The Graveyard Shift Blog

Since 2008, Lee Lofland has written over 2000 articles on his blog, The Graveyard Shift. Topics such as police procedure, forensics, criminal behavior, and what it’s like to be a cop has helped countless numbers of popular and aspiring writers.

His life’s mission – to remind writers that cordite is dead and gone. Just say no to cordite in your books!

No Sweat: Solving Crimes and a Sweaty James Brown

I've played in a number of bands over the years and each had it's own particular flavor, or style of music. I played trumpet in a jazz band, guitar in several rock bands, drums in both rock and church groups, and I played bass in rock, raggae,…

The Party Crashers: Demise and the Mortis Triplets - Algor, Livor, and Rigor

You're in the prime of your life and you love to throw those crazy parties, the kind guests rave about for months afterward. They love that your backyard is a giant Slip-n-Slide hosed down by a fountain of beer. That you hire the best DJs with…

Politically Correct 10-Codes

Has political correctness gone amuck in the world of cops and robbers?  After hearing this radio transmission, I'd say yes."Be on the Lookout for a morally challenged subject who's a rube-esque prone repetitive exterminator of respirations…

The Rookie: The Pilot - A Good Cop/Bad Cop Review

We're BACK! Yes, author Melanie Atkins and I have once again teamed up to review the romance and cop stuff seen on a popular TV show. As you may recall, we wrote a weekly analysis of the hit TV show "Castle." Now, we've followed Nathan Fillion…

Friday's Heroes: Remembering the Fallen

Trooper Kevin K. Conner, 38North Carolina Highway PatrolOctober 17, 2018 - While approaching a vehicle during a traffic stop for speeding, the driver of the stopped vehicle suddenly opened fire, shooting Trooper Conner once in the face…

Murder on a Hot Day: Weather is a Character

It was a Saturday morning, a day when the temperature had already reached the mid 80s and the southern air with was packed with enough humidity to make it appear as if a quick rain shower had passed through. Condensation on the windows of the…

Real Things and the Proof of Truth: Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around

Evidence = The thing or things that furnish proof.Proof = Something that establishes the validity of truth.Truth = A body of real things.Real Things = Evidence.Okay, now that we've established the fact that evidence is/are real…

The Perfect Murder: Human Soup?

Okay, you're at your desks with hands poised above the keyboard. Thoughts of murder, chaos, and of your 100th six-figure book deal churn inside your head like the winds of an F-5 twister that's just touched down in a midwestern mobile home park.…

In the Midnight Hour: A Cup of Joe ... and Maggots

Working the first 240 minutes of the graveyard shift---the equalizing hours---when the crazies come out to play and when many normal and sane folks allow alcohol and drugs to take over the part of the mind that controls mean and nasty, is a…

Friday's Heroes: Remembering the Fallen

Deputy Sheriff Mark A. Cox, 57Real County Texas Sheriff's OfficeSeptember 25, 2018 - Deputy Mark Cox suffered a fatal heart attack during canine training exercises. He is survived by his wife and two children.    Corporal…
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Separate Sovereigns and Double Jeopardy: Constitutional, or Not?

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right that no person shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Actually, there's more to it, but for the purpose of today's post I'm…

Hangings and Strangulations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of it All

Hangings have been a staple in mysteries for as long as we can remember. The Wild West featured them at high noon. The United States government used them as a means of execution, the last being a fellow from the state of Delaware named Bill…

Stop and Frisk - A Legal Practice, or Not?

Stop and Frisk has once again worked its way into the political arena, with the president suggesting that Chicago police strongly consider restarting the use of "stop and frisk” to help curtail the city's out of control gun violence. Trump…

Oh Yes, Oh Yes, Oh Yes. This Honorable Cop-Car Court is Now In Session

We all use them, those convenient "never-have-to-get-out-of-our-car" establishments, the joints that help us in our quests to not have to get off our ample rear ends to do, well, just about anything.You know the places I mean, the drive-through…

What and Who are Confidential Informants, and What Do They Do?

Confidential Informant - a person who provides information to police about criminal activity.The FBI, of course, conducts undercover operations, as needed, and they do so when such operation appears to be an effective means of obtaining…

I Spy with My Little Eye ... Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make

You've all seen them, those portable signs that wink and blink and flash the speed you're traveling along your neighborhood streets and local freeways and highways. Those police-installed rolling devices that make us quickly hit the brakes as…

The Day the Alarm Sounds ... Manhunt!!

I got my start in law enforcement as a corrections officer working in a prison designed to house the inmates who'd been classified as "the worst of the worst." Other institutions couldn't or didn't want to deal them, so they sent those little…

You Can't Hide Those Lying Eye Detectors

Singer/drummer Phil Collins once crooned about deception in his haunting song In the Air Tonight, and it's his words along with recent headlines that are the inspiration for today's article. Or are they? Am I telling the truth, or am I spewing…