The Blaze Publishes Name of Person It Claims Matches the J5 Pipe Bomber, Based on Gait Analysis

Eh.

Update: "Eh" is becoming "nahh."

Breanna Morello @BreannaMorello

🚨UPDATE🚨

Another federal employee with knowledge on the J6 pipebomb investigation tells me they DO NOT believe Shauni Kerkhoff had a role in the pipebomb.

This source tells me they know where she was at the time and they do not believe it's her.

The FBI may have another suspect they're focused on in their investigation.

Original post below:

It's based on gait analysis, which I do believe is a valid kind of forensic analysis, but...

They say a computer program says that this woman's gait matches the J5 Pipe Bomber's gate at 94%, and they say that adding human analysis to that makes it more like 98%.

Okay, but:

How many other people would also match this gait?

Compare a DNA match to a ballistics marking match. A DNA match means that the DNA either came from this person or a a close family member. Only one, or maybe 3 or 4 or 5, people in the would match the DNA profile collected from the scene.

On the other hand, while the markings on a spent bullet may be "consistent with" the gun a suspect owns, a lot of other guns would fire bullets that would be "consistent with" the bullet from the crime scene. You can say it's a "match," and yes, the bullets have markings that match, but that match does not mean that the bullet was fired from the gun. It means it was fired from that gun, or the hundreds or even thousands of guns with the same rifling pattern in the barrel.

"Match" has some very different meanings based not just on which suspects are included by the match but which ones are excluded. With a DNA match, nearly the entire world is excluded. With a ballistics markings match, many guns are excluded, but a lot of guns are still included.

So which is a gait analysis more like? I am imagining it is much more like a ballistics marking match than a DNA or fingerprint match.

Does that mean this article is wrong? No, but I don't think this is conclusive. They say the gait of the woman they name is like the gait of the J5 bomber. Okay, but how many other 5'7" women of the same age and build would have the same gait? Probably a lot.

So those are my reservations and doubts, and they're substantial.

Should this person be investigated? Certainly, especially if we pretend to believe the left's claim that the events of January 6th, and the 5th therefore, constituted the greatest attack on America since the War of 1812. Every suspect must be considered when attempting to solve the Greatest Attack on America Since the War of 1812.

But... this isn't close to conclusive.

Steve Baker for The Blaze:

A computer program that compared the bomb suspect's gait to that of Shauni Kerkhoff produced a 94% match.

A forensic analysis of a female former U.S. Capitol Police officer's gait is a 94%-98% match to the unique stride of the long-sought Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect, according to a Blaze News investigation confirmed by several intelligence sources.

A source close to a congressional investigation of Jan. 6 additionally told Blaze News evidence has emerged recently that pointed toward law enforcement possibly being involved in the planting of the pipe bombs.

A software algorithm that analyzes walking parameters including flexion (knee bend), hip extension, speed, step length, cadence, and variance rated Shauni Rae Kerkhoff, 31, of Alexandria, Va., as a 94% match to the bomb suspect shown on video from Jan. 5, 2021. The veteran analyst who ran the analysis for Blaze News said that based on visual observations the program can struggle with, he personally pegged the match at closer to 98%.

Kerkhoff, who was a Capitol Police officer for four and a half years, left the department in mid-2021 for a security detail at the Central Intelligence Agency, sources told Blaze News.

CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons stated that the subject worked in campus security.

This indicates she is being given a look by "law enforcement:"

Kerkhoff's residence in Alexandria, Va., appeared to be under the watch of law enforcement officers on Friday night. Blaze News editor in chief Christopher Bedford was pulled over by local police after stopping to observe the home. He was then allowed to leave.

In fairness to this woman: The police might have been posted to protect her, as one can just imagine that a person named in this investigation would face a substantial threat.

If I were named as a suspect, you better believe I'd like a cop posted outside my door.

The FBI, which failed to solve the case in nearly five years of investigation but indicated that it was closing in after Blaze News brought its investigation to intelligence sources, was feet from the Falls Church address of the pipe bomb suspect days after Jan. 6, according to the Blaze News investigation.

Former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin realized Friday that he was doing surveillance next door to the woman now suspected of being the Jan. 6 pipe bomber.

