Law & Order

Rebirth of the Big Easy

The French Quarter, Uptown, and Downtown areas of New Orleans are thriving with restaurants, nightclubs, golf, museums, a world-famous zoo and aquarium, shops, and music-oh, the music-all breathing life into the "sliver by the river." Like every part of the city, you will find wonderful restaurants along this 6-mile stretch of antique stores, art galleries, craft shops, upscale boutiques, and spas. The park offers a running track, a world-famous zoo, riding stables, and an executive golf co...

Better Fingerprints From Same Fingers

Electronic live-scan capture of fingerprints has eliminated many of the messy problems that irritated officers using ink on paper, and fingerprint capture software has supplemented the officer's judgment of fingerprint quality so more attention can be paid to officer safety during the booking process. Warm fingers on cold glass cause a halo effect ("haloes"), condensation formed on the glass from temperature differentials which causes noise around the finger. The live-scan system fingerprin...

Vehicle Wheel Clamps

While most assume the clamps are only used by law enforcement and security agencies, they are often used by vehicle owners to protect their own vehicle, especially recreation vehicles and boat trailers. According to CFO Wolfson the Denver Boot is also popular with private industry in securing construction trailers or other unattended vehicles.\n Due to the simplicity of design, the Alpha Lock is very popular with the trailer / construction equipment rental and sales fields. Pit Bull Tire lo...

How to Mentor a Chief of Police

Meyer said he makes personal contacts with other chiefs at the county and state chiefs associations and works with his senior staff officers to handle most problems, but one time he had a specific and perplexing problem, so he used another chief as a mentor to help resolve the problem. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has established a formal mentoring program for new chiefs.

Tampa's Child Abduction Response Team

A steering committee made up of liaisons from each agency was established, and that committee met almost once a week in the beginning to put into place the policies and procedures for CART, as well as the basics, i.e., standardizing forms for neighborhood and roadblock canvas, standardized questions for sex offender interviews, developing resource manuals and training. The initial letter, outlining CART's objectives, stated clearly that the team was designed to be a short-term asset to law e...

Police Equipment News

Click on Elnto at www.lawandordermag.com reader service #124 Word Systems Inc. !Record Word Systems Inc. announces the release of iRecord, a digital video recording and management system designed specifically for interview rooms. iRecord is designed to increase detective efficiency through the recording and management of interviews.

On The Job

Use-of-Force and Legal Strategies

The facts are the TASER has the fastest effectiveness, fastest subject recovery time, lowest rate of officer injury, lowest rate of subject injury and the least liability to the department of the force options. Attend their Risk Management and Legal Strategies Seminar, where the entire focus is on reducing liability, officer and subject injuries, use-of-force claims, internal affairs investigations and civil litigations.

News

Dräger Celebrates 100th Year Anniversary in America

Elbeco Inc. Announces National Uniform Contest

Service professionals interested in entering the "Every Elbeco Uniform Tells a Story"contest can pick up an entry form at participating local retail dealers where they purchase their Elbeco uniforms or enter online at the redesigned Elbeco Web site: www.elbeco.com.

Dna Technology Cracks 3 Cold Cases in 1 Week

Sorenson Forensics, which opened for business in October 2006, is geared exclusively toward assisting law enforcement, providing casework services for federal, state and local crime laboratories.

Technology

Ibm Fighting Crime in Real Time

Advanced data-mining capabilities provide investigators with rapid access to billions of records, including more than five million New York State criminal records, parole and probation files, more than 20 million New York City criminal complaints, emergency calls and summonses spanning five years, more than 31 million national crime records and more than 33 billion public records. While technology may not solve all of our problems, by focusing on the points of interaction, where technology m...

Sergeant

Protect and Serve?

It is open to constant interpretation, thus it is imperative that sergeants and supervisors be as up to date on court rulings, legislative changes and legal aspects that will affect what you and your officers do on a day-to-day basis. [...] it will likely involve a civil court where the suspect, or his surviving family, will have sued the officer and agency for the violation of the suspect's civil rights.

Training

Ileeta 2007: Trainers Training Trainers, Part 3

The Trinity activities are "The ILEETA Cup" shooting competition (featuring both live fire and firearms simulators, open only to ILEETA members), which was sponsored by Meggitt Defense Systems (Caswell / FATS); "The World Cop Donut Eating Championship" (open to any sworn or retired officer), which has no sponsor-yet; and, The "Flatfoot Five" 5K fun run/walk, sponsored by IES Interactive Training, which was open to anyone.

Product Spotlight

Leva

Bringing special attention and focus on the public safety video user; promoting a healthy interface between members, sponsors and commercial video entities; providing a reliable network and communications channel for all public safety video professionals; expanding upon the educational base of the public safety video user; and providing a technical database to assist members in making informed and educated video equipment purchases. LEVA provides several levels of membership: 1 Public Safety...

Commentary

Devotions and Prayers for Police Officers

Officers King and Smith had been dispatched to handle a pickup order for a mental health examination on the suspect, who, unknown to anyone at the time, was the suspect in three other murders committed in the city earlier that day. It has taken a good portion of my 21 years in law enforcement to recognize that I, like most police officers, have failed to see the importance of healing the internal wounds created by my experiences.

Traffic Safety

Washington State Patrol's Target Zero

Priority Three emphasis areas are distracted and drowsy drivers, young drivers, unlicensed drivers, pedestrian safety, motorcycle safety, commercial vehicle safety, head-on collisions and emergency medical services. During the 2005 IACP convention in Miami, the Highway Safety Committee established an Impaired Driving Subcommittee to explore steps law enforcement CEOs could take to reduce impaired driving and associated traffic deaths and disabling injuries.

Rangemaster

The Force Science Reactionary Gap

Lewinski has been conducting research into human performance in lethal force encounters by observing and timing suspect and officer movements with a concentration on the action / reaction parameters, most often referred to in the law enforcement profession as the "reactionary gap." Vehicle Stops A suspect with a firearm beside his right thigh while in vehicle driver's seat can draw, bring the firearm across his body and over his left shoulder, point to the rear and fire in an average time of...

Just Handed Down

Vehicle Ramming and Scott V. Harris

Obviously, it could be useful in defending against a negligence (i.e., unreasonable carelessness) claim that the Supreme Court has held such an action to be reasonable, but the real test will come when, in an effort to overtake such a speeder, the police vehicle goes out of control and strikes and kills an innocent person. The Supreme Court has already made clear that police driving accidents do not implicate the Constitution unless the driving behavior "shocks the conscience," but, again, t...

Media

Critical Incidents: Dealing with the Media

Consider a planned event such as an outdoor concert where it's assumed the crowds will get drunken and rowdy.\n But then the concert date arrives, and busloads of people high on hallucinogens scale all the lampposts on the main drag in town, and traffic is brought to an utter standstill. For the "review" portion of the media coverage, the public information officer or the agency head should be prepared for media in attack mode.

Special Report

Your Guide to Grants

Federal, state and local grants make up the lion's share of grant money, of course, but there are also private foundations, corporations, and local grantors who offer funding. "Private money spends differently than government dollars," and may focus on specific "targets" such as education, library resources, Internet access, health projects, etc. Even if your grant application is rejected, you may have the opportunity to propose another (so have ideas in mind!), and, at the very least, phon...

Internet Resources for Grants and Grant Writing

Still others include the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program for intelligence gathering, information sharing, establishment of intelligence fusion centers, hardening of highvalue targets, interoperability of communications, collaboration with non-law enforcement, government or the private sector on homeland security and terrorism prevention; the Metropolitan Medical Response System for integrated procedures during and after mass casualty incidents, and preparedness for such incidents...