Sweeping police reforms in 2020 stripped Colorado law enforcement of qualified immunity, a legal defense that previously blocked officers and sheriffs from being sued in their individual capacities in most cases.
A study has found that Black drivers in Chicago receive approximately 54 percent of automated camera citations, but they make up 70 percent of police stops.
The Legislative Emergency Board approved the funding last week. Spending on wildfires this year has reached $250 million, which is more than double the amount budgeted for the response.
Last week, Mayor Brandon Johnson vetoed the Aldermen’s unanimous vote to keep the gunshot detection technology, saying the system doesn’t work well enough to justify its costs. Some residents are worried that without it, police response time will lag.
The Community Outreach and Stabilization Unit began in 2018 and put behavioral health practitioners with police officers to assist with mental health and/or chemical dependency calls. The city plans to launch a new program next year.
The City Council approved a three-year, $336,362 contract with a gunshot detection program, which alerts police when it picks up the sound of a potential gunshot. Gunshot detection systems have long sparked questions of accuracy, expense and efficacy.
License plate flippers are commonly used at auto shows to allow drivers to switch between custom or decorative plates. But now drivers are using them to evade detection and cities and states across the nation are enacting laws to prohibit their use.
Designating them by law would go a long way toward addressing the many issues these critical services face. They have evolved over decades to encompass a multitude of responsibilities.
In 2020 and 2022, annual spending on the issue didn’t exceed $7 million and between 2013 and 2017, Philly spent an average of $9 million annually to settle police misconduct cases. But misconduct spending has since skyrocketed.
2020 made police reform “sexy” on a policy level, leading to a significant increase in civilian oversight boards around the country. However, in the years following, many of these boards are still trying to find their footing.
After months of searching for a policy, the Durango, Colo., Fire Department was able to find a company that would write an affordable policy to cover the construction of its new firehouse.
As officers’ salaries increased, so did police killings of Black Americans. Job protections from collective bargaining can make some officers less worried about consequences. We need to rethink union contracts.
State Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin has issued major changes to how police officers should handle situations involving barricaded individuals after several instances in which people experiencing mental health crises have been shot.
The state’s largest current fire has encompassed nearly all 41,000 acres of the Ishi Wilderness, which hadn’t seen significant fire since 1990. No one from Cal Fire has been able to set foot in the wilderness area since the Park Fire began.
Automated external defibrillators are safe and easy for just about anyone to use, and they could save the lives of thousands of cardiac arrest victims every year. Making them available in public spaces is a job for state and local policymakers.
The databases are fraught with problems from due process to privacy rights to racial and ethnic disparities, raising the question of whether they really make cities safer.
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