Naomi Omi: Acid Attack Analysis

A 20 year old woman received major injuries when acid was thrown in her face.
UK police arrested a 21 year old woman and a 28 year old male in the attack.

Here is how it unraveled:

I.  The Attack 

Naomi Omi was left scarred and partially blinded in an acid attack in which she said a Muslim woman threw acid in her face.  She said, "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." Dialogue is something that is considered 'back and forth' or between people.  We do not expect "dialogue" between a stranger attacking a subject.  The use of the word "dialogue" should cause investigators to seek to learn if Omi knows the attacker. 

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.  She said that she looked back.  Why the need to tell us that she looked back?  Note that in a prior statement, she said "I didn't look back" contradicting this statement.  "Looking" is sensitive and is associated with recognition, the sensitive point to her words. 

5.  "the person"

The "person" is gender neutral.  Why not the "woman" since her gender has been identified? Since she identified the attacker as a Muslim woman, we see a need to conceal identity. 

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.

II.   Suspicion

Police then searched her computer and learned that she had previously researched a similar attack. The odds of this then happening to her are astronomical.  

Police said that they were looking into whether or not she did this to herself.  

She responded to the accusation with what the media called a "denial":  

“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.”

She does not deny involvement and describes the Muslim female attacker as a "person", which is gender neutral.  

III.  Behavioral Analysis

Naomi Omi, herself, released photos of her face so that police could catch the attacker.  How is it that a photo of her face could catch an unidentified attacker?  This does not appear to make sense in terms of the investigation. 

“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."

Here, she introduces the topic of getting "attention"; something she was used to getting.  By being attacked with acid, and sending her picture out, she is getting "attention" again.  

IV.  What Happened?

When asked "What happened?" early on in the investigation, she said this:

"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.

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.

“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?”

The statement contradicts her later statement.  Here, she reports what she did not do:  "I didn't look back" but in another statement, she talked about looking back.  
A truthful person should tell us what happened, and not report, in an open statement, what did not happen.  

Here is the same statement with analysis in bold type. 

“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"

The question of "who" did it, is sensitive to the subject, furthering the analysis of passivity earlier, where she seeks to conceal the identity of the attacker.  

V.  Conclusions

Naomi Omi likes attention, according to her own words.  She read up about a woman who was attacked with acid only later to be attacked with acid, defying all odds.  Her statements reveal an attempt to conceal the identity of the attacker.  This is sometimes done with the attacker is the subject, herself, or when the subject knows the attacker.  As we later learned, she knows the two people arrested for the attack.  She even referenced the earlier acid attack to media, speaking of it as an inspiration. 

Naomi Omi likes attention and this attack is fulfilling that desire.  It may be that she has sought, in the strangest of ways, attention, even through mutilation and pain.  

For some, even negative attention is better than no attention at all.  For Naomi Omi, being sentenced to obscurity is more than she can bear.