TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: trench reynolds

  • More on craigslist’s new rules

    Craigslist to charge for erotic services ads:

    Yesterday, I did an interview with Matthew B. Stannard of the San Francisco Chronicle about craigslist’s new security measures. Let’s get my media self-back patting out of the way first.

    On the other end of the criticism spectrum was Trench Reynolds, a pseudonymous crime blogger who tracks Craigslist-linked crime at thetrenchcoat.com.

    “I still say the best way to crack down on that is to do away with the erotic services section altogether,” he said. “I think (the deal) will cut down on a lot of the erotic services ads, but I don’t think it will cut down enough to put me out of business.”

    And I still stand by what I said.

    Now let’s move on to a quote by craigslist’s CEO himself Jim Buckmaster…

    “It raises the accountability for people posting to the category,” said Craigslist Chief Executive Officer Jim Buckmaster. “Our well-intentioned users don’t want to see illegal activity on the site, either.”

    Buckmaster said the company is trying to strike a balance, keeping the erotic services section – in part to keep such ads from appearing elsewhere on Craigslist – but trying to do so responsibly, protecting free speech and preventing exploitation. Hopefully, he said, Craigslist can be a pioneer in this kind of cooperation as it has been on the Internet.

    “In our humble opinion this is the way to go, and we would invite other online services to follow suit,” he said. “We all would be better off if we all voluntarily do what is necessary to curtail illegal activity on the Internet.”

    I keep hearing this theory that if craigslist did away with erotic services, the ads would appear in other parts of the site. Well, if erotic services ads appear in other parts of the site, won’t the users then be able to flag them? I mean, that’s what Mr. Buckmaster was touting prior to the new measures. Has Mr. Buckmaster lost faith in his user base that he has so highly touted in the past? Or did he never have it to begin with and just wants the traffic that the erotic services section provides?

  • Northern Cali is craigslist crime hotspot

    N. Calif. Called Craigslist Crime ‘Hotspot’:

    This was an interview I did with TV station KCRA in Sacramento, California about violent crimes and craigslist. Yes, I know they call me Trent Reynolds. That’s more TV friendly than Trench. It’s not like either of those are my real name anyway so there you have it.

    I thought I would be going head to head with Jim Buckmaster himself but that turned out not to be. I would have loved to have had that opportunity.

    First, let me brag about my one and only quote in the article…

    Crimes such as stolen items for sale, offers of prostitution and money fraud are much more common. A clearing house for these crimes is found on the Web site thetrenchcoat.com — a site where victims can share their Craigslist horror stories.

    “I see more crimes reported on the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest. The big hotspots would be in Northern California,” site developer Trent Reynolds said.

    The area is a Craigslist fan base: The site was born just down the road in San Francisco, and Northern California’s in turn use it more and are more likely to become victims.

    It’s true. Violent crimes like armed robbery are rarer on craigslist than prostitution and fraud but that doesn’t make it any less of an issue. And Northern California is the epicenter of craigslist related crime since that’s where the site got its start and people have been using it longer there than anywhere else.

    Now let’s hear from craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster…

    According to Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, the percentage of postings that end in significant crimes is low when compared with the legitimate use of the site.

    Buckmaster claimed Craigslist is unable to track the number of crimes involving the site. He said the task would be daunting, pointing to the 50 million monthly users, 35 million listings and 12 billion monthly pageviews.

    “The incidence is not zero. We’d like it be zero, but it’s not zero,” Buckmaster said.

    It’s definitely not zero but like I said it’s a large enough number to cause concern yet Mr. Buckmaaster just washes his hands of it and refuses to do anything to protect his userbase.

    User profiles, while not a perfect solution, would go a long way to discouraging a lot of crime on craigslist. So would eliminating the erotic services section. Two things that craigslist is not considering. So anonymous crime will continue unabated on craigslist. Eventually, people will get so fed up with it they’ll move on to other sites and then the big wigs at craigslist will wonder what happened.

    Again, how have they not hired me as a consultant? I’m not above selling out to the man. craigslist and its users see themselves as going against the grain but in reality, they’re just another corporation hence they are ‘the man’.

  • Eleven years of dispensing the truth

    Either yesterday or tomorrow marks the official 11th Anniversary of my web presence. 11 years ago I launched my first crappy website on Tripod. (Remember them?) 11 years later I now have 9 crappy websites. I’m not addicted or anything.

  • Closing of last Margate mini-golf par for the course

    Link

    Part of me is sad because I used to play at this mini-golf course as a kid and I hate that Absecon Island is becoming nothing but condos. However part of me is sadistically happy because the people who ran it always treated me like crap. They ripped me off for more than one free game.

  • Trench on Investigation Discovery about craigslist rapists

    The Craigslist Rapist : Guest Blog by Trench Reynolds:

    This is a piece I did for the Investigation Discovery blog The Criminal Report Daily that’s run by David Lohr. It focuses on the craigslist rapist Mark Antonio Humphries.

    UPDATE 12/21/2015: My piece was pulled from ID some years ago in what I’m sure was a housekeeping move however thanks to Archive.org I can bring it to you now.

    Investigation-Discovery-logo

    I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Website Craigslist. In case you’re not, it’s a massive online classifieds site that has regional sites in most of the United States and major cities around the world. It was started in 1995, in San Francisco, California, by Craig Newmark and was originally intended as a personal site for him and his friends to communicate. Over a decade later, it’s a multi-million dollar business.

    You can get just about anything you want on Craigslist – furniture, jobs, dates, even concert tickets; however, Mark Antonio Humphries was looking for something a little different on Craigslist – Humphries was looking for victims.

