Police Officers from Other States Flock to Florida for Bonus Program

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ police recruitment program, launched last year, has now drawn police officers from all 50 states and two U.S. territories to relocate to Florida.

Recruits have either moved to Florida or joined the profession since Florida launched its Law Enforcement Recruitment Bonus Program last year. This year, the legislature allocated additional funding to expand and continue the program.

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U.S. Attorney’s Office in Georgia Organizes Gang and Violence Prevention Program for SROs in Metro-Atlanta Schools

The Northern District of Georgia U.S. Attorney’s Office organized an initiative to provide law enforcement training for more than 40 police officers from school systems in the northern district of Georgia to prevent and reduce delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office partnered with the Georgia Alliance for School Resource Officers and Educators, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, and the Georgia Gang Investigators Association to provide the officers with Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.).

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FIRE: Street Preacher’s Arrest at Pennsylvania Pride Event and Subsequent Dismissal Is a Free-Speech Lesson

Charges were dropped this week regarding Christian street preacher Damon Atkins who was arrested for speaking negatively about an LGBTQ pride-flag-raising he attended at Reading, Pennsylvania City Hall on Saturday. 

“After review of the video of the incident, including body-worn cameras, and a review of the case law, we did not believe we could prove a criminal case of disorderly conduct,” Berks County’s District Attorney’s office said in a statement.

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Exclusive: Left-Wing Agitators Say Ending Police Would Make Communities Safer

Police Officer

In secretly obtained recordings of a training session for far-left activists held Saturday in Nashville, participants said communities would be safer without any police at all. 

During a part of the training hosted by Katia Carillo, who runs a small upstart community group called Conmigo, Carillo asked the trainees what their perfect utopian communities would look like. 

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Law Enforcers in Philadelphia Suburbs Blame Krasner’s Performance on Spreading Crime

In Delaware County on Monday, law-enforcement experts asked Pennsylvania GOP state lawmakers to consider a variety of responses to the state’s crime epidemic… and to one left-wing official’s lack of urgency about it. 

Speakers suggested various ideas like increased resources for detention facilities and youth courts. Over the course of the hearing, numerous testifiers complained that the leniency of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) remains a major hindrance to public safety in the City of Brotherly Love and nearby communities.

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Violent Criminal Who Shot at Police and Injured Pregnant Woman Now Behind Bars

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) announced Friday that Christopher John Garcia, 34, has been placed behind bars after being convicted of violent crimes against police officers and a pregnant woman.

“Victims of violent crime carry with them a lifetime of trauma that in many cases is difficult to overcome. This defendant is where he needs to be; away from society so he will not hurt again,” said County Attorney Rachel Mitchell (R). “To the victims of this crime and all victims in our community, you are the forefront of why we do the work that we do.”

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Conservative Duo Vies for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Commission

As recently as the mid-2000s, row offices were unwinnable for Democrats in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania — a GOP stronghold for over a century. By 2011, the Democrats would take over the Board of Commissioners. They now enjoy a three-to-two voter-registration advantage.

But now some Republicans sense voters are wearying of what the Democrats have overseen during their dozen-year ascendancy, including a “bail reform” measure that has unsettled local police. The commissioners also frequently increase property taxes, most recently by eight percent in 2022. 

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State to Fund Public Safety Office in Atlanta’s Buckhead Community

A week after state lawmakers killed a proposal to de-annex and incorporate a portion of Atlanta as Buckhead City, state leaders announced they plan to fund a state patrol office in the community.

Last week, the state Senate voted 33-23 against Senate Bill 114, which would have allowed residents of the proposed Buckhead City to vote on the measure in November 2024. This week, House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, announced the proposed fiscal 2024 budget will include nearly $1.3 million for the state patrol’s “satellite post.”

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Shapiro’s Planned Spending Increase Alarms Pennsylvania Budget Hawks

Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro asked the state General Assembly members on Tuesday to support his requested $45.9 billion budget, which would increase spending by approximately 4 percent over current outlays. 

