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After nearly a decade of sometimes contentious discussions and negotiations, the Portland Police Bureau ends its tenure Monday as the nation’s largest municipal police agency without body-worn cameras. About 150 officers will don the devices for a 60-day pilot program starting this week. “This is huge and it’s long overdue,” said police spokesperson Lt. Nathan…

Sexual assault often goes unpunished when victims fail to fight back. But investigators, psychologists, and biologists all describe freezing as an involuntary response to trauma. What is tonic immobility? It’s an extreme response to a threat that leaves victims literally paralyzed. They can’t move or speak. Tonic immobility is a survival strategy that has been…

Gun-related deaths among children in the U.S. reached a distressing peak in 2021, claiming 4,752 young lives and surpassing the record total seen during the first year of the pandemic, a new analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found. The alarming statistic clearly indicated that America’s gun violence epidemic has gotten worse,…

Body cameras first began to be used by police departments in the United States following their adoption by law enforcement in the United Kingdom in 2005. But it was not until the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., which was not captured on video, that the United…

Last year, federal officials charged more people over public threats – against elected officials, law enforcement and judicial officials, educators and health care workers – than in any of the previous 10 years, according to research from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. This year the trend…

Several Connecticut lawmakers are open to the idea of implementing policy that would place more regulations on police using stationary automatic license plate readers as police departments continue to use the devices without outside oversight… Full story: License plate readers along CT roads catch attention of lawmakers

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks with ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis about the relationship between social media and an increase in gun violence, often resulting in homicides, among young people… Full story: Social media could be fueling gun violence among young people : NPR

The widow of a police officer who died by suicide after he was assaulted during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been found eligible for a federal benefits program for the families of fallen officers. Erin Smith, the widow of Jeffrey Smith, was instrumental in the passage of a renewed version of…