a Hound of Tindalos' brain. (He doesn't know this - as far as he knows, he's always had these abilities and therefore thinks of himself as a mutant.) Ironically, his abilities helped him get a promotion to the head of the Parahuman Investigation Division, where he made all kinds of problems for all kinds of people. I had him leave the force for OOC reasons but it was fun while it lasted. Now he has a consulting business about mutant affairs.

This time around (you can read about the last time around on Xthulhu too) Grant is both more eccentric, more unstable, very slightly more powerful, and definitely more "in the closet", although because he believes that his secret will inevitably come out, he's been preparing for its revelation for many years, putting documents and people in places around him so that his position will remain, if not secure, at least as close to it as he can get. I also slightly altered his appearance - he looks a bit more like Denis Leary this time around. Eventually I'll scoop some pictures of Leary onto this site so you can see what I'm talking about.

Grant Logs

"Out in the Indian Ocean somewhere, there's a former army post, abandoned now just like the war. There is no doubt about it. It was the myth of fingerprints. That's what that old army post was for. Well the sun gets bloody and the sun goes down, ever since the watermelon, and the lights come up on a black pit town. Somebody says 'What's a better thing to do?' Well it's not just me and it's not just you, this is all around the world. Over the mountain down in the valley, lives the former talk show host. Far and wide his name was known. He says 'There's no doubt about it. It was the myth of fingerprints. That is why we must learn to live alone.'" --- Paul Simon, "The Myth of Fingerprints"
[ Another pic ]

Grant Links

[ Showing the badge ]
"She looked me over and she must have thought I was all right. All right in a sort of a limited way for an off-night. She said 'Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?' I said 'Who am I to blow against the wind?'" --- Paul Simon, "I Know What I Know"

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