Chula Vista PD in California has been one of the first agencies to utilize drones to rapidly respond to selected incidents in order to provide responding officers with “eye in the sky” information. This quick response capability has been used over 14,000 times since 2018. Chief Roxana Kennedy explains how the program works and discusses challenges and benefits in this interview ..read more

Voters in Burlington, Vermont recently defeated a proposed community police oversight board, 63% to 37%, as reported here. The board would have had the authority to discipline and remove officers, including the chief. The city’s mayor had previously vetoed the proposal when it was advanced by the city council, calling it a “risky experiment.” Supporters then gathered enough signatures to get the proposed charter revision on the ballot, only to see it fail by a wide margin ..read more

The National Institute of Justice has posted its 2023 call for applications for the LEADS Scholars Program, as announced here. The acronym stands for Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science. Established in 2014, the program selects 10 mid-career officers each year who demonstrate a commitment to using research and evidence to improve policing. Selected officers don’t leave their agency jobs, but they get 3 years of support from NIJ, including attending annual IACP and NIJ conferences, attending other professional events, mentoring, and networking. A smaller number of LEADS-Civilians and LEA ..read more

Police in Denver are implementing a vehicle tracking system that they hope will make stolen vehicle recoveries quicker and also prevent thefts, as reported here. Overall in Colorado, vehicle thefts have doubled in the last 5 years. City residents with sensors in their cars will be able to register those with police, speeding things up when they report their car as stolen. Also, police are providing stickers that owners can put on their cars publicizing that they are registered in the program. The initiative is modeled after one in Cook County, Illinois, where jailhouse interviews indicated tha ..read more

The White House and federal government are seeking input from the public and from law enforcement representatives about ways to improve data collection about policing, including reported crime and use of force, as reported here. The initiative aims to help the federal government: Understand the current landscape related to data collection, use, and transparency practices with respect to law enforcement activities; Recognize law enforcement agencies that have undertaken successful efforts to modernize policing data and to learn what could be improved; and, Identify how to provide guidance and ..read more

ATF has recently issued its most comprehensive reports on firearms commerce and crime guns in 20 years, as reported here. Among other things, the reports document “a spike in the use of conversion devices that make a semiautomatic gun fire like a machine gun, along with the growing seizure of so-called ghost guns, privately made firearms that are hard to trace.” The firearms in commerce report, available here, shows that from 2000 to 2009 more rifles were manufactured in the U.S. than any other type of firearm, but since then pistols have surged well ahead. Smith & Wesson, Sturm/Ruger, and ..read more

Bills currently filed in the Florida House and Senate would provide additional job security and due process rights for chiefs of police. Of course, most police chiefs in most states “serve at the pleasure” of their appointing authority and have very few employment protections. The Florida bills provide that a chief “May not be terminated by his or her employing agency without being provided written notice,  including just cause for the termination, and the opportunity to defend himself or herself against the termination at a public meeting or hearing.” The preamble to the legislation emph ..read more

Police training aimed at reducing bias, including implicit bias, has been widely adopted over the last 10 years or so. This brief article summarizes a study that looked at 251 training sessions attended by 3,764 officers across the U.S. Findings were similar to other studies — “the current generation of diversity training programs are effective at changing minds but less consistent at changing behavior.” Officers generally liked the training and increased their understanding of bias, but “it delivered only a temporary bump in concerns about bias and in the motivation to use strategies to limit ..read more

Many cities have added or enhanced independent oversight of police in the last few years. In Colorado, Boulder established a Police Oversight Panel in 2020 to review individual misconduct cases and make discipline recommendations. A brewing controversy involves two newly-nominated panel members, as reported here. Nominees are selected by a committee of panel members along with representatives from two NGOs, with final approval in the hands of the city council. The current nominees are both vocal critics of the police department. The police chief and some others question whether these particula ..read more

A recent Gallup poll asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in 18 fields and professions, as reported here. Police officers were rated high or very high by 50% of respondents, putting them in 5th place. Topping the list are nurses, followed by medical doctors, pharmacists, and high school teachers. At the bottom are telemarketers, members of Congress, and car salespeople ..read more