Tag: police

Interim Chief: Austin Police Department in ‘Dire Crisis’ after Defunding

The Center Square

The city of Austin faces a crisis of rising violent crime after the City Council voted last year to drastically reduce the police department’s budget, interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon says.

Last summer, the Austin City Council voted to defund the police department by $150 million, which resulted in canceling multiple cadet classes and disbanding multiple units responsible for responding to DWIs, domestic violence calls, stalking, and criminal interdiction.

Instead, the council redistributed the money to other city programs and suggested that community organizers respond to 911 calls, instead of the police department.

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New Arizona Law Aims to Improve Civilian Review Boards on Police Misconduct

Rachel Alexander

One of the bills passed this year in the Arizona Legislature and signed by the governor, HB 2567, adds rules for independent community oversight of Arizona police departments. Although Arizona isn’t plagued like some states by high-profile incidents involving law enforcement, overall community concern led to the legislation.

John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who comes from a law enforcement background and sponsored the bill, said, “I’m not throwing cops to the wolves, especially politically motivated wolves.

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Ohio Representative: Expanding Definition of Obstruction of Justice Helps Police

The Center Square

A bill Ohio Republicans call an effort to protect law enforcement and Democrats said limits protest quickly went from committee passage to House passage on nearly a party line vote.

Sub House Bill 22 expands the state’s definition of obstruction of justice to include failure to follow a lawful order, throwing objects and inhibiting or depriving a law enforcement officer of control over a detainee.

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New Legislation Would Require Bodycam Footage of Deadly Police Violence to be Released in 5 Days

Hayley Feland

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued an executive action on Monday requiring law enforcement officers to release bodycam footage of deadly incidents involving police within five days of the incident. The Governor’s Office says that the new legislation will “increase transparency and accountability” in Minnesota public safety.

The executive action will also allot $15 million in violence prevention grants. The order says that, “The funding will fill critical gaps in Minnesota’s public safety response as the pandemic has had a disproportionate response on communities of color.”

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Data Shows Increased Homicides in Six Major Cities Across the Country

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Police line do not cross tape

The number of homicides in six major cities across the country has increased compared to last year, disproportionately affecting black people, according to crime data.

Black people have represented a massive share of murder victims in six major cities through the first six months of 2021 compared to last year, which itself saw a large crime surge, according to data analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The DCNF analyzed both police department data and homicide reports compiled by local news outlets to determine how black people have been victimized in the wake of the 2020 crime spike.

“We are seeing an uptick in violent crime across the country, specifically gun violence,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told The New York Times earlier this month.

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Wisconsin Student Charged with Misdemeanor for Residence Hall Fire in Hate-Crime Hoax

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Viterbo University

A former Viterbo University student has been charged with one misdemeanor count of negligent handling of burning materials after police say she set a fire inside her dorm in April for “attention purposes.”

Victoria Unanka, if convicted, faces a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine or nine months in prison, or both, according to the criminal complaint.

Unanka, through her attorney, entered a not guilty plea at a court hearing on Wednesday, the La Crosse Tribune reports.

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Chauvin Trial Overtime Cost Nearly $3 million

The Center Square
Derek Chauvin

Ramped-up security during the three weeks of Derek Chauvin’s trial cost taxpayers nearly $3 million, the Minneapolis Police Department said Thursday.

Citing unexpected costs, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo asked the Minneapolis City Council for an additional $5 million.

The MPD has 632 sworn officers, down from 845 one year ago — a 25% drop — to protect the 425,000-person city that’s fighting spiking violent crime.

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Brooklyn Center Makes Changes to Policing Following Daunte Wright Shooting

Hayley Feland
Brooklyn Center Police Department Squad Car

Brooklyn Center, Minnesota implemented new changes to policing in a 4-1 vote in the city council meeting, following the death of Daunte Wright in April. The changes include a new department of public safety that will have unarmed officers to conduct traffic stops and a mental health division.

