On Q Professional Investigations

WASHINGTON - Shortly after 1 a.m. on Dec. 30, Montgomery County Police Officer Ben Crumlin was approached by a vehicle flashing its lights, honking its horn and traveling at a high rate of speed on Randolph Road, near Hammonton Place in Rockville, Md.

But the vehicle’s occupants were not fleeing from a violation of the law, nor were they trying to start trouble. They were in need of the officer’s help.

According to Montgomery County Police, the vehicle’s occupants were en route to the hospital because their infant was having trouble breathing. Officer Crumlin, a six-year-veteran of the Montgomery County Police Department, checked the infant and discovered the baby boy was not breathing at all, the Montgomery County Police Department reports.

Officer Crumlin administered CPR and was able to revive the baby, and fire and rescue units arrived and transported the baby to a local hospital. The baby was held for several hours, and was released later in the morning.

“Patrol officers never know what they face when they encounter a speeding vehicle at one o’clock in the morning. It may be nothing more than a traffic violation or it could be a robbery that just occurred. In this case, Officer Crumlin was called upon to use his medical training to save a life,” says Montgomery County Police Commander Don Johnson in a press release.

“Officer Crumlin’s training and experience and his ability to act quickly made a difference in this child’s life.”

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Ketchum, Idaho » The five terrifying minutes an 8-year-old boy spent dangling from a central Idaho chairlift were all that ski patrollers needed to move a lift-tower pad beneath him to break his fall.

The youngster, who had apparently slipped out of his coat and off the chair at Sun Valley’s Bald Mountain ski area, was uninjured Sunday and resumed skiing only hours later, KTVB-TV in Boise reported.

Sun Valley ski guide Kent Kreitler and other witnesses credited fast thinking by the mountain’s rescue team for saving the boy from injury.

As the boy dangled precariously from the lift, ski patrollers had time to unhook a 5-foot by 5-foot safety pad from a nearby lift tower, Kreitler said. They held it beneath him on a flat, hard-packed trail meant for skiers and grooming equipment to travel about the mountain, blunting the force of impact.

“We were able to use some large pads in sort of a fireman’s catch style,” patrol supervisor Bryant Dunn said.

Kreitler said he believes the boy slipped out of his jacket while riding up the 11,942-foot mountain on a high-speed, four-person ski lift, known on the mountain as “Christmas Chair.”

There were three other people on the lift, according to a photo Kreitler posted of the incident on his Facebook page.

He said lift personnel had put the ski lift in reverse and were backing the chair down the mountain when the youngster plunged.

In all, five ski patrollers participated in the rescue on Bald Mountain, which is the same ski area where then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke his leg while skiing in December 2006.

The youngster, whose name wasn’t released, shook off the incident.

“He was up bright and early skiing with his father on Baldy this morning,” Dunn told KTVB on Monday.

Jack Sibbach, a spokesman for Sun Valley Co., said the resort is always proud of the hard work accomplished by its ski patrol in helping keep skiers safe — and getting them help in instances when something does go wrong.

“Most importantly, we’re very grateful that the young boy is safe,” Sibbach said, adding that while the lift does have a safety bar for riders to pull down in front of them, he’s not certain if the group riding the lift with the young boy had pulled it down.

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The Psychology of Lies: Behavioral Science Perspectives on Conducting Successful Interviews

There are plenty of myths about the “science” of lie detection.

Despite what popular books on nonverbal behavior may say, there’s no scientific evidence that crossed arms or legs indicate a non-receptive person, or that deceivers touch their noses, evert their eyes, or cover their mouths.

Unfortunately, deception detection isn’t so simple, say behavioral scientists who actually study communication and deceit using scientific methods. Spotting a lie, it seems, is an inexact science.

So how can investigators improve their chances of discovering deceit during investigative interviews? To tackle this topic and overcome popular misconceptions, I asked three leading research psychologists who specialize in the study of deception to share their insights on how to catch a liar.

The Experts:

David Matsumoto, San Francisco State University
Aldert Vrij, University of Portsmouth (UK)
Caroline Keating, Colgate University

Deception detection researcher Paul Ekman established that basic emotions are universal, as are their expressions.

