Policing Matters

When the Vallejo (Calif.) Police Department began considering the purchase of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), they didn’t just take the vendor’s word that the equipment would be successful in helping to capture criminals and reduce crime. Command Staff wanted to have proof, so with the assistance of a group of researchers from New York University, they employed what has become known as Ev...

In 2014, California voters overwhelmingly (59 percent to 41 percent) passed Proposition 47, a law that downgraded a variety of crimes — such as burglary, shoplifting, and grand theft — from felonies to misdemeanors. If the value of the stolen property is under $950, the perpetrator will likely receive no penalty, creating a “green light” for bicycle thieves. “A thief may now steal something under...

In late April, police arrested a 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo for a series of rapes and murders committed in the 1970s and 1980s. Dangelo (a.k.a. the Golden State Killer) was apprehended when a surreptitiously obtained DNA sample matched the DNA of relative on the other side of the country who had registered with a website and service that enables users to trace their family heritage. In this...

A trend in retail sales is to instruct employees to not attempt to stop a shoplifter. Such “no pursuit” policies among retailers have implications for police. Principally, this turns a responding officer into little more than a report taker, not an enforcer of the law. Further, those same stores that refuse to prevent the loss of products to theft simultaneously demand that officers be more presen...

While attending ILEETA 2018 in Saint Louis in late March, I heard from multiple reliable sources that at least one nearby restaurant had something of a “sick out” among employees when they learned that the hotel next door was hosting some 800 of the most elite law enforcement trainers and educators in North America. Subsequently, service at the restaurant was impossibly slow. I didn’t experience t...

The year is 1983. A University of California Santa Barbara student named Marcy Nicholas is stalked by an ex-boyfriend and brutally murdered. A week after Marsy was murdered, her mother and brother are confronted by the accused murderer in a grocery store. They had no idea that he had been released on bail. Dr. Henry Nicholas — the key backer and proponent of Marsy’s Law — notes that criminals have...

Recently, Sacramento police officers were investigating reports of a man who had been smashing car windows and was bounding fences in people’s backyards. In the body camera footage released soon after the OIS, one can hear an officer shouting, “Show me your hands! Stop!” The subject continued to flee. The officers continued their pursuit. Upon making contact with the individual, one cop shouted “S...

United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently issued a one-page memo calling for death penalty for drug dealers when it is “appropriate.” Sessions asked prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug-related offenses as part of an effort to combat the opioid crisis. The memo said, in part, “Drug traffickers, transnational criminal organizations, and violent street gangs all contribute subs...

April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. Police are among the people who are “mandatory reporters” of suspected abuse or neglect. Abuse can take many forms — from physical harm to emotional damage. One relatively unknown form of child abuse is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) — the practice of the removal of a female’s clitoris and labia. Women in places like Dijibouti, Egypt, Guinea, Mali, Northern S...

At a crime scene, patrol officers, investigators, and others need to do a lot of things simultaneously. They must create and maintain an inner and outer perimeter, ensuring that access is only given to those who warrant it. They must begin a crime scene log and maintain it all the way through. They must preserve evidence, and make note of how evidence may have been affected by responding EMTs and/...

A study by two professors from the School of Professional Psychology at Pacific University examined 47 officers with an average tenure of nearly 14 years from police departments around the Pacific Northwest who engaged in exercises designed to enhance their physiological and psychological resilience. They practiced body-awareness exercises, mindful movement, martial arts exercises, and meditating...

The most fundamental aspect of community policing is having cops personally and proactively interacting with the community. That’s mighty difficult to do when you have two thousand pounds of police cruiser wrapped around you, with the windows rolled up and the radio chirping. In recent years, we’ve seen many agencies increase their foot patrols, especially in downtown business districts where ther...

JD “Buck” Savage humorously taught officers to write accurate reports when he said, “Saw drunk. Arrested same.” Thorough, well-written reports get results. Sloppy reports with a dearth of information let the guilty run free. In this podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss best practices for report writing, and ponder what the future holds, as artificial intelligence and body-worn cameras may one day...

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a failure of law enforcement from start to finish. In January, the FBI received tips that the 19-year-old shooter had expressed a disturbing desire to kill people both verbally and in social media posts. The FBI did nothing. There are reports that as many as 39 calls were made to the Broward County Sheriff's Office about...

Following the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, there have been renewed calls for arming teachers who qualify mentally, emotionally, and physically to carry a concealed firearm. Any such program would require careful vetting, police training, constant re-evaluation of the people and the program itself. There would need to be budget put aside for everything from...

Research from Force Science Institute reveals that in order to get the most accurate and detailed information from officer-involved shootings or other high-intensity events, officers should be allowed a recovery period of at least 48 hours before being interviewed in depth about the incident by IA or criminal investigators. Further, the manner in which the interview should be conducted should not...

Until fairly recently, FAA regulations seemed somewhat unclear about exactly when and how law enforcement agencies can use UAVs. Now that there is a little deeper understanding of the legal parameters, police agencies are beginning to adopt the technology. The most obvious use for a UAV in law enforcement is for search and rescue operations. Drones can get under the canopy of thickly wooded areas...

Recently, a news item appeared on PoliceOne about eight police cadets who were injured during defensive tactics training at their academy. This sort of thing is not terribly uncommon. Police training is necessarily difficult, and comes with some degree of danger. But the question becomes, how can police conduct training (both academy and in-service) that is as close to reality as possible, but sti...

You have the right to free speech. But being a cop is not a right — it is a privilege. That privilege can be taken away from you in the event that you conduct yourself in any way deemed to reflect poorly on the department. This is particularly true of incendiary statements made on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Cops are held to a higher standard than other government...

Most thoughtful police leaders know that they are in perpetual peril that something so monumentally ugly goes down in their jurisdiction that cable satellite trucks will rain from the sky and take up residence in the parking lot of the nearest big-box store. Whether it is an officer-involved shooting or an active shooter event, the cameras will be rolling and the story will be you and your agency....

Police officers at the line level can demonstrate leadership just as much as the chief in the big office. In fact, line level officers and their immediate supervisors are the raw materials from which the most visible forms of police leadership are formed. What does it take to turn street leadership skills into promotions in rank and responsibility? Jim and Doug discuss the traits of a good leader,...

Under federal law, marijuana is illegal. Meanwhile, 30 states and the District of Columbia currently have laws legalizing marijuana for either medical or recreational use. This discord puts the Justice Department in a legal bind. Under President Obama, Deputy Attorney General James Cole drafted a memo saying that the Feds would defer to state and local agencies to enforce their own marijuana laws,...

The gunman in the Las Vegas shooting in October reportedly had equipped several AR-15 rifles with what is called a bump stock, which effectively turns a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon capable of automatic fire. Following that tragedy, there has been a great deal of discussion around the legitimate purpose a bump stock might have, as well as the need for a gun owner to equip their firearms with...

As we do every December, the Policing Matters Podcast looks back on the year that was. Probably the biggest single event of the year was the Las Vegas mass shooting, but Jim and Doug also discuss how police responded to natural disasters — particularly Hurricane Harvey in Houston and the widespread wildfires in Northern California. Other major trends were cops in the middle of First Amendment asse...

Drug overdose is reportedly the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, and according to a recent report from PERF, more than 64,000 people died by overdose in 2016 alone — that's more than three times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Doctors have been prescribing opioids too generously, and addicts are still successfully "doctor shopping" to load up on pills. Further, Her...