    Before we get to Humphries, let me tell you about the other things you can get on Craigslist.

    Craigslist has a section called “erotic services”. This is where the ads for “escort services” and “massages” reside. In other words, it’s where Craigslist allows anyone to post ads for prostitution.

    Humphries, of Prince Georges County, Maryland, picked his victims from the erotic services section. Humphries was otherwise known as the “Craigslist Rapist”. From October 2007 through July 2008 Humphries raped nine women that he met through Craigslist. The women were either escorts or were looking for one night stands. Humphries would set up the meetings at empty apartments or motel rooms.

    Humphries slipped through the grasp of police more than once and at one point he even went to the police himself, to fish for information.

    On July 23, police finally caught up with Humphries at an apartment in Hyattsville, Maryland. After police evacuated the building, Humphries shot himself in the head. He died later that night.

    Humphries may go down in infamy as “the” Craigslist rapist since he struck in an area near media-centric Washington, D.C.; however, he is not the only one.

    In DeKalb County, Georgia, 18-year-old Allen Jamar McDowell was arrested for the rape of two women he met through Craigslist. McDowell is also HIV positive.

    In Tigard, Oregon, 52-year-old Ronald M. Leistiko was arrested for luring several women to his home through Craigslist and raping them.

    In California, 24-year-old Waymon Livingston was arrested for raping a masseuse he contacted through Craigslist. The DNA from the rape linked him to a murder for which he is now facing life without parole.

    Rape is not the only crime being committed through Craigslist. 19-year-old college student Donna Jou disappeared after leaving on a date with a man she met on Craigslist and 22-year-old nanny Katherine Ann Olson was killed after answering an employment ad. Her killer took out the ad allegedly just so he could kill someone.

    Craigslist is also a hive for various scammers, fences, and thieves. Not that these crimes haven’t been occurring since the dawn of the Internet, but I’ve never heard of so much crime being connected to one Website.

  • False Accounts

    Link

    My friend Mr. A found this article from Entertainment Weekly about my very first site being connected to Columbine.

  • Trench Reynolds, journalist

    I’m a journalist.

    Not that I mind but they must have a pretty loose definition of a journalist.

    The correct definition of me would be ‘guy with some websites and a big internet mouth’.

  • Trench in the Security Executive press

    Trench in the Security Executive press

    Mr. Safety Keeps Watch on MySpace Security:

    This is an excellent article by Sarah D. Scalet for CSO Online about MySpace’s CSO Hemanshu Nigam and the job he’s been doing since he was hired.

    Yours truly happened to be interviewed for the article as well. I think that Mr. Nigam is doing the best job possible, but his hands are tied with the nature of the internet…

    Still, the reports of unsavory characters on the site continue, as attested by a quick visit to the crowded MyCrimeSpace.com, which tracks crimes related to MySpace and other social networking sites. “I don’t think whatever security measures [Nigam] put in place are being all that effective,” says Trench Reynolds, the nom de blog of the North Carolina dad and “9 to 5-er” who runs the site in his spare time. “MySpace can only do so much on their end of things. Parents need to do a better job monitoring their kids’ activities.”

    Thanks again to Ms. Scalet for taking the time out to interview me.

  • On page 42 of the Rolling Stone

    On page 42 of the Rolling Stone

    Yes, it’s true. If you haven’t heard by now, yours truly was interviewed by Sean Woods of Rolling Stone Magazine, and the interview is in the current issue with Borat on the cover.

    It tells the story of how I got started doing this and of my brush with Kimveer Gill. It really is an interesting read, and I’m not saying that just because I’m the subject.

    Mr. Woods also gives a list of what he calls the best crime blogs on the net, including MyCrimeSpace, Steve Huff’s CrimeBlog.us, Mark Gribben’s The Malefactor’s Register, and Kim Cooper’s, Larry Harnisch’s, and Nathan Marsak’s 1947project.

    Steve Huff also gave mention to some of his favorite crime blogs that he felt deserved attention. I’m going to add some more to both of those lists…

    T.O. Crime

    We here in the states are pretty much ignorant of the crime going on in other countries, and we’ve kind of gotten the impression that our friendly neighbors to the north are virtually crime free. Not so says our good friend Harding, who focuses and writes very eloquently about crime in Toronto.

    Crime in Charlotte

    This blog is about the crime happenings in my own town of Charlotte, North Carolina. It is written by a woman who was the victim of crime herself and who is very frustrated about the revolving door policy of the local courts. The Recent Arrests feature, complete with mugshots and arrest records, is my favorite.

    Parents Behaving Badly

    By one of the masters of blogging himself, Jay Allen. This blog focuses on some of the stupid and sometimes downright evil acts parents can perpetrate on their children.

    Bonnie’s Blog of Crime

    Bonnie is a virtual pack rat when it comes to crime news. When a crime story breaks that piques her interest, you can bet that she’ll have all the links you’ll need for that crime.

    Now, this isn’t to say that any of the other blogs on the blogroll are any better or worse. As a matter of fact, all the blogs on the true crime blogroll are worth reading.

    Here are some other mentions about the article:

    1947project

    Media Bistro

    The Rap Sheet.

  • Playing it big

    Playing it big

    In school killings, journalists have duty to report, must fight danger to sensationalize:

    This is a great article by American University journalism student Max Ringsgwandl. And I’m not just saying that because he interviewed me for the article.

    Max’s article explores the roles and actions of mainstream media when it comes to school shootings. It should be a must-read for all “professional” journalists.