Why Humans Are Good Deceivers and Lousy Detectors

According to Caroline Keating, we’re better liars than we are lie detectors. This point is echoed in various academic studies, which suggest that most people are no better than 50/50 at detecting deception by observing verbal and nonverbal cues.

Research conducted by Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan, published in Psychological Science in 1991, suggests that even professionals involved in fighting crime (such as law-enforcement and judges) veer only a little better than chance at detecting deception.

According to David Matsumoto, later research by Ekman and O’Sullivan demonstrated that law enforcement personnel were able to tell when people were lying about whether they committed crimes, but not about their opinions on various topics. Of the law enforcement professionals tested by Ekman and O’Sullivan, the Secret Service were the most able at detecting deceit, averaging a 65% success rate.

The bottom line is that even if law enforcement as a whole is better at detecting deception than the general public, that isn’t a particularly impressive statistic.

Most people are no better than 50/50 at detecting deception by observing verbal and nonverbal cues.
But there’s hope yet for lie detection science.

Matsumoto points out a problem with academic research on the topic: Many experiments are based on low-stakes lies. In the real world, lies that concern investigators or potential employers are usually high stakes—in other words, liars in the interrogation room have a lot more to lose than study participants.

How to be a Good Liar

Naturally, some people are bad liars; but professional investigators are concerned with the gifted ones. It stands to reason that to be a good lie spotter, the investigator needs to know what makes a good liar.

Sometimes the investigator may need to be good a liar himself in order to go undercover or pretext.

According to Keating, good liars are ultimately good actors. Her advice on how to lie convincingly is to “rehearse” in order to reduce anxiety; she also suggests creating plausible responses by interweaving deception with truth. Good lying, like good acting, is an art that requires a plausible story, well-practiced.

There are, however, pathological types that make natural liars: psychopaths and pathological liars such as those suffering from Münchausen syndrome. Pathological liars may tell lies with ease, but they are usually unmasked over time by inconsistencies, which earn them stigmatized reputations.

Psychopaths, on the other hand, are natural chameleons that mimic the behavior expected of them but have little or no emotional attachment.

The latter condition is thought to result from structural differences in the frontal lobe and amygdala—areas of the brain that are responsible for regulating emotion. In essence, psychopaths have little fear or anxiety but are natural actors. Keating notes that their “lack of stress” enables them as deceivers.

Good lying, like good acting, is an art that requires a plausible story, well-practiced.

Like the psychopath that simulates love for another when it serves him, good liars uses a measure of control over emotional appearances to overcome discovery, says Keating. The possibility that a liar will be unmasked naturally creates the desire to avoid the issue, but a savvy liar can take the offensive.

For instance, he may mimic anger or hurt in response to an accusation that’s true. The seeming natural response would be anxiety or embarrassment, but a good liar can turn the tables, emotionally speaking.

A final quality of good liars, according to Keating, is self-deception. She cites the story of Colonel Oliver North, who tried to hide evidence of U.S. arms sales to Iran and illegal funding of the Contras. North knew he was breaking the law, but he was acting on behalf of senior government officials—on some level, he believed he was doing the right thing.

Lying to himself, according to Keating, may have enabled him to lie about his actions more convincingly.

Self-deception reduces anxiety by justifying the lie. Presumably the Russian SVR agent presenting as an American businessman, the Al Qaeda operative engaged in terrorism, and the investigator pretexting during a fraud investigation are all enabled by a belief of inherent righteousness.
Caroline Keating suggests that anxiety lies at the root of high-stakes lies—if unmasked, the deceiver faces stiff consequences. But the researcher’s dilemma is that high-stakes lies—and the anxiety associated with them—are hard to ethically replicate in the laboratory.

There is, therefore, hope that in real-world scenarios, fear may betray the deceiver’s self-control more inexorably than it does in the dispassionate environment of the behavioral-science lab.

Catching Liars Through Cognitive Taxation

Aldert Vrij suggests we throw out all notions of specific nonverbal cues and rather look for narrative inconsistencies when mining for lies. To that end, he provides several guidelines based on a synthesis of psychological and social science research. Most notably, Vrij supports the proposition of “imposing cognitive load.”