The governor insisted he based his plan for Fiscal Year 2023-24 on “conservative” revenue estimates. And he did include some provisions appealing to anti-taxers and free-marketers including nixing the state cell-phone tax, a move he estimates would save Pennsylvanians $124 million annually. 

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Soft-on-Crime Progressives Push for Laws to Prevent Traffic Stops for ‘Less Severe’ Violations

Leaders in multiple states and cities are embracing efforts to bar police from pulling drivers over for certain less-severe traffic violations, a move that some experts believe endangers public safety.

Lawmakers in Washington state are pushing a plan that would forbid police traffic stops conducted to address some lower-level traffic lawbreaking, and Oregon has already established a similar policy, while San Francisco is considering a city-wide plan of this kind after Los Angeles and Minneapolis instituted their own. Such restrictions could effectively impede enforcement against more serious offenses and put innocent civilians at risk, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Minnesota High School Scraps Race-Based Entry for ‘Police Encounters’ Training

Following a civil rights complaint, Roseville Area High School scrapped “priority” entry for non-white students and members of its Black Student Union (BSU) to a “know your rights” training event.

The high school’s media center initially sent an email Dec. 16 informing parents about a Dec. 20 student training event that discussed “navigating police encounters involving yourself — or others, in a way that protects your rights and helps keeps you safe.”

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Minneapolis Police Department Remains Critically Low on Patrol Officers

minneapolis police department

The Minneapolis Police Department only has 235 officers available to respond to 911 calls throughout the city, according to internal numbers obtained by Alpha News.

“The Minneapolis Police Department continues to face critical staffing shortages and remains far below its authorized strength,” Sherral Schmidt, president of the Minneapolis police union, told Alpha News.

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Ohio’s Democratic U.S. Senate Hopeful Projects Police Advocacy While Voting to Defund Them

Ohio Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) is projecting a pro-police stance as part of his platform while simultaneously voting to defund them.

On March 3, 2021, Ryan voted against a motion to condemn calls to defund, disband, or abolish the police while at the same time also voting to allow for the federal government to micromanage local police and potentially defund them.

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Detroit Drug Raids Decline 95 Percent Due to Cannabis Legalization, Changing Priorities

Drug raids in Detroit have fallen 95% since a peak in 2012, largely as a result of voters’ decision to legalize recreational marijuana and shifting other police priorities. 

Detroit police conducted 3,462 drug raids in fiscal year 2012. Nearly every year since then, that number has declined. Last year, police conducted 186 drug raids, according to the city’s annual financial report.

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Ohio Law Enforcement Utilizing New App for Anonymous Tips

Law enforcement around the state has begun implementing a new app to help residents find information about their department, view alerts, and submit anonymous tips from their smartphones.

The app is known as tip411 through CitizenObserver. It allows law enforcement to engage with the public by creating awareness through community alerts, expanding social media, and allowing the public to share anonymous tips and information with law enforcement. Officers are also able to reply back to these tips in real-time in an anonymous two-way conversation.

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Ohio Law Enforcement Agencies Add Eyes in the Skies with Drones

Several counties in Ohio are looking to use drones to respond to calls for critical injury, surveillance, security, accident reconstruction and measuring, evidence gathering, and fatal crashes.

Drone Pilot, Helicopter Pilot, and Supervisor of the Traffic Unit, Sargent Steven Poff with Butler County Sheriff’s Office, told The Ohio Star that there is a time and place to use a drone.

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Ohio Congressional Candidate Landsman Changes Tune on Police Funding

In a new television advertisement, Ohio Democratic congressional candidate Greg Landsman, who is challenging longtime Cincinnati-area incumbent Steve Chabot (R-OH-1), suggests in contrast to his actual record that he consistently supported robustly funding police.

