2017

News August 1, 2017

Office of Justice Programs Releases Toolkit to Aid Police Response to Children Exposed to Violence

Acting Assistant Attorney General Alan R. Hanson recently announced the launch of the Enhancing Police Responses to Children Exposed to Violence toolkit. The toolkit is designed to equip law enforcement professionals with trauma informed, developmentally appropriate tools to effectively respond to children who have been exposed to violence. Funded by the Office of Justice Programs’ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the toolkit contains protocols, checklists and other field-tested and research informed resources to enable law enforcement leaders…

News August 1, 2017

Officer Nearly Dies After Accidental Overdose

It took four doses of Narcan® to revive an East Liverpool, Ohio, police officer recently in the aftermath of a traffic stop. Officer Chris Green inadvertently got a small amount of fentanyl on his hand after a pat-down and began to suffer its effects after returning to the station; a fellow officer administered one dose at the station and staff at a nearby hospital gave him three additional doses following admission. Guidance for all first responders on best practices in…

A pile of newspapers bundled together with string.

News August 1, 2017

Just Published Study: Autistic Individuals’ Interaction with Police

A new study about police interactions with autistic individuals who are on the autism spectrum disorder was published in the June issue of Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders. The following is a summary of that research. The Canadian study examined 284 Ontario (Canada) teens and adult caregivers over an 18 month period. The study, conducted by Tint, Palucka, Bradley, Weiss, and Lunsky, was a collaborative effort between Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, the Centre for Addictions…

News August 1, 2017

Best Practices, Guidance and Case Studies for Using Social Media in Public Safety Exercises

New U.S. Department of Homeland Security Report Shares Best Practices, Guidance and Case Studies for Using Social Media in Public Safety Exercises The Department of Homeland Security has released a new report, Best Practices for Incorporating Social Media into Exercises, which seeks to do the following: discuss best practices for consideration when integrating social media into exercises, including objectives for doing so (e.g., using social media for communications or leveraging information from social media to support operational decision-making); discuss social…

Technology July 26, 2017

DNA Phenotyping Shows Results

Kathy Marks One of the benefits of this technology is a significant reduction of the suspect pool which can save time, money and manpower. Simply stated, DNA phenotyping predicts the physical appearance of an unknown person from their DNA. This technology helps to generate investigative leads; narrows the suspect list or assists when there are no suspects or database hits; and assists with mass casualty situations and identifying unknown remains. Companies committing resources to developing this technology utilize a number of…

Technology July 26, 2017

Data Mining in Law Enforcement

Bill Siuru, Ph.D., PE As every investigator knows, intelligence is a key to preventing and solving crimes. Acquiring intelligence often involves time intensive analysis of the thousands of incident reports; crime tips; and other, often seemingly unrelated, pieces of data. Terrorism has compounded the volume of intelligence data to be analyzed and made it even more critical to do it in a timely manner. How do you rapidly and systematically analyze a vast amount of data to produce useful intelligence…

Technology July 26, 2017

Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack

Dr. Stephenie Slahor The disruption to individual and departmental computer systems via ransomware is presenting new challenges to law enforcement agencies throughout the country. A recent NBC news report disclosed how Eastern European hackers have been exposing law enforcement agencies nationwide to “ransomware” virus attacks – seizing control of various systems and deleting numerous files and/or denying access to records and other information. According to this report, police departments in seven states have experienced these types of attacks over the…

SWAT & Tactical July 26, 2017

Brass and Blood: Fighting and Fixing with Advanced Field Survival Procedures

  Jim Weiss, P.J. Ryan and Mickey Davis This jointly taught combat casualty course stresses that officers should possess the ability to press home the fight and render aggressive patient care, not only to themselves, but also to others who may have been injured. Law Enforcement (LE) trainers previously taught that, if a police officer’s hand or arm was injured in a gunfight, he /she was to put that arm/hand behind his/her back and continue the combat course with the…

Equipment & Apparel July 20, 2017

Body Armor Update: 2017

The 24th Annual Report on the Latest Advances in Ballistic Armor Technology and Design Rebecca Waters “I was very lucky, actually. We had a traffic stop…and I initially thought the guy was in need of medical attention. He had blood on his face, he was drooling, vomiting, and I kind of looked over the car a little bit and said, ‘Hey, are you okay?’…. He had a .45 right under his leg…he pulled it out and shot me once in…

Law Enforcement Leadership July 20, 2017

Law Enforcement Leadership July August 2017

Michael Carpenter Managing Use-of-Force Incidents: Before and After The nature of police work virtually guarantees that officers will become involved in confrontational situations and that they will have to use force at some point. As a supervisor, you probably won’t be at the scene when it happens. Yet, even before a physical altercation (or an allegation of use of force) between a citizen and one of your officers takes place, you may have already contributed a great deal to the…