"The FBI put us one door away from the pipe bomber within days of January 6, and we were deliberately pulled away for no logical or logically investigative reason," Seraphin told Blaze News Friday. "And everything about that tells me that they were involved in a cover-up and have been since day one.

I don't know what to make of that. They were surveilling someone next to this woman's house, and were pulled off that investigation, so we should consider this woman a suspect?

Eh, that's a stretch. Possible but by no means the most likely explanation.

(Plus, over the years, I have grown wary of Kyle Seraphim.)

"They were f**king in on it," Seraphin said.

Seraphin proposed doing a "knock and talk" at the door of an Air Force civilian employee whose address was tied to a vehicle that picked up the bomb suspect in Falls Church, Va., on Jan. 5, 2021.

Seraphin's team spent two days watching the man, but Seraphin's request to go face-to-face with the person of interest was denied. The team was pulled off the case the same night, he said.

Seraphin said he has given the same details publicly since 2021.

"There's a personal reaction to it, which is the complete vindication that the things I've been saying and my recollection of being briefed on this stuff has been accurate for years and I've never changed my tune," he said.

The bomber used a smart metro card purchased by an Air Force civilian employee but an investigation has shown that that man is not the J5 bomber. So, the J5 bomber must have gotten this man's metro card, somehow. This doesn't seem to clear, or convict, this new suspect. It seems like a red herring no matter who the real suspect turns out to be. (Unless they can show that a suspect could have easily have taken this man's card, or that he gave it to her.)

...

Kerkhoff was a Capitol Police officer from 2018 until mid-2021. She was a member of the department's Civil Disturbance Unit and a training officer on the use of "less-lethal" crowd-control weapons that were extensively used on the Jan. 6 crowds.
Using lethal force Jan. 6

Interesting, but... doesn't really indicate much.

...

Blaze News approached numerous intelligence officials two weeks ago with questions about findings from its investigation, which suggested that Kerkhoff matched the description and behavior of the suspected bomber, based on her distinctive walk, slight limp, 5'7" frame, and other factors.

...

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told Blaze News he is eager to learn the results of the pipe-bomb investigation. But he said he had no awareness of any Capitol Police officer involvement in the pipe-bomb planting.

In my Expert opinion -- and I say I'm an Expert because I'm an Internet Researcher (and all leftwing internet nobodies claim this is accreditation, so I'm claiming it too), this is all somewhat suggestive but not nearly conclusive. Not even close.

There's a problem I see in "internet detective work." It's the Light Under the Street Lamp bias.

You know the old joke about the drunk searching for his car keys? He's searching for them under a street lamp. A passer-by asks him what he's doing, and he says "I'm looking for my car keys." The passer-by asks, "Oh, did you lose them under the street lamp?"

The man says "No, I don't think so."

"So why," the passer-by asks, "are you searching under the street-lamp?"

"Because the light's better here," the drunk man says.

So not to explain the joke and kill it*, but the point is that people search where they can see. They don't search where they can't see... and on a dark night, that means they're not searching most of the world where the car keys might have fallen.

Internet-based research can only include people for whom there is profile on the internet, and pictures, and videos. (This woman's gait was compared to her gait seen in videos of her playing "professional" soccer.)

So internet-based research is always looking "where the light is," and the light here means "people with a presence on the internet and easily-accessed public pictures and video."

(This is why Candace Owens' search for The Real Killers of Charlie Kirk focuses exclusively on public video -- it's where the light is better.)

Yes, more and more people have some internet presence, but this technique always assumes the suspect must be one of (admittedly large-ish) group of people who have a photographic/video profile on the internet. Where the light is better, don't you know.

When the Blaze teased this, they said they had both gait analysis and human intelligence to supplement it. I thought the "human intelligence" would be something like, "and this woman is a disgruntled federal employee who has made threats against the government."

But no, the "human intelligence" just means they had humans look at the gait footage and add a human evaluation to the computer analysis. It's all gait analysis, then.

So... I'm unimpressed. Definitely take a look, but I don't think I'd start clearing out a jail cell just yet.

* Also, why is a drunk man searching for car keys? He should call an uber and retrieve his car when sober.

This joke sends a terrible message about driving while drunk, suggesting that it's okay.

Well it's not okay, and I DENOUNCE this joke.

posted by Ace at 12:50 PM

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