Megan Jaegerman produced some of the best news graphics ever while working at The New York Times from 1990 to 1998. Her work is smart, finely detailed, elegant, witty, inventive, informative. A fierce researcher and reporter, she writes gracefully and precisely. Megan has the soul of a news reporter, who happens to use graphs, tables, and illustrations — as well as words — to explain the news. Her best work is the best work in news graphics.
In 2004-2005, she revised one of her Times news graphics for my book Beautiful Evidence (pages 116-117), shown at right. The revision includes several private jokes: images of E. J. Marey (from BE), Kenneth Noland (from Mark Tansey’s The Myth of Depth in Visual Explanations), myself in the sculpture studio, and a friend of Megan’s — somehow the four of us have unfortunately become involved with handguns. This work took months; for example, Megan and I exchanged many e-mails and three redesigns figuring out whether the stoplight should be red, green, or yellow.
Color is used to highlight how the gun moves and how the gun reveals itself, short visual noun-verb sentences that indicate the key signs that help detectives to spot someone carrying a hidden handgun. Thus the color usually has a distinct substantive point and is not just used to depict surfaces or to decorate the news.
Most of all, the content is really interesting. We learn something new from Jaegerman’s fine reporting work, details of which are revealed in this e-mail where she describes her interview with Robert T. Gallagher of the New York City Police Department:
I confirmed his ID as Detective Robert T. Gallagher of the NYC Police Dept. at http://www.criminaljustice.state.ny.us/ops/staV/index.htm. Also lists his award (see below). From my notes: He was a New York City policeman for 18 years, who for much [unknown] of that time worked as a plain-clothes undercover detective [anti-robbery tactical unit, confiscating illegal firearms], in Bronx&Manhattan, 6pm to 2am shift. He got very good at picking out people carrying weapons. So good that he received [not sure of exact terminology] 1984 Governor’s Police Officer of the Year Award. The great achievement was not just making gun arrests (1,200 of them), but making them stick. The letter nominating him said he had “an almost flawless conviction rate.” I believe he put it at “99.99.”
That’s the whole point of his observation–not just to get a gun off the street, and then maybe have the arrest thrown out, which apparently happens too often–but to get from arrest to conviction and jail time. It’s all about probable cause, he explained. First identify suspicious demeanor, appearance, behavior (which don’t qualify as grounds for arrest), and then wait for probable cause, or legal grounds for frisking and/or arresting someone. He pretty much had to watch for enough clues to justify suspicion, which would allow him to stop a suspect. Then he’d identify himself as a policeman, and then he’d watch for the hand reaching toward the waistband, or the guy instinctively turning away, and pulling his arm in to his side. That would combine to give probable cause for a frisk. And when there’s a frisk and a weapon, there’s an arrest, and apparently with Gallagher, very often a conviction. The sequence is necessary, in the context of suspects’ rights and legal requirements for arrest–evidence must exist that rises above suspicion to probable cause.
The tell-tale signs are those in the graphic–slight asymmetries in gait, odd clothing combinations or styles or misfits, instinctive evasive moves when confronted, constant hand-to-gun, holding gun while running, visible bulges or irregularities in the way clothing fits or hangs … etc. Source for gun art is a photo from Gallagher of three kinds of revolvers, all looking about the same.
He did act out the motions for me, with guns hidden in all the usual places, and demonstrations of grabbing and frisking and all of that. And he let me do some of the gun handling and role playing. So I’m confident in the graphic.
Parts of the graphic appeared in The New York Times, May 26, 1992. This excellent report describes clues to detect hidden handguns carried on the street and also the standards of evidence necessary to obtain a conviction. The various scenes here choreograph movement in 3-space by means of sequences, call-outs, parallelism, motion arrows, mappings, multiple viewpoints (silhouette, 3-D, flatland footprints), and particularly words and images working together to describe an extended causal sequence.
I really don’t get the “spotting a hidden gun” photo ;\