The idea here is that lying requires extra psychological effort at creating a plausible story, whereas the truth doesn’t, because the teller is simply recalling, not inventing. According to Vrij, an interviewer can exploit this fact through several strategies (as summarized below):

1. Ask for details.

The more details the interviewee provides, the more chance of inconsistency. This fact alone may cause the guilty interviewee to be reluctant about answering questions or to give short or vague responses. If the interviewee is reluctant or vague in responding to a question, the interviewer should pursue the subject further.

Vrij suggests borrowing from the techniques of “cognitive interviewing”—developed to enhance eyewitness’ memories—because they are useful in encouraging the subject to report details. Such techniques include asking the subject to describe his story with richness and imagery and to reassure him that no detail is without significance or is too trivial.

While inconsistency, vagueness and hesitancy can be signs of deception, details provide the practicality of more information that can be cross-referenced and validated.

2. Encourage the subject to describe events in reverse order.

Because a lie is a fabrication, it may be more challenging for the liar to describe events in reverse order, because such act creates extra “cognitive load.” Vrij cites research in which subjects watched videos in which they had to distinguish a liar from a non-liar.

Subjects detected the liar 42% of the time when the lies where sequential but 60% of the time when the liar had to describe what happened in reverse order.

3. Ask unexpected questions.

Just as Caroline Keating suggests that the would-be-liar rehearse responses to possible tough questions, Vrij suggests asking “unexpected questions” as a counter-measure. To be successful, the interviewer must be able to develop relevant questions that the interviewee doesn’t anticipate.

Vrij cites experiments that show that liars produce fewer details when responding to unanticipated questions than truth-tellers.

4. Conduct an information-seeking interview rather than a confrontational interview.

Vrij is critical of the popular Reid method of interviewing, which progresses from interview to accusation. (Some researchers have asserted that success-rate claims in texts on the topic are unverifiable and un-replicable.) Basically, the Reid method presumes guilt and incrementally increases pressure on the subject to make a confession.

In contrast, Vrij promotes the information-seeking interview, in which the interviewer aims to build rapport and plays a sympathetic role in order to coax out facts. Vrij cites a recent meta-analysis of several field studies (as well as laboratory studies), which found that information-seeking approaches yield more information and cues to deceit than confrontational approaches.

Evidently, information-seeking interviewing is a war-proven approach: Ali Soufan, A CIA interrogator, describes using information-seeking interviews with good success on Al-Qaeda suspects in developing intelligence in his book, The Black Banners.

5. Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE)

Vrij advocates an approach developed by Maria Hartwig in her doctoral dissertation, which studied the presentation of evidence in interrogations. Hartwig’s research showed that the non-accusatorial interview— asking open-ended questions and presenting evidence late in the interview—revealed more inconsistencies and contradictions than if the evidence were introduced early.

Furthermore, when interrogation trainees formulated indirect questions specific to the evidence without revealing their own knowledge of the evidence, their ability to detect deception significantly increased. (Such questions are also introduced at a late stage in the interview.)

A later study on SUE showed that trainees utilizing the SUE method produced 85% accuracy vs. 56% over a control group of interrogators not trained in SUE in determining the veracity of statements made by interviewees.

Catching Liars Through Emotional Leakage

Paul Ekman is widely credited with establishing that basic emotions are universal, as are their expressions.

Some anthropologists (such as Margaret Mead) theorized that facial expressions and emotional expressions were learned behaviors with culturally relevant meanings. Ekman’s research took him to Papua New Guinea, where he discovered an isolated primitive tribe whose members were able to accurately describe the meaning of facial expressions from pictures of Westerners.

Ekman is best known for his work on micro expressions—facial expressions that last a faction of a second and are believed to be involuntary. The proposition that these fleeting expressions reveal the true emotion of the subject led Ekman to suggest the ability to posit micro-expressions as a means of truth detection.

Ekman and his colleagues David Matsumoto and Mark Frank then developed a micro expressions training tool called METT—utilized by the TSA and other federal agencies—which has been further expanded independently by both Ekman and Matsumoto.

Matsumoto has been at the forefront of academic scholarship on nonverbal behavior and cross-cultural psychology. He heads a company called Humintell that provides seminars and training material on recognizing and interpreting micro-expressions.

When I asked what actions investigators can take to improve their sensitivity to deception, Matsumoto said this:

“Get trained on the VALIDATED indicators of veracity and deception, both verbal and nonverbal.”