Daunte Wright was shot and killed by former Brooklyn Park Police Officer Kim Potter, after it was discovered he had a warrant out for his arrest. Wright did not follow police instructions and reentered his vehicle while the officers were attempting to arrest him.

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Brother of Wanted Man Shot by Minneapolis Police Calls for Better Justice System: ‘We Should Fight Together’

Hayley Feland
Winston Smith protests

The brother of Winston Smith, a wanted man who was shot and killed in an officer involved shooting incident after he pulled a gun on police, has spoken out about the need for police. He feels his brother’s death was an injustice but wants to work together with police to improve the justice system. 

Winston Smith’s brother, Kidale Smith, was seen shaking hands and hugging police officers who were out on the streets monitoring the protests that had been taking place since his brother’s death. He reported that he felt like maybe the police officers needed a voice too.

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Ohio Senate Passes Bill to Protect Police, First Responders

Cooper Moran

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill introduced by Senator Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster) that will enhance protection for individuals who serve in law enforcement or as a first responder.

If enacted, an assault of an emergency responder or their families could lead to a possible 4th degree felony. Further, an individual who places a first responder or their family in fear of physical harm can be charged with a 1st degree misdemeanor.

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Georgia Lawmakers to Study Crime in Atlanta

The Center Square
Police line do not cross tape

Georgia lawmakers will study the rise in crime in Atlanta this summer.

The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee plans to hold a series of hearings to look at the causes and solutions for the increase in crime in the state’s capital city.

“We want to have productive hearings that can get down to exactly what’s going on because, as you all know, the success of the city of Atlanta is directly impacted by the success of Georgia and vice versa,” Committee Chair J. Collins, R-Villa Rica, said.

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Texas State Border Officials Fear Large Spikes in Overdose Deaths with Drug Traffic Increases

The Center Square
Texas Department of Public Safety SUV

Texas officials said Thursday they’re worried about dramatic spikes in drug overdose deaths in some areas of the state as illegal border crossings and drug trafficking have picked up since President Joe Biden took office.

Gov. Greg Abbott joined Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw and Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn on Thursday in Fort Worthto provide an update on the border crisis.

“We’re heading for a 50 percent increase in overdose deaths in Tarrant County alone,” Waybourn warned, noting that the amount of drugs flooding into Tarrant County has skyrocketed even with DPS intervention.

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St. Paul Commission Wants City to ‘Rethink’ Police Response

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Side of police car while it's raining

A St. Paul public safety committee recently called for a slew of operations to be moved out of the police department and into non-law enforcement divisions.

The St. Paul “Community-First Public Safety Commission” advised the city to “rethink” its response to certain service calls and provided specific measures to implement in traffic-stop scenarios. The commission was appointed by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and is headed by the Citizens League, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization.

The commission’s recommendations call for ending the practice of pulling people over for “motor vehicle repair notices” and “other moving violations.” Instead, police should “utilize a mailed citation,” according to the commission. Repair notices include broken lights, turn-signal malfunctions, and expired tabs, to name a few.

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Michigan House GOP $80 Million Plan Pushes Stronger Police Support

The Center Square
Speaker Jason Wentworth

Michigan House GOP unveiled a plan to spend roughly $80 million to support local police departments.

The plan aims to counter the “defund the police movement,” House Speaker Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, said in a Thursday morning press conference.

House Republicans say the plan supports law enforcement, strengthens the criminal justice system and expands community policing statewide.

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Over 200 Officers Have Left the Minneapolis Police Department Since Last May

Cooper Moran

Over 200 police officers have left, are in the process of leaving, or are on extended leave from the Minneapolis Police Department. 

Several police officers explained it is due to lack of support and the feeling that they had to defend themselves throughout the course of the riots that plagued the city last summer, according to a report from WCCO in Minneapolis. 

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Adjunct Professor Berated Student After Student Suggested That Police Officers Are Heroes

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Student Braden Ellis with adjunct professor on Zoom

An adjunct professor berated a student in her class after he expressed support for law enforcement.

