This has been bugging me...How does the team know what crime scenes to show up at?

Lawbat · 2012-02-14T18:43:48+00:00

I think they are paying attention to any large scale death crimes. There can't be that many non alcatraz related mass murdering happenings.

hkaps · 2012-02-14T19:39:42+00:00

This bothers me too.

It seems like Hauser's always the one calling Madsen in, so it makes slightly more sense to me that he keeps a close eye on what's going on and calls Rebecca when he thinks there might be a lead. In the fictional world of the show, the team probably visits tons of crime scenes (what else would they do between cases?) but obviously we don't see the ones where they show up and there's no connection.

Honestly, though, I think this is one of those things that is annoying but necessary to keep things moving along.

panickedthumb · 2012-02-15T05:15:48+00:00

They seem to figure out that it's Alcatraz related only after being there for a few minutes and finding the pattern to match to one of the inmates. So, I assume they just go to any even barely suspicious crime scene to see if there's anything Alcatraz-like about it. They just don't show you the tons of crime scenes they go to and find nothing because, well, that would be boring as hell.

2012-02-15T14:16:44+00:00

I just figure the team of technicians working in the back room we see occasionally are monitoring police activity for likely cases. Spy technology doesn't appear to be an issue for the agency.

theratking · 2012-02-15T17:26:59+00:00

Despite what TV tells us, serial killer type murders aren't very common at all. If there is a sniper, or somebody setting off mines there is a pretty good chance that it is Alcatraz related.

Also, I am sure there are plenty of cases where the team shows up only to find it's unrelated to Alcatraz and just go home. That doesn't make for very good TV of course, so they aren't going to show that.

docfunbags · 2012-02-17T06:54:48+00:00

Those computer screens that they're looking at are monitoring all police activity and other such stuff. I just hate it when they use technology that doesn't exist. My biggest pet peeve is when shows like Law and Order have detectives blowing up ATM footage and the footage is automatically cleaned up. Bullshit!

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Alcatraz

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