Month: January 2023

The episode, which showed footage of the child waving the gun around and pulling the trigger, brought fuel to an already heated national conversation about children’s access to firearms after a 6-year-old shot his teacher at a Virginia elementary school earlier this month…

Full story: 4-year-old Indiana boy seen waving a gun on ‘On Patrol: Live’ TV show – The Washington Post

Police response times are taking longer in many cities and experts attribute it, in part, to staffing shortages. Departments are struggling to fill vacancies left by officers who have quit or retired…

Full story: Why data from 15 cities shows police response times are taking longer : NPR

The AG’s office has never found an officer-involved shooting in Maine to be unjustified..

Full story: Maine AG: Officers’ use of force justified in 3 separate shootings

About five dozen sheriffs from counties across the state put their name on similarly worded messages saying they would not enforce a law they considered unconstitutional. Pritzker fired back with a warning that such a stance puts the law enforcement officials’ jobs in danger: “You don’t get to choose which laws you comply with in the state of Illinois…”

Full story: Jacksonville-area sheriffs joining fight against gun ban, despite threat of being fired

As a stop gap measure, the department hopes a rarely used bureaucratic mechanism will allow it to regain lost ground. Known informally as the “bounce program,” it allows the chief of police to bring retired officers back for up to a year. It typically has been used sparingly in the past to recall an individual officer whose specialized skill sets make them hard to replace, such as a homicide detective who retired while working a case that might otherwise fall without their involvement…

Full story: Faced with shrinking ranks, LAPD looks to rehire retired officers – Los Angeles Times

Deputy Darnell Calhoun, 30, is the second Riverside County Sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty in the past 16 days..

Full story: Calif. sheriff’s deputy fatally shot

Pittsburgh police officers have been instructed to resume enforcing minor traffic violations — like an expired registration sticker or a poorly secured license plate — despite a 2021 ordinance to prevent them from doing so in the absence of a larger infraction.

A spokesperson for the department said the memo came as a result of “recent changes in state law.” A public information officer for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police told WESA that the procedure dictated by the ordinance “was pulled down by Acting Chief [Thomas] Stangrecki to be reviewed in light of recent changes in state law.”

Stangrecki told WESA another reason for the reversal was to boost morale among the city’s police ranks. He said he’s received steady feedback that the ordinance is “preventing them from doing their jobs.”

Full story: Pittsburgh Police resume certain minor traffic stops despite policy against them | 90.5 WESA

Police will no longer be able to stop drivers for things like driving without registration tags or broken tail lights. The idea is to cut down on those so-called “pretextual stops.”It’s a practice where proponents say officers use minor infractions to look for more serious crimes including drugs or weapons possession.Data shows people of color are stopped on this basis far more frequently…

Full story: San Francisco Police Commission Considers Policy on ‘Pretext Stops’ – NBC Bay Area

New federal data released on Thursday offers insight into the many, growing ways that schools have amped up security over the past five years, as the country has recorded three of the deadliest school shootings on record, and as other, more routine gun incidents on school grounds have also become more frequent.

About two-thirds of public schools in the United States now control access to school grounds — not just the building — during the school day, up from about half in the 2017-2018 school year. An estimated 43 percent of public schools have a “panic button” or silent alarm that connect directly with the police in case of emergency, up from 29 percent five years ago. And a stronger majority, 78 percent, equip classrooms with locks, up from 65 percent, according to survey data released by the National Center for Education Statistics, a research arm of the U.S. Education Department.

Full story: How Schools Have Boosted Security as Shootings Become More Common – The New York Times

Sixty-four officers were shot and killed in the line of duty in 2022, according to a preliminary annual report released Wednesday from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

That’s far below the number of firearms-related officer deaths 50 years ago. But the figure — the same as in 2021 — represents an increase over the average number of officer deaths in more recent history, according to the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, which warned of a “disturbing trend.”

Marcia Ferranto, CEO of the organization, said the data should prompt officer safety and wellness programs around the country to investigate why officers are dying by firearms at a greater rate today than they were 10 years ago.

Full story: A ‘disturbing trend’: More police are dying from gun violence today than a decade ago