The spot, which features Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey (D) and Cincinnati City Councilman Scotty Johnson (D), posits that Landsman actually backed substantially increased funding for law enforcement in his tenure as a Cincinnati City Council member. These officials blast Republicans for insisting that Landsman wanted to defund city police. 

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Cities Across Ohio Establish ‘Safe Exchange Zones’ for Internet Trades, Purchases

Cities throughout the state have been responding to safety concerns from residents about online purchases by creating monitored safe zones at police stations for transfers of goods.

There are several online platforms such as online auctions, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace, where buyers and sellers will need to meet in person to make a transaction.

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Arizona Attorney General Will Not Defend New Law Prohibiting People from Filming Police Up Close

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) recently submitted a legal filing, sharing that he will not be defending the legality of House Bill (HB) 2319, which is set to go into effect on September 24th.

“The Attorney General is not the proper party to defend the merits of A.R.S. § 13-3732. The Attorney General will provide notice to the President of the Arizona State Senate and the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives that local and county prosecutors are the proper entities to defend this statute,” wrote Brnovich.

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Election Integrity Event Organizer Says Fake Police Showed Up at Her Home, Detained Her

A Gwinnett County woman who held an election integrity panel over the weekend to educate Georgians says men who she believes were impersonating police officers showed up at her home and detained her hours before the event began.

“The long and short of what occurred, is I had an encounter with the police right before I went to the event,” Surrea Ivey told The Georgia Star News. “Initially, I didn’t think anything about it. When somebody – I say somebody because I subsequently found out it was not the police – when these individuals knocked on my door, they were in police uniform and they said they had reason to believe I was in possession of government equipment.”

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Ohio Police to Get $5 Million for Body Cameras

Ohio police agencies will soon be eligible to receive $5 million in new funding for body cameras and related equipment, according to Gov. Mike DeWine (R).

Many law-enforcement organizations in the Buckeye State have wanted to equip their officers with video recorders but costs have reportedly proved prohibitive for many localities. This led DeWine to launch the Ohio Body-Worn Camera Grant Program which awarded its first $4.7 million in January. 

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Tennessee Representative David Kustoff Introduces Resolution Calling on Congress to Address Rising Crime in the U.S.

Tennessee Republican Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) recently introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives that calls on Congress to create a strategy to address the rising violent crime in the United States. A similar resolution was also introduced in the U.S. Senate by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

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Minneapolis Residents Resort to Crowdfunding to Pay for Neighborhood Policing

Residents in Minneapolis are crowdfunding to get off-duty police officers to patrol the streets as the city continues to experience staffing shortages and an uptick in violent crime.

The Minneapolis Safety Initiative (MSI), a nonprofit seeking to increase law and order, is raising money to “buyback officer patrols.” Funds that are raised through the volunteer-led initiative will be sent to the Minneapolis Police Department to get officers deployed for shifts that the officers would otherwise not be working, MSI says.

“Officers working a buyback shift patrol in MPD vehicles, respond to 911 calls, and deter criminals—just as they do in a normal shift,” according to MSI. “All people working on this initiative are volunteers. There are fees for payment processing but otherwise, all contributions will go directly to paying for MPD buyback officer patrols.”

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Texas Offers $30 Million More to Local Law Enforcement for Border Security Efforts

An additional $30 million in Operation Lone Star (OLS) grant money is available to Texas cities and counties to enhance border security operations, the governor’s Public Safety Office (PSO) announced.

The announcement came two days after six county judges and sheriffs asked the governor to declare an invasion at the southern border, and to do more to help them thwart illegal activity in their counties after experiencing a surge of drug and human smuggling and other criminal activity resulting from the Biden administration’s border policies.

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Akron Council Resists Prejudgement in Walker Shooting; Ohio House Democrats Still Blame Police

Akron, OH’s Democrat-controlled City Council issued a statement this week lamenting the death of 25-year-old Jayland Walker while resisting prejudgement of the police officers’ who shot him.

