Forensic Linguistics - Presented by James Fitzgerald (Retired FBI Agent), Criminal Profiler for the UNABOMB Investigation
Fitzgerald’s career in law enforcement began in 1976 when he was hired as a police officer by the municipality of Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania. In 1987, after eleven years of local police work culminating in his promotion to the rank of sergeant, he was recruited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Upon graduation from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, Fitzgerald was assigned to the New York Field Division’s Joint Bank Robbery Task Force. In 1995, Fitzgerald was promoted to Criminal Profiler at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which would later become the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU. Through myriad investigations of homicide, serial rape, extortion, kidnapping, and workplace violence, Fitzgerald refined his skills in text analysis and threat assessment, specialties that proved crucial to the successful resolution of the UNABOM investigation. In addition to his duties as a profiler and forensic linguist at the BAU, Fitzgerald was also responsible for developing training programs and tools to improve the threat assessment capabilities of the FBI. Among these is the Communicated Threat Assessment Database (CTAD), an exhaustively indexed repository of data consisting of every communicated threat encountered in the course of FBI investigations. Fitzgerald has remained active in the fields of criminal profiling and forensic linguistics since retiring from the FBI, holding positions as adjunct faculty at both Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York and Stockton University in Pomona, New Jersey. He also continues to work as a private consultant and technical advisor to media productions such as Criminal Minds and Sleepy Hollow. James Fitzgerald’s latest media project, the Discovery Channel’s (2017) 8-part miniseries, Manhunt: Unabomber, features actor Sam Worthington as James “Fitz” Fitzgerald and Paul Bettany as Ted Kaczynski.
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