Smart Talk: Dallas and local police; Coroner on new TV show; 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks
What to look for on Smart Talk Friday, July 8, 2016:
The tragic shooting deaths of five police officers in Dallas Thursday night capped a week of sadness across the country. Smart Talk will produce a special program Monday morning on the recent violence and the relationship between police and the community. But in the meantime, Tom Gross, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association appears on Friday’s Smart Talk to discuss how police protect themselves and changes they plan for to avoid violent confrontations.
Death, like life, is one of the few things universally shared among humanity. Whether by natural causes, disaster, accident, or the will of others, it’s something that everyone will have to face eventually. However, not all deaths are alike. Sometimes, the cause of a person’s death is a mystery. Sometimes, the cause of someone’s death can help solve a mystery.
That’s the premise behind an upcoming Investigation Discovery miniseries. The eight-part show, “The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead,” premieres Monday, July 18, and it reconstructs eight different cases of forensic science from the files of one coroner: Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick.
Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick joins us in the studio.
Hetrick has been Dauphin County’s Coroner for 25 years, as well as a grief counselor, adjunct professor, and Funeral Director. Hetrick joins us not only to discuss his upcoming show, but also other cases he’s been involved in in the past and forensic science in general.
Also, terrifying deaths struck the waterways of New Jersey a century ago. From July 1 until July 12 in 1916, five shark attacks occurred in the communities of Beach Haven, Spring Lake, and Matawan resulting in four fatalities. The attacks shocked the country and the world, flipping long held notions that sharks didn’t exist in Northern waters and would surely never attack.
So indelible were these “12 Days of Terror” that they led to the entrance of sharks in popular culture, inspiring films like Jaws and events like Discovery’s annual Shark Week.
Speaking with us Friday about the events of a century ago and the commemorations of this tragedy going on this summer is Deb Whitcraft, Founder of the Museum of New Jersey Maritime History.