Cypress College student Braden Ellis delivered a presentation about cancel culture during a Zoom communications class. In a phone interview with Campus Reform, Ellis affirmed The Daily Wire’s report that he had been discussing the attempted cancellation of “Paw Patrol” during the presentation.

“So you brought up the police in your speech a few times. So, what is your main concern?” asked the adjunct professor. “Since, I mean, honestly… the issue is systemic. Because the whole reason we have police departments in the first place, where does it stem from? What’s our history? Going back to what [another classmate] was talking about, what does it stem from? It stems from people in the south wanting to capture runaway slaves.”

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Police Departments Say Budget Cuts Are the Reason They’ve Been Unable to Hire New Officers

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Two police officers walking in front of LED American flag

Multiple police departments told the Daily Caller News Foundation that recruiting officers is not an issue, but budget constraints have limited their ability to increase manpower.

Almost a year after George Floyd died during an arrest where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes resulting in nationwide civil unrest and the defund the police movement, most police departments say they still have a sufficient number of candidates but lack the funding to recruit them.

“The Minneapolis Police Department, like every department, has seen a drop in application numbers over the last several years,” Minneapolis Police Department Spokesperson John Elder told the DCNF. “Whereas we have seen a reduction in applications, we still have ample qualified candidates who wish to be Minneapolis Police Officers and Cadets [and the department’s] recruitment efforts are ongoing.”

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Michigan Police Retirements, Recruitments Appear to Fare Better Than Minnesota’s

The Center Square
Michigan Police

Michigan police forces appear to be faring better than those in Minnesota’s largest metro areas after a year troubled by controversial and tragic police encounters ending in death.

In many metropolitan cities across the United States, violent crime increased in 2020. In Detroit, there were 327 murders, up 19% from 2019, and 1,173 non-fatal shootings, up 53%, Michigan Public Radio reported.

Michigan State Police (MSP) spokeswoman Shanon Banner said the state police tracks enlistment numbers by fiscal year, but it’s difficult to conclude whether retirements are “up” or “down” from year to year because retirements are largely based on when recruits become eligible for retirement.

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Florida Police Related Shooting Deaths Up 52 Percent in 2020

Steve Stewart
People rioting

In a year that saw a social justice movement, a pandemic, and an increase in violent crime, police relating shooting deaths in Florida in 2020 were up 51.5 % when compared to the previous five years. In contrast, police related shootings nationwide were up just 3.4%.

The numbers come from the Washington Post police related shooting database which began logging information in 2015. The data shows that from 2015 to 2019 Florida averaged approximately 61.4 police related shooting deaths per year. In 2020, there were 93 police related shooting deaths, a 51.5% increase.

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Ohio Attorney General Pleads for Patience Around Bryant Shooting Investigation

The Center Square
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has spent a lot of time pleading for patience and talking of the dangers of rushing to judgement in reaction to the shooting death of a 16-year-old girl by Columbus police officers.

Community organizers, however, are calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Columbus Police Department, and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said there is lack of trust between the community and police.

Yost consistently has said half-facts lead to half-truths, tweeting two days after the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, “Let’s get all the facts and find the whole truth.”

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Abbott Calls for Biden to Label Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Organizations as Texas Ranchers Fend off Criminals

The Center Square
Greg Abbott

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris asking them to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

The cartels are bringing terror into Texas communities, Abbott said in his fourth letter to the administration about the border crisis.

The cartels “smuggle narcotics and weapons into the United States to fund their illegal enterprises,” Abbott writes. “They force women and children into human and sex trafficking – enriching themselves on the misery and enslavement of immigrants. They murder innocent people, including women and children. These Mexican drug cartels are foreign terrorist organizations, and it is time for the federal government to designate them as such.”

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Defund the Police Movement Contributed to Rise in Violence, Experts Say

The Center Square
Group of protestors

Calls to defund the police have once again been thrust into the national spotlight after a string of high profile police shootings, but data show the rallying cry for police reformers may not hold water.

