Acid Attack on Woman: Update

This young woman was said to be a victim of a random acid attack. Naomi Omi spoke to media on February 1, 2013.  Statement Analysis of her initial statements is at the end of this 

article. 

Statement Analysis of the victim's words indicated passivity about the attacker's identity. 

 Passive language is used to conceal identity and/or responsibility. 

 The analysis posted from last week is below.  Why would someone use passive language in a random attack?

Police revealed that Naomi Omi, the victim, had searched "acid attack" on her computer recently, before the attack and questioned if she had done this herself.  Later, we learned that two people were arrested. 

Some comments posted said that the arrest of two people refuted Statement Analysis, showing it to be incorrect.  One asked if the analysis would be changed given the news of the arrest. 

 I wrote that the arrests do not change the analysis.  Passive language was employed about the attacker.  To us, the subject is dead; the statement is alive.  We may not know why, but we don't change the rules of analysis.  

Passivity is used when someone does not want to reveal the identity of the person.  This is a principle we follow, along with the possibility that passivity may be used to conceal responsibility.  "The gun went off" is passivity.  Guns don't just go off; triggers are pulled. 

Update:  We now learn that the victim knows the two people arrested in the attack as friends of hers. 

A 20 year old woman said that she was attacked by a woman in a burqua,
who threw acid in her face, leaving her temporarily
blinded and with severe burns.

Here is her statement made on TV:   "No words were spoken. There was no dialogue. 
I looked back and remember the person
 just staring at me.  The eyes were cold.  
It was a cold stare."

What do we see in her statement?

1. "No words were spoken" is passive.

 Passivity is often used to conceal identity or responsibility.

2.  Passivity:  "There was no dialogue."

This is also passive, and it has a language change from no "words" to "no dialogue."

3.  Change in wording.

 Words have the tendency to remain the same unless there is a change in reality.  When there is no change in reality, we must ask if the change of words is an indication that the subject is not speaking from experiential memory.

4.  "I looked back and remember..."

Within an open statement, one can only tell us what they remember.

5.  "the person"

The "person" is gender neutral.  Why not the "woman" since her gender has been identified?

6.  "The eyes were cold" and "It was a cold stare" has the repetition of "cold", making it sensitive, but "it was a cold stare" is passive as well.  This appears to be an emotional recall, placed at the time of the alleged assault.  If "cold eyes" is to gauge an emotion, it would make the emotion appear to be artificially placed here in the alleged assault.

7.  She went from the "eyes" being cold to the "stare", which appears to be a change in language without anything appearing to change, in context (reality).

There is enough information in the statement to question if the subject knows the attacker and is concealing information.

When she learned that police were considering that she may have done this to herself:
 “I’ve only just come out of hospital after having surgery on my eye. To see this story saying that I’d done it made me so angry and really hurts. There’s no way I would have done this to myself. I want the person who did this to be caught.”

note the word "would" rather than "did" and note the word "person" is gender neutral; and not "the woman" who did this (she reported a Muslim woman did it)


*******Here is the original report from February 1, 2013.  Note that Statement Analysis is in bold type.  This is where it was a random attack by an unknown assailant.  

01 February 2013

A young woman was facially disfigured and almost lost her eyesight in a horrific unprovoked acid attack on the streets of London. 

Naomi Oni, 20, was on her way home from work when an unknown attacker dressed in a niqab threw a chemical substance at her leaving the retail assistant with severe burns on her head, neck, arms, legs and body.

These shocking images have now been released by Ms Oni in an appeal for help to catch the attacker whose identity was concealed behind the Muslim women’s dress which completely covers the face apart from the eyes.

Note that Naomi Oni, herself, released the pictures, not the police.  It is reported that she did so to help catch the attacker.  

Why would a picture of her help identify the attacker?  If it would help, why wouldn't the police release it?  Why did she release a picture of herself?

Why did she search on a prior acid attack?

Ms Oni, who is employed by Victoria’s Secret at the Westfield Stratford shopping centre, was five minutes from home in Dagenham, east London when she was attacked on December 30.

The 20-year-old was only released from Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford last weekend after spending almost a month receiving skin grafts and specialist treatment in the hospital’s burns unit.

Doctors initially warned Ms Oni that she may not be able to see again and although she can now see out of her left eye she still only has partial vision in her right eye.

Ms Oni, who is sole carer for her disabled mother Marian Yalekhue, 52, has decided to speak out after police failed to establish any motive behind the attack or identify a suspect.

She told the Standard the attack had “destroyed” her life and left her too afraid to venture out or even show her face in public.

“I look in the mirror and it just isn’t me. I’ll never look the same again. I’ve always been outgoing and confident in my job and in my personal life, used to getting attention for the way I dress or my hair, but now I don’t want anyone looking at me.

“I don’t want people to see me in public. I don’t want to get the Tube or the bus. If I have to go to the hospital I take a taxi. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to my job. I was planning to go to college in September to study media and fashion, but I don’t even know if I’ll be able to do that,” said Ms Oni.

Note that she says she was "used to getting attention", which is not an expected thing to say after a horrific attack by a stranger. 

The store assistant had just got off the bus and was talking to her boyfriend Ato Owede, 23, on her phone when she felt someone walking behind her in Lodge Avenue in Dagenham at around 12.40am.

She said:“I’d been working a late shift and was talking to my boyfriend about what we were going to do for New Year when I saw this Muslim woman wearing a niqab covering her face. I thought it was a bit strange at that time of night, but she didn’t say anything and I kept on walking.

note "this" Muslim woman instead of "a Muslim woman"; with the word "this" indicating closeness. 

Note the inclusion of "strange" as her thought, at the perfect or logical part of her story.  We may wonder if this has been placed here artificially. 

“Then I felt a splash on my face. It burned and I screamed out. I started running and screaming, holding my face, all the way home. I didn’t look back.

Here she tells us what she did not do.  This is in the negative and significant (sensitive).  What is the purpose of telling us that she did not look back?  It appears that by not looking back, she could not identify the attacker.  

This should cause the investigators to question if she knew the attacker. 

“I got home and I was screaming and banging on the door. I was hysterical. Luckily my godmother, who is a pharmacist, was at home with my mum and she helped me and kept dipping my face in water and trying to calm me down until the police and ambulance got there. I was in shock. Saying: ‘Who would do that? Who would do that?’ How could anyone do this?”

Here she asks questions within her own statement.  Note that in her questions, she changes language:

1.  Who would do that?

2.  Who would do that?

3.  How "could" anyone to "this"?

"Would" is repeated and changed to "could"

"That" is distancing language and it is changed to "this"

Ms Oni has been told she faces months if not years of skin grafts and further plastic surgery and even then is likely to be left with severe facial scarring.

The retail assistant and her mother say they are too afraid to go back to their council flat in Dagenham. They are currently sleeping on a friend’s sofa-bed after turning down the offer to be rehoused in Tottenham on safety grounds.

Ms Oni said she had been inspired by the story of Katie Piper, the model who launched a charity and spoke out publicly after falling victim to an acid attack orchestrated by her boyfriend, but that she would never feel safe with her attacker still at large.

Note that we do not have a quote on the story of Katie Piper, but suffice it to say the information would have had to come from Oni, herself, in the manner portrayed. 

“Even with the support of my family and friends and boyfriend I feel very alone. Nothing is going to be same anymore,” said Ms Oni.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said acid attacks were “extremely rare” and that detectives were keeping an “open mind as to the motive.”

Officers from Barking and Dagenham are investigating. No arrests have been made and inquiries are ongoing.

Anyone with information should contact police on 0203 276 1058 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111