“Learn to strategize their interviewing techniques to maximize the potential for them to receive CLEAR verbal and nonverbal signals to interpret.”

Caroline Keating concedes that micro-expressions betray a person’s true feelings, but she adds this caveat: “You almost need a video camera running in slow motion to see them,” (although Matsumoto counters that a person can be trained to see them in real time). Keating recommends scanning for anxiety and attempts at self-control when looking for deception but also recognizes that individuals have different baseline behaviors and different levels of response.

For instance, one person may be naturally anxious in most situations, while another may become anxious when asked questions that he believes may falsely incriminate him. There are also liars who show little anxiety because they are well rehearsed in their deceit, are self-deceived, or suffer pathological conditions.

The bottom line: a guilty person facing the possibility of unmasking should be anxious, but so, too, could an innocent person fearing for his freedom…and there are exceptions to every rule. To deal with variations in behavior between people, Keating suggests the importance of interpreting behavior by gauging the individual’s “baseline” behavior.

Parting Wisdom

Popular science is not the same as real science, nor is real science on complex human behavior fully resolved. Unfortunately, popular beliefs on nonverbal behavior and lie detection have managed to leak into texts on police interviewing and interrogations.

Nonetheless, behavioral science is making headway, and savvy investigators should pay attention. Ultimately, an interview with a suspect relies on psychological strategizing that aims to unmask the truth.

Deceit betrays itself by behavioral and narrative inconsistencies. Looking for incongruences in a subject’s story and behavior is common sense, but investigators can improve their chances of discovering lies by aligning their strategies with advances from the behavioral sciences. Watching for involuntary micro-expressions and the theory of cognitive load are two such advances that can aid an investigator’s tactics and observations.

There are many variables in human behavior. The investigator must consider all possibilities when interpreting the significance of a statement, pause, contradiction, gesture or hesitation. The goal shouldn’t be to become a psychological X-ray machine, because that’s currently impossible.

Instead, the investigator should aim to acquire verifiable intelligence, and/or, if the intelligence merits it, a true confession. The tips offered in this article provide the investigator with insights from world-class researchers in the field on how to achieve those goals.

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Handcuffs didn’t stop a man, who had just been arrested, from making off with a Chicago Police squad last week, authorities say.

The incident happened around 12:45 p.m., after police arrested 42-year-old Marquette Fisher during a traffic stop in the 4100 block of West Adams Street, said Chicago Police Officer Ron Gaines, a department spokesman.

While he was handcuffed in the backseat of a squad car, he managed to get his hands in front of him, jumped into the front seat and drove off, Gaines said. He left the car a short distance away and was later arrested.

Fisher, of the 1400 block of South Cicero Avenue, was charged with possession of a stolen law enforcement vehicle and aggravated fleeing, Gaines said. He was also charged on misdemeanor counts of escaping from police, obstructing his identification and unauthorized theft.

Fisher was also picked up on an outstanding warrant and cited for driving on a suspended license and failing to stop at a stop sign.

Court information was not available early Sunday.

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Fatal heart attacks among law enforcement officers have been quietly mounting through the first half of this year, and most strike victims younger than 50, according to fatality data compiled by two police groups.

So far this year, nine of the 58 officer deaths have been attributed to heart attacks, drawing new attention away from the most volatile and traditional causes — guns and vehicle accidents.

Overall, officer deaths are down slightly — 2% — this year; firearm deaths are down 14%, and fatal traffic incidents are down 21%, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and Officer Down, the groups that most closely track police fatalities.

The nine aheart attack victims so far this year, however, represent three more than in all of last year combined, according to the NLEOMF.

From year to year, the causes of line-of-duty deaths can swing indiscriminately, but authorities are expressing serious concern about the string of heart attack deaths so far this year.

“The number does look dramatic,” said Bart Johnson, executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “This has been on our radar screen for a while now.”

Johnson said the IACP, the largest association of police chiefs, has been meeting in recent months with representatives of health care company Johnson & Johnson. The meetings, he said, are aimed at developing a more strategic approach to officer wellness as part of the association’s Center for Officer Safety and Wellness, which was created last year.

