Kids in the Crossfire

Kids in the Crossfire

By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D We can’t talk about the heroic rescue of children without stepping into the dark world of crimes against our most innocent victims. Children under the age of 18 represent a little over 8% of murder victims. Kids are most at risk before they start kindergarten where they are mostly Read more »

City Cops Limited by Federal Consent Decrees Aided by State Police

By Stephen Owsinski  When the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) disfavors the policing methodologies of a municipal law enforcement agency, it seeks to impose a federal consent decree containing stipulations that one or more monitors oversee (overhaul) operations and ensure compliance with its conditions, leading to relative dilution of local government sovereignty. In essence, the Read more »

The National Police Association Supports the ‘Filling Public Safety Vacancies Act’ Amid a Historic Police Staffing Shortage

Indianapolis – June 21, 2024. Police agencies across the U.S. are losing officers faster than they can be replaced. It’s a leading factor that is contributing to our public safety crisis and threatening our American way of life. Fewer police officers are available to efficiently respond to calls for service, including those posing a potential Read more »

Policing Off-Pavement, Naturally

By Stephen Owsinski  With the frequent mention of the approximate total of law enforcement officers in America —around 850,000 or so— our minds likely automatically default to projections of those cops patrolling mean streets and eyeing beats with populations aggregated in metropolis regions and inherent cacophony of bustle. But some of the nation’s cops are Read more »

You Can Run and Hide in California

By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D California’s Supreme Court reveled in racism rhetoric in overturning a drug and weapons case of a black defendant who hid from police because, in the court’s words: “attempting to avoid police officers reflects, for many people, simply a desire to avoid risking injury or death…all out of fear of Read more »

Shatterball: Keeping First Responders Safe from Shards

By Stephen Owsinski  Although I make every effort to keep abreast of the latest innovations for law enforcement officers to efficiently perform duties and harness officer safety, my window to the world was Windexed when I came across Flagler County deputies deploying a “Shatterball” to rescue a child from the locked, heated confines of a Read more »