Some Ohio Democrats, like their party’s state House caucus, continue to react differently, deciding the shooting lacked justification even before an external investigation concludes. 

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Akron Maintains Curfew in Wake of Walker Shooting

A curfew imposed in downtown Akron, OH on Monday, July 4, continues in the aftermath of the death of Jayland Walker by police gunfire.

The curfew applies during the hours between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. It resulted in the cancellation of fireworks to celebrate July Fourth at several sites in the city. Municipal officials noted that although protests in response to the shooting were peaceful early on Monday, evening demonstrations turned violent and resulted in serious damage to businesses on Main Street.

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Ryan Now Blasts Ohio Senate Rival Vance on Law Enforcement, But Once Called Criminal Justice System ‘Racist’

Advertising from Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan, which alleges that his Republican opponent J.D. Vance has disparaged law-enforcement officers, prompted Vance this week to recall Ryan’s own severe criticisms of law enforcers.

A video ad that appears on the Ryan campaign’s YouTube channel features a monologue by Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier.

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Minnesota Gov. Walz Appointee Reduces Bail from $5 Million to $100,000 for Man Who Shot at Police

A man who shot at police because he was “frustrated” after driving drunk with his pregnant wife in the passenger seat had his bail reduced from $5 million to $100,000.

Pablo Nava Jaimes, 30, allegedly fired at least 10 rounds at police during a pursuit while leaving a barbecue after “8 or 9 beers” on June 5, according to a criminal complaint. The report also states he “took full responsibility” for the shooting after he was apprehended.

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DeWine Authorizes Nearly $4 Million for Local Law Enforcement Across Ohio

At a visit to Springfield this week, Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) announced his authorization of nearly $4 million in grants to 16 police and sheriff departments across the Buckeye State.

The allotments come as the third round of DeWine’s Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program. Springfield’s police department itself gets a grant of $305,206.94. Those funds will go toward video-recording systems and automated license-plate readers to gather intelligence pertaining to gun-related violations. 

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Commentary: No Duty to Protect

The May 24 massacre in Uvalde, Texas outrages the conscience, though not for the facile and stupid reasons spewed by every prominent Democratic Party politician, half-witted newspaper columnist, and vapid television talking-head. 

Liberals and other simpering dunderheads make fetishes of objects, focusing on the tool rather than the tool’s misuser. “Nobody needs an AR-15,” goes the refrain, when need has nothing and right has everything to do with it. “But the tool is so easy to misuse and abuse!” comes the ovine rebuttal, when we know as a matter of fact the tool is used in a small fraction of violent crimes.  

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Minnesota Man Shot at Police, Was Beaten, Sued City, Wins $1.5 Million

A St. Paul man who shot at police during the riots following George Floyd’s death will be paid $1.5 million plus legal fees by the city of Minneapolis.

Jaleel Stallings opened fire on police on May 30, 2020 after they first fired nonlethal ordinance at him from an unmarked vehicle. The officers were enforcing a curfew during the George Floyd riots. Stallings claimed he was acting in self defense, not knowing the police were in fact law enforcement officers. He instead thought they were some of the “white supremacists” Governor Tim Walz had warned were stalking the city during the riots, per the Star Tribune.

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Cambria County Prosecutor: Difficulty Recruiting Police Is Fueling Pennsylvania Crime

FBI data currently indicate that Pennsylvania’s violent crime rate exceeds any other northeastern state’s, and a county prosecutor told state senators this week he attributes much of that reality to difficulty recruiting and retaining police officers.

Cambria County District Attorney Gregory Neugebauer testified before the Senate Republican Policy Committee alongside other law-enforcement professionals to illuminate what is driving up crime in the Keystone State and what can be done about it. The hearing, held at the Cambria County Courthouse in Ebensberg, was the first of several the panel is hosting this week to address crime prevention in conjunction with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

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