“We’re looking at the full spectrum of a police officer’s life cycle,” he said.

The effort comes as medical and occupational health journals have been publishing research on the heightened risk factors associated with law enforcement jobs. Last year, an article in the medical journal Cardiology in Review concluded that the common risk factors — hypertension, obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyles and sudden physical stress — for officers “often (exceed) that found in the civilian population.”

In March, the National Occupational Research Agenda, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, listed cardiovascular disease and its relationship to officer disability and death among its top priorities.

By 2016, according to NORA, federal health authorities hope to assess more fully the disease’s prevalence in the public safety workforce.

“Americans aren’t as fit as they should be, and we, as a profession, are no exception,” said Arlington County, Va., police Capt. Adrienne Quigley, who has researched the issue. “It’s a problem… but it’s not the cool thing to talk about.”

Although many law enforcement agencies require officers to meet certain fitness standards prior to employment, Johnson and Quigley said few departments require officers to maintain those standards as conditions of their continuing employment.

“There really is no follow-up,” Johnson said.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the recent deaths, authorities said, is that at least five of the nine victims were younger than 50 at the time they died.

The youngest, 26-year-old federal corrections officer Brandon Kountz, died while responding to an alarm inside a Beaumont, Texas, prison.

At least eight of the nine victims were engaged in some physical activity, either training or a police operation, when they were stricken.

Two, including St. Paul, Minn., police Officer Josh Lynbaugh, 30, were pursuing suspects on foot.

The victims’ physical conditions prior to death were not included in the fatality data, but at least one — Anthony Barfield — had complained of feeling ill just before his April 9 collapse as he responded to a domestic disturbance call in Barwick, Ga.

Barfield’s death at age 47 was especially tragic for the tiny southwest Georgia town where he served as the police chief and the community’s only full-time officer.

Barwick City Councilman Dale Hicks described the chief as a “beloved” figure in the community where “everybody not only knows everybody else’s name but we even know the name of your cat.”

“He was probably a little overweight, but he appeared to be in reasonably good shape,” Hicks said.

He complained of feeling ill when the disturbance call came in, but “it’s something you wouldn’t generally associate with a heart condition.”

“He was urged to go home,” Hicks said. “But he said, ‘No, I’ll stick it out.’ ”

The councilman said Barfield asked local sheriff’s deputies, who responded to the call as back-up officers, to transport the suspect for booking.

He collapsed at the scene soon after.

“It’s only been a couple months, but he’s sorely missed around here,” Hicks said.

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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Escaping an active shooter, self-defense and other survival skills will be taught at a new summer camp for kids offered by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

That is a long way from the usual summer camp traditions of swimming in the lake and making macramé bracelets. But Sheriff Mike Hale says the camp will teach young people to be prepared for whatever life throws at them. “Our greatest allies in public safety are people who know what to do in an emergency,” Hale said in a press release today.

The name of the camp is Prepared, Not Scared. Two sessions, one week each, will be offered to students entering the 5th through 7th grades. The first session will run August 5-9, and the second August 12-16 at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center.

The campers will be taught by instructors from Fresh Air Family and Hoover Tactical Firearms. The program is based on the National Rifle Association’s “Refuse to Be a Victim” program. Some of the topics include what to do if they find a gun or encounter an active shooter. They will also learn non-aggressive ways to try to escape an attacker or be aware of potential hazards.

Fresh Air Family instructors will also teach survival skills should they get lost. That will include how to orient directions, build a shelter, make a fire and discern which plants are edible and which are poisonous.

“Everyone,” said Whit Wright of Hoover Tactical Firearms, “should have personal safety skills in today’s world.”

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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Emergency Management Agency today announced an initiative to enhance safety for students, staff and visitors on college and university campuses.

Nine colleges and universities will participate in a pilot of the “Ready to Respond Campus” program, with a full roll out of the program expected in January 2014.

“The Ready to Respond Campus program will recognize those institutions that meet rigorous standards for ensuring the safety of their students, staff and visitors,” said IEMA Director Jonathon Monken. “The Ready to Respond Campus designation will let current and prospective students and their parents know that safety is a top priority on the campus.”