After the death of Daunte Wright at the hands of police in Minnesota, U.S. Rep. Rashida Talib, D-Mich., made headlines this week for posting on Twitter: “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”

Later in the week, Senate lawmakers blasted President Joe Biden’s Justice Department Civil Rights Division nominee Kristen Clarke after reports that she wrote an op-ed calling for defunding the police. Clarke pushed back, arguing that was not the point of her writing.

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Minneapolis to Pay Record $27 Million in George Floyd’s Wrongful Death Settlement

The Center Square

The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to settle George Floyd’s wrongful death lawsuit for a record $27 million. 

The settlement was announced on Friday.

In a viral May 2020 video, former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, causing police brutality protests worldwide. Floyd died later that night. By the end of the week, the three officers involved were fired. 

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Commentary: Promoting Myths About Police Won’t Make Us Safer

RealClearWire

The House of Representatives passed the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021” this week, the bill’s proponents rightly decry pernicious stereotyping and generalizing based on race.

Yet many of those who rightly condemn such dangerous biases, and the lies they are built upon, make misleading claims of their own to advance another reckless bigotry — anti-police bias.

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Biden State Dept. Spox Calls Police ‘Blue Klux Klan,’ and ‘Largest Threat to U.S. National Security’

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Just a few short years ago, the newly appointed deputy spokesperson for the Biden State Department wrote that the police posed the largest national security threat in America—greater than that of ISIS or Russia—because they were committing “genocide” against Black Americans.

In a 2016 Facebook post, uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon, Jalina Porter wrote: “The largest threat to US national security are US cops. Not ISIS, not Russian hackers, not anyone or anything else. If ya’ll don’t wake up and rise up to this truth, the genocide against Blacks in America will continue until we are near extinct. That’s not the world I seek to live in or create for myself and those around me.”

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Tennessee Senate Considers Bill to Allow First Responders to Live Outside the Jurisdictions They Serve

Jason M. Reynolds

State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) on Wednesday filed SB 29 which would allow first responders to live where they choose, the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus said in a statement.

Kelsey posted on the caucus’ Facebook page, “This is a public safety bill. It will enable us to hire more police officers, which will help us fight our rising crime rates.”

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Baltimore Police Department Say They Need 500 Additional Officers to Stem City-Wide Crime Spike

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After another violent weekend with a number of homicides and shootings in the city, the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) called out Police Commissioner Michael Harrison Tuesday morning, saying more officers have left the department than have been hired during his tenure, leaving the police department 500 officers short.

WJZ reported there were seven non-fatal shootings and five murders over the weekend in Mayor Brandon Scott’s (D) Baltimore, and another fatal shooting in broad daylight Monday, bringing the homicide total to 325 so far this year.

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Detroit Sues Black Lives Matter Members, Claims They Endangered ‘Lives of Police and the Public’

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Officials in Detroit sued a prominent activist group and several Black Lives Matter demonstrators for damages following allegations of riots, violence and a “civil conspiracy” to defame local authorities.

The suit was filed against multiple individuals and an organization called Detroit Will Breathe, which indicates on its webpage that it plans to use “militant resistance” to enact “meaningful change” for people of color. City leaders allege that the group was part of a conspiracy to damage property, attack law enforcement and incite riot activity, the lawsuit read.

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Police Association Releases Number of Officers Injured During Violent Riots

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A professional association of police chiefs and sheriffs from across the country announced more than 2,000 law enforcement officers were injured in the first weeks of protests that erupted over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd, according to a report released in October.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association, comprised of local law enforcement heads from the 69 largest police agencies in the United States and nine in Canada, revealed compiled data from protests between May 25 and July 31 in the association’s member cities.

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Mayor John Cooper Announces Detective John Drake as New Metro Nashville Police Chief

Jason M. Reynolds

Veteran Detective and Interim Chief John Drake has been selected as Metro Nashville Police Department’s new chief, Mayor John Cooper announced Monday at a press conference.

