It’s been five years today since a mentally ill student opened fire at Virginia Tech killing 32 students and himself. Just last month, a U.S. jury found the university guilty of negligence for failing to alert students in a timely manner when the 2007 shooting spree started.
There has been a lot of attention recently about neighborhood watches after the “captain” of a neighborhood watch in Sanford, Fla. shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin. Media outlets are asking if the shooter, George Zimmerman, was just looking out for his neighborhood where there had been multiple break-ins recently, or if he was a wannabe cop who tried to take justice into his own hands.
There is no denying the fact that the world we know is rapidly changing. It’s difficult for even the most technologically adept individuals to keep up with all the advancements in technology. While some of us may not want to accept these changes, they often cannot be avoided and become requirements of our jobs. There was recently an
By Mike Sale
I recently visited Niagara Falls to attend an exciting conference sponsored by the Crime Prevention Committee of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP). Crime Prevention through Innovation and Technology attracted a wide variety of police leaders, practitioners, academics and related professionals to discuss emerging trends in the ever-expanding field of crime prevention.
The Microsoft Worldwide Public Safety Symposium, held at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. on March 13-15, was an opportunity to hear some of the biggest challenges facing public safety agencies today. One of the panel sessions focused on the challenges of public safety agencies effectively using social media platforms to monitor, as well as communicate with, the public.
By Leischen Stelter
Governor Rick Snyder is facing a lot of big problems as the state of Michigan continues to flounder on several fronts. Its overall unemployment rates remain above national averages, hovering around 9%, but several of its cities are faring much worse. In Detroit, foreclosures dropped by 31% in 2011, but remain at a rate of more than 2.5 times the national average. Foreclosed homes in Detroit sell for, on average, just over $11,000, compared to a statewide average of $85,000, according to RealtyTrac.
Plans for deploying a nationwide interoperable wireless network for public safety use has taken a big step forward. On Feb. 22, President Obama signed the payroll tax cut extension bill that includes provisions for this long-awaited network and sets aside the 700 MHz D Block for public safety use, according to this article in WirelessWeek.
It’s refreshing to see government leaders make an effort to implement major changes based on past lapses. I just read this article from Homeland Security NewsWire about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed changes to the state’s emergency response system.
Facial recognition technology has been all over the news in recent weeks. In Canada, the Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, ordered that the Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) stop providing police with information from its facial recognition database, according to this article from the Times Colonist.