Schools participating in the pilot program include:

• Augustana College (Rock Island)

• Columbia College (Chicago)

• Heartland Community College (Normal)

• Parkland College (Champaign)

• Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills)

• Richland Community College (Decatur)

• Southeastern Illinois College (Harrisburg)

• Southern Illinois University (Carbondale)

• University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign)

To attain the Ready to Respond Campus designation, colleges must demonstrate compliance with standards for hazard identification, operational and violence prevention planning, incident management, training, exercises and crisis communications/public education.

Templates are available if needed to help schools document compliance with the standards

Colleges and universities meeting the criteria will be designated a Ready to Respond Campus and can use the Ready Campus logo on official correspondence, websites, brochures and other media for three years.

They will be able to renew their Ready to Respond Campus designation by submitting updated documentation at that time.

The Ready to Respond Campus program is the latest component of Illinois’ Ready to Respond effort. In 2012, IEMA announced the Ready to Respond Community initiative.

The program is endorsed by the Illinois Campus Law Enforcement Administrators and supported by IEMA and the University of Illinois’ Center for Public Safety and Justice.

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The firefight between the marathon bombers and police in Boston suburbs left 15 officers injured, and one campus police officer at MIT dead.

Campus officers have taken on a more serious role in recent years.

Gone are the days where they merely bust parties and give out parking tickets.

“The initial typical role was a security officer,” said Ted Marnen, Director of Police and Safety at Gannon University.

“Somebody who walked around campus, somebody who gave parking tickets to campus violators, someone who locked and unlocked doors. It’s changed dramatically.”

Patrolman Chris O’Connell ran into some of those misconceptions when he first got on the job four years ago.

“A big issue when I first started was having people recognize that we’re an actual police department, that we do have arrest powers,” O’Connell said.

“When I was working third shift there were a couple times where I was trying to effect an arrest and I had to get a little physical with somebody, whereas if it was an Erie police officer dealing with it, it might not have been the case.”

Their base line training is the same as a city police officer, and the danger they face is the same, too, as seen with the shooting death of MIT officer Sean Collier, in Boston.

“They’re subject to being injured, shot at,” said Marnen. “We try to train them to be safe and cognizant of their surroundings but you just never know.”

Part of the danger at Gannon is its non- traditional position in the city. Campus police often have to deal with outside threats.

“We aren’t just dealing with our own students, we have to deal with the people around us… some of our neighbors aren’t so nice.”

Crime fighting is a team effort, and they often add their force to that of the city police department.

“We are here for backup if they need us,” said O’Connell.

Even if it’s not a big city like Boston, or a sprawling urban campus like Gannon, campus officers have to be ready to jump into action at any moment.

“Whether it’s in a rural setting in a fenced in area, they’re not in a bubble,” said Marnen. “There’s no vacuum, they’re still subject to crime.”

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One industry group is hoping to educate youngsters on how the technology and devices nearly all of them use actually work, in hopes of inspiring the next generation of IT professionals.

Todd Thibodeaux, CEO of CompTIA, said last week that the trade association is launching a new effort in hopes of filling the gaps that STEM programs in grades 9 through 12 are lacking: a better understanding of how IT works — from smartphones to Facebook.

“We’ve come into a period when use of the product and adoption of the product is the new geek, instead of understanding how the product and components of it work,” Thibodeaux said. “We have this generation of kids who aren’t quite as geeky as the ones who came before them.”

A recent CompTIA survey of 1,002 teens and young adults found that nearly all respondents (97 percent) said they either love or like technology. Many teens also are more than just technology consumers, with 58 percent reporting that they help family members or friends with questions or troubleshooting computers, software and mobile devices.

Still, while most teens have a love affair with technology, most aren’t interested in translating that love into a career, the study found. Only 18 percent of teens and young adults reported a definitive interest in an IT career, while 43 percent identified their interest in an IT career as a “maybe.” Many respondents (47 percent) said they did not know enough about IT occupations, according to the report.

As a result, Thibodeaux said CompTIA will be going to kids in grades 9 through 12 to educate them on the processes that underlie technology, such as how much infrastructure underpins Facebook, how a text message works and how online gaming is developed.

“Teens think they have to be massive science geniuses to work in IT and that there’s no real upward career path mobility,” Thibodeaux said. “All of those things are completely false.”