Drake, 56, is a Nashville native who began his MNPD career in 1988 and has served in a number of jobs throughout the department, the city said in a press release here.

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Plans to Disarm Portland State Campus Police on Hold After Too Many Quit

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Portland State University announced in August its plan to disarm campus police officers by replacing their firearms with tasers, but those plans have been put on a temporary hold.

The plan to disarm officers was announced earlier in 2020 after rallies and protesters at PSU called for justice for Jason Washington, who was killed by officers in 2018. Campus Reform reported on the efforts of PSU students and staff to disarm officers in 2019. 

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Democratic Delegate Lee Carter Claims Police Are a Threat to Public Safety

Corinne Murdock

House Delegate Lee Carter (D-Manassas) stated multiple times in the last several days that “police are a threat to public safety in every community.” These assertions coincided with the ongoing riots over the death of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man that Philadelphia police shot for charging at officers with a knife.
Carter issued three tweets in a row, in each post repeating the same mantra that police threaten public safety.

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High School Football Team Banned from Waving Pro-Police Flag After Online Backlash

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A Florida High School has reportedly banned their football team from waving a flag meant to memorialize a police officer after critics said the display is racist.

The Fletcher High School football team had been running onto the field with the pro-law enforcement sign since last year to honor one of the player’s late father, a former cop who died suddenly in August 2019 after 29 years on the job. However the display was stopped this week after complaints, News4Jax reported.

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Arizona State University Journalism School Removes People, News Items Decried as too Pro-Police

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In the last four months the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University has repeatedly removed pro-police related items after students and activists cried foul.

In June, the school rescinded a job offer to the new dean of its journalism school, Sonya Forte Duhé, after students accused her of past microaggressions and other insensitive comments. Mostly notably, Duhé had recently tweeted support for “good police officers who keep us safe.”

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Assistant Principal on Administrative Leave After Expletive-Laced Facebook Video Surfaces

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A New York assistant principal has been placed on administrative leave after he recorded himself at Rochester protests screaming “F-k the police,” video shows.
Ninth-grade Advanced Placement school teacher Steven Lysenko attended Rochester protests where he took a Facebook Live video of himself screaming about police while wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt in a video, the New York Post reported. Lysenko did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Police Officers Were Compared to Slave Owners and KKK Members in an Assignment Given at a Texas School

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An assignment given to students at a Texas school included a political cartoon comparing police officers to slave owners and Klu Klux Klan members, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The cartoon reportedly depicted five scenes, allegedly starting with a slave ship officer who was kneeling on a black man’s neck and ended with a police officer kneeling on a black man’s neck with text saying “I can’t breathe,” the Star-tribune reported.

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DNC Panel Features ‘Mermaid Queen-King’ Who Calls for the Abolition of ICE, Police, and Prisons

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The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday featured a panelist who identifies as a “nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King” and who called for the abolition of the police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prisons.

According to the panelist’s Wake Forest University bio, J Mai is a “Black-Vietnamese, transgender nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King,” who recently became a “licensed minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church.”

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Study Shows Collective Bargaining, Now Reinstated in Virginia, Shields Police Officers from Discipline

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A recent study of collectively bargained deals negotiated by police unions nationwide found these deals often scale back accountability and shield police from disciplinary action.

Before this year, public-sector collective bargaining was banned in Virginia. But after Democrats won control of the House and Senate, party leaders were able to pass legislation to end that prohibition, and Gov. Ralph Northam signed it into law. The law will go into effect in May 2021.

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Less Than One in Eight Excessive Force Complaints Are Substantiated, NYPD Complaint Data Shows

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According to recently released NYPD complaint data, less than 13% of excessive use of force complaints filed against New York Police Department officers is substantiated.

The raw data was published by ProPublica, which obtained it from the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). The database includes every complaint against active-duty officers who’ve had at least one complaint substantiated.

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