By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The updates show up daily in my newsfeed. Officer-involved shooting. Police officer killed responding to domestic violence call. Officers ambushed. The reports will relate that an officer was killed, or was hospitalized in serious condition, or suffered “non-life-threatening injuries”. Of those, we may say a quick prayer for the Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Annual numbers of officers killed in the line of duty vary widely from year to year. One identifiable trend is death by ambush. Police officers were murdered in 2021 at a rate 59% higher than the previous year. Among the officers murdered in 2021, 25 were killed in what Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Like other jurisdictions nowhere near the United States southern border, on Florida’s east coast, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly provided a blanket statement of how Mexican cartel drug lords’ poisons permeate throughout America, regardless of where that may be. Sheriff Staly offered us the following words colorizing the impacts of cartel drug Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski We don’t often hear about Indian Reservations and the often-remote tribal police departments whose jurisdictions are deemed federal lands…until a line-of-duty death (LODD) occurs. On June 2, 2022, a White Mountain Apache Police Department officer in rural eastern Arizona stopped an automobile. Reports indicate the motorist and the tribal police officer engaged Read more »
By Steve Pomper There are two critical and somewhat linked issues for law enforcement officers to revisit on occasion because if proponents are successful, it’ll be impossible for cops to do their jobs effectively, if at all. One issue has cop-haters taking away a protection and one has them adding a barrier. These are the Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski A Florida circuit judge handed down a death sentence for a man who killed two Kissimmee police officers, execution-style. The double-homicide occurred on August 18, 2017. On Friday, mid-way through National Police Week 2022, Osceola County Circuit Court Judge Greg Tynan concurred with a jury that, in 2019, unanimously convicted Everett Miller Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Cops have always had the “do you know who I am” folks, the “I pay your salary” folks, and the “why aren’t you out arresting real criminals” folks. They’ve always had the runners, the fighters, and the too drunk to know what they’re even doing. There are also the Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D American history is the story of episodes of change. One aspect of that history of change is what has happened in the criminal justice system. From having only sheriffs and marshals to highly organized police forces to major federalization of law enforcement, we have seen policing become more sophisticated Read more »
By Steve Pomper The numbers keep going up. If you’re a cop looking at your stock portfolio, eying retirement (someday), that’s a good thing. But if you’re a cop, just hoping to enjoy that retirement, the rising numbers of officers shot (and killed) in the line of duty is not a good thing—at all. According Read more »
By Steve Pomper Val Van Brocklin, at Police1.com, recently wrote an intriguing piece. Her topic was about the reinstatement of New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Sergeant Anthony Edenfield and how SCOTUS’s Brady decision is affecting officers when it is applied to certain police officer conduct. As I see it, it’s also about how anti-cop prosecutors are Read more »