TexasCHLforum.com

sjfcontrol wrote:

jmra wrote: It changes the odds because if you rightly assume that the BG may not be in one of the 20 cars then you are no longer limiting the probabilities to 20 cars. You would have to calculate how far the BG could have traveled in every route available to him. Then you would have to estimate the total number of vehicles in that area. Then you would use that number in relationship to the 20 cars that were stopped to determine the probability that he was even in one of the 20 cars. Unless of course you believe that the tip was iron clad.

Well, that's obviously a different problem all together. Conceptually that could then involve the search of every car in the entire town -- and that assumes that they could throw up road-blocks at all egresses before the vehicle could have exited the town. Now we're just getting silly (not that the original solution wasn't). There's no way they could stop everybody in a vehicle in the whole town. There wouldn't be enough cops (or handcuffs, for that matter). Seems to me they either had to find him at the intersection in question, or he was 'in the wind'.

sjfcontrol wrote:

jmra wrote:I think that you have to factor into the probabilities that the BG was not in any of the 20 cars. In fact all we know is that they arrested someone who had two guns in the car. To say at this point based on that information this was the BG they were looking for is very speculative. Unless of course they found more evidence in the car.
In short, If you are calculating the probabilities before the search began, you have to factor the probability that none of he cars contain a BG. This changes the statistics dramatically.

I mentioned to somebody offline the following regarding the existence of the BG in the last car...

My thought regarding the 'last car' was that it became obvious near the end of the search, that they weren't going to find the robber, so they added the last car, with an undercover cop as a 'plant'. They "arrest" the plant, and everybody's happy. Better than having a street-full of angry, frustrated people delayed by hours with negative results from the searches. Don't have any evidence of that, just seemed like a possibility.

I don't think adding the possibility that the BG didn't exist changes the odds all that much. The odds of the BG being in the last of 20 cars is 5% if he exists, or 0% if he doesn't. In either case, it is unlikely they'd legitimately find him in the last car.

gigag04 wrote:

sjfcontrol wrote:If I had been in that intersection (and it had been in Texas), they would have found a loaded gun actually on my person. Would THAT have been enough evidence to arrest ME for the bank robbery, too?

Did they find the money? Or just the guns?

Its also curious that "... it wasn’t until the final car was searched that police apprehended the suspect." That's statistically unlikely. Out of 20 cars, there is only a 5% chance that the one they're looking for would be in the very last one. 95% chance that it would have been one of the other ones searched first. (Assuming an even distribution of probability for each vehicle.)

So...statistically the same chance of being exactly the third car searched is what you're saying...

jmra wrote:

gigag04 wrote:Maybe those 40 know something we don't. Detaining a group that large w/o complaints is quite a feat. I'll be interested to hear first person accounts.

I'm sure they told them that they knew they weren't who they were looking for but needed them to play along to help them catch the bad guy. It's amazing what people will do if they think they are "helping".

No less amazing is the continued speculation about what actually transpired...

gigag04 wrote:Maybe those 40 know something we don't. Detaining a group that large w/o complaints is quite a feat. I'll be interested to hear first person accounts.