Month: January 2024

When a gunman terrorized the Michigan State campus last February, killing three students and wounding five more on a cold winter night, students, staff and faculty scurried for shelter. Then they scrambled to find out what was happening.

Many of them turned to Broadcastify, a private app that’s been making audio streams from police, fire, EMS, aircraft and rail radio systems available to the public since 2012. Listeners at the East Lansing campus weren’t alone. At the high point of the three-hour search for the shooter, 240,000 people in East Lansing — and around the world — tuned in to follow the manhunt.

The events of that evening show the power of using the Internet to track information. But that power now worries local police so much that they want to close the door on people listening to their minute-by-minute work. That’s leading to an epic collision between the opportunities for transparency and the pressures for secrecy in ongoing police activity.

Full story: The Perils of Broadcasting Law Enforcement Frequencies

In a first-of-its-kind report released Monday, the Department of Justice found hate crimes at schools have steadily risen since 2020 and schools were the third most common location for reported hate crimes to occur in the US.

The number of hate crimes at schools more than doubled from 500 in 2020 to more than 1,300 in 2022, according to the report.

While the most common place for a victim to experience a hate crime was on the street or in a home during that time, 10% of hate crimes happened at school locations in 2022, the final year for which data was analyzed.

Full story: Federal report finds steady rise in hate crimes at schools | CNN

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used by police forces around the world, but do the benefits always outweigh the risks?

AI has the potential to transform the way the police investigate and solve crimes. It can identify patterns and links in evidence, and sift through vast amounts of data far more quickly than any human. But we have already seen missteps in the use of the technology by law enforcement.

Some U.S. cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, have already banned the use of the technology. Yet it is increasingly being used by police forces on both sides of the Atlantic.

Full story: Should AI play an ever-growing role in tackling crime?

While police departments across Maryland and in Baltimore City are experiencing staffing shortages, there are new efforts to change eligibility requirements to recruit more officers.

“There are a lot of Marylanders who are worried about crime in their neighborhood and around the state,” said Maryland Senator Cheryl Kagan. “One of the challenges is that we have a crisis level shortage in police officers.”

Kagan has introduced legislation to change the citizenship requirements for some police officer applicants in Maryland who have prior military service.

Full story: Amid police staffing shortages, efforts to change eligibility requirements are considered

Still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, court systems in many states are working to clear their case backlogs.

Some court systems have moved cases faster using virtual court proceedings, court data dashboards and online jury selection. In other states, lawmakers are stepping in.

The pandemic worsened problems that already had caused state and local court delays, legal experts say. The hurdles include insufficient funding, judicial vacancies, lawyer shortages and delays processing digital and physical evidence.

Some state legislators are particularly focused on shortages of prosecutors and judges. In Georgia, New York and Vermont, for example, lawmakers have filed or plan to offer bills that would increase prosecutor pay, boost the number of judges or streamline procedures to reduce the number of cases.

Full story: Shortage of prosecutors, judges leads to widespread court backlogs – Stateline

San Diego’s City Council on Tuesday approved substantial changes to the city’s regulation of surveillance technology used by police and other departments, despite vocal opposition from privacy rights advocates.

In August of 2022, the City Council passed the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) Ordinance, which gave departments one year to identify existing surveillance tech, hold community meetings and secure council approval for each item. Departments would need to complete a similar process for newly adopted surveillance technology.

The ordinance was considered among the most robust surveillance transparency laws in the country. But it has since endured a series of amendments, largely pushed by Mayor Todd Gloria, who argues the ordinance is overly broad and hamstrings city operations.

Last summer, as the one-year approval deadline approached and many technologies hadn’t started the review process, the City Council pushed back the deadline by three years. At the City Council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, council members passed additional changes that would exempt from review police databases, fixed security cameras and other technologies previously subject to the law. They also indicated additional changes were likely.

Full story: San Diego exempts police databases, security cameras from surveillance transparency law — with more changes likely

Ethan Crumbley was 15 when he opened fire at his suburban Detroit high school in November 2021, armed with a semi-automatic handgun that his parents helped purchase as an early Christmas present.

The rampage left four students dead and several others injured, shattering the close-knit community of Oxford, Michigan, and resulting last month in a life sentence without parole for Crumbley, who was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to two dozen counts, including for murder and terrorism.

Now, scrutiny falls on the teenager’s parents. In a rare attempt to hold the parents of a school shooter criminally responsible, James Crumbley, 47, and his wife, Jennifer, 45, are each facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter and will be tried separately.

Full story: Ethan Crumbley’s parents could resort to blame game in dual trials over son’s gun access

The risks are an added burden for a class of gig workers, many of them immigrants, who are often working second jobs as they strain to meet expenses…

Full story: As carjackings rise, food delivery drivers navigate harrowing risks

In its report on the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Justice Department officials strongly criticized the local police and issued blunt, unambiguous guidance for the future: Officers must rapidly confront a gunman, even if it costs them their lives.

The rebuke reflected the department’s frustration with the failure of police officials in the deadly 2022 shooting to observe protocols developed over the past two decades, and intended to address the threat of gunmen armed with battlefield-grade guns that can quickly kill dozens of people.

Most other types of police training emphasize careful, coordinated action to minimize the loss of life. But active-shooter protocols ask officers to abandon their civilian mind-set and transform, in an instant, into a kind of warrior posture.

Full story: After Uvalde School Shooting, Challenges Endure Despite Clear Police Protocols – The New York Times

Minneapolis is entering 2024 with a grim outlook for its police force, but what that bodes for crime rates remains to be seen.

The number of active officers in the Minneapolis Police Department has fallen to 565 — down from nearly 900 in 2019 — an exodus that is exacerbating what the chief repeatedly warns is an unsustainable long-term calculus for public safety in Minnesota’s largest city.

But while violent crime remains above pre-pandemic levels, it dropped in Minneapolis for the second consecutive year in 2023, more evidence that the latest wave of murders, shootings, and carjackings is receding.

Full story: In Minneapolis, police staffing levels continued to drop in 2023. So did crime.