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Not every bombing, no matter how many civilians are killed or how terrifying it is, is terrorism. The Boston Marathon atrocity on Monday afternoon may qualify or it may not. Since the discourse around terrorism in the U.S. is an exceptionally fraught one, here’s how to think through the issue.

Terrorism is not just violence aimed at civilians. Terrorism is violence aimed at civilians with a political objective — most often, designed to cause a spectacle.

The Boston Marathon attack brought violence against civilians: three are dead and over 150 injured, several critically. The bombs were placed near the marathon’s finish line at Copley Square, where banks of video cameras and spectator smartphone caught the race’s end, so it’s safe to say it caused a spectacle. We don’t yet know whether it carried a political objective, and that’s the crucial criterion.

No one — group or individual, foreign or domestic — has taken responsibility for the attack. If and when someone or some group does, it may not be definitive: as last September’s Benghazi attack showed, claims of responsibility are not always genuine. A press conference on Tuesday morning by the Boston investigative team underscored that law enforcement is just beginning to understand what happened 18 hours ago.

If you watched cable news at all yesterday, you saw that the race was on to outpace the evidence. CNN termed the attack terrorism within two hours of the twin blasts. Its reporters speculated that President Obama would as well when he spoke on the event, to insulate himself from political criticisms — only Obama was more circumspect. “We still do not know who did this or why,” he said, “and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have the facts.”

Yet shortly afterward, a White House official who would not speak for the record blast-emailed reporters with a clarification. “Any event with multiple explosive devices — as this appears to be — is clearly an act of terror, and will be approached as an act of terror,” the official said. That turns out to be a distinction with a subtle difference.

“I’m not even getting this debate right now,” says Juliette Kayyem, the former homeland security adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. “Terrorism is a very, very scary word. If the president decides not to use it, I’ve got to believe it’s to keep people calm… If it’s just some random crazy guy with no political bent, you don’t want to get tripped up.”

That is, Kayyem explains, there’s a legalistic subtlety at work here. Calling something an “act of terror” is a legally neutral term. “Terrorism” is more problematic: a defense attorney could, for instance, say that Obama prejudiced the investigation by pre-stigmatizing a potential suspect as a terrorist. Notably, for the moment, the FBI, which is leading the Boston investigation, says it’s “too early to establish the cause and motivation” behind the bombing. (After this piece went to press, Obama muddled the waters, saying the FBI was “investigating it as an act of terrorism.”)

Lurking behind this definitional debate is a massive amount of subtext. The word terrorism is neutral as to the identity of the terrorist behind the act. But the association in the United States, nearly twelve years after 9/11, is anything but.

The U.S. committed a lexicographical error in calling the series of military reprisals emerging from 9/11 a War on Terrorism. (Or sometimes War on Terror; it’s not even been a consistent euphemism, nor one that bothers with legal exactitude.) Instead of defining the specific entity behind the 9/11 attacks as the enemy — diffuse as al-Qaida actually is — the War on Terrorism construction created the immediate association that “terrorism” is a euphemism for al-Qaida. It also allowed for a darker association: For some, “terrorism” will equate to an act committed by Muslims, no matter how many pre- and post-9/11 acts of terrorism were committed by non-Muslims. It’s not fair. But it is real.

That association can have dire consequences for innocent Muslims and non-Muslims, both from ignorant fanatics and from law enforcement. One of the biggest sources of speculation in journalism and on social media concerned a Saudi national questioned in the bombing. Yet Boston police commissioner Ed Davis said flatly this morning, “There is no one in custody.” The investigation is just beginning to interview Bostonians.

That’s to be expected: law enforcement has to run down what one investigator called the “voluminous” leads emerging in the hours after the explosions. After reports came through social media about police questioning Arabs who among the thousands running away from the Copley disaster area, people grimly joked that “Running While Arab” is the new “Driving While Black.” Suspicion is not the same thing as evidence; questioning is not the same thing as suspicion; and social media-fueled descriptions are not reliable at underscoring these differences.

Terrorism, ultimately, isn’t just a definitional problem of establishing motive. It’s a case where the meme can overshadow the thing-itself. None of this is a reason to avoid calling terrorism what it is. But it is a reason to avoid labeling the Boston Massacre terrorism before that central fact is established.

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