Author: Christopher Marier

Monday night, Charlotte City Council agreed to appropriate $1,271,000 to a new Civilian Crash Investigation Program. The funds are coming from the Municipal Debt Service Fund, and will be moved to the Capital Equipment Fund to purchase vehicles for the program. The idea behind the program is to have civilians addressing car crashes to ease…

The Drug Enforcement Administration, as part of its efforts to combat the fentanyl crisis, has identified a way to hit drug traffickers in a practical way: by going after high speed pill press machines. DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator Scott Oulton said these machines are capable of pumping out thousands of illegal pills an hour. Hundreds…

It sounds like a fanciful script for a Hollywood thriller: foreign government agents plotting assassinations in the United States. To be sure, there have been suspected state-sponsored killings in the past 20 years that have grabbed international headlines. Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning with a radioactive isotope in London in 2006 is one example;…

Every day we place an enormous amount of trust in the police to keep the peace and protect us from violence. More than that, we expect a perfect duality — we ask officers to make split-second life-or-death decisions while possessing the wisdom and wherewithal to slow down, evaluate, and proceed cautiously. We ask police to…

A law that took effect on Jan. 1 means San Francisco police officers can no longer ask, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” Instead, they have to tell you the reason… Full story: New San Francisco policy aims to limit ‘pretextual’ traffic stops, tackle racial bias – ABC7 San Francisco

The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed… Full story: Chief enforcer of US gun laws fears Americans may become numb to violence with each mass shooting

A group of law enforcement leaders urged President Biden to reclassify marijuana to a lesser status in a Thursday letter. “We are current and former police chiefs, sheriffs, federal and state prosecutors, and correctional officials from across the country dedicated to protecting public safety and reducing unnecessary arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration,” reads the letter from…

AT&T says it has restored about three-fourths of its cellphone network after tens of thousands of customers in cities across the country lost service overnight, causing frustration and concern about disruptions to 911 dispatches. Around 3:30 a.m. ET Thursday, outages reported by downdetector.com suddenly spiked from just a handful, peaking at more than 73,000 by…

Virtual-reality could assist researchers in decoding how emotions spur a decision to commit a crime. Full story: Virtual Bar Scenes Are a New Tool to Study Why People Commit Crimes in the Heat of the Moment | Scientific American

Lisa Monaco, deputy attorney general at the Justice Department (DoJ), announced last week the launch of Justice AI – a new initiative that aims to understand and prepare for how the emerging technology will affect the criminal justice system. Full story: DoJ Launches ‘Justice AI’ to Study Use of AI in Criminal Justice