Officers trained to fire at the threat, vehicle or driver
What do police officers aim for when they open fire on a vehicle — stolen or not — bearing down on them?
Is it the driver in control of the four-wheeled weapon or a certain part of the vehicle?
Winnipeg police have been asked the question several times recently because the scenario has played out at least six times since November.
Happy couple’s search for hero policeman
IT SHOULD have been one of the most memorable days of their lives for couple Howard and Jilly Guy as they made their way to hospital for the birth of their second daughter.
But just minutes after they left their Belbroughton home in their Land Rover Freelander they ran into huge tailbacks on the M42 and were left contemplating a DIY motorway birth.
Retired cop writes book to honor fallen officers
Harold Goldhagen became a writer by accident.
Before retiring from the Atlanta Police Department, he started writing in a journal, jotting down his thoughts and memories from his time as a police officer during the Civil Rights movement. He figured that it would be for his family and friends’ eyes only.
I’m just including this one for the humor factor…
I bet those people attending the autograph show are just worrying themselves sick that this has been will be a no show….
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Sonny Landham is no fan of Indiana’s state troopers and their commander-in-chief
By Christopher Lloyd
Sonny Landham is P.O.’d at Mitch Daniels.
Why would an action film star from the 1980s have a beef with the governor of Indiana? In mid-May Landham — who appeared in “Predator,” “48 Hrs.,” “Poltergeist” and “Action Jackson” — got a speeding ticket while driving to Indianapolis from his home in Ashland, Ky., after landing a role in “Mental Scars,” a low-budget horror flick shooting here.
Landham doesn’t so much object to the ticket for supposedly going 74 mph in a 55 zone. It was more the rudeness with which he says he was treated. The state trooper gruffly demanded, “Gimme your license!” with no preamble, according to Landham’s version of events.
The 67-year-old sometime actor, who now works as a paralegal, said the encounter doesn’t reflect well on the Hoosier state. He’s reconsidering attending an October autograph convention he’d signed up for in Indianapolis.
During the interview, Landham repeatedly called Daniels a “hockey putz” or “Rich” Daniels, even after being corrected.
“Your state police ….. radiates the governor’s personality,” he said. “If these guys weren’t state troopers, they’d be convicts with attitudes like this.”
Landham knows from governors. Two of his “Predator” co-stars went on to run a state — Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota. If it were up to Sonny, he’d have been the third, having sought the Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nomination a few years ago.
“I know what it takes to be governor and how a state should be run. And we don’t set speed traps over there,” he said.
Sgt. Jerry Goodwin, public information officer for the Indiana State Police station in Sellersburg, said the department doesn’t comment on complaints, but confirmed that the stretch of I-65 where Landham got his ticket is among the state’s most heavily patrolled.
For Landham, the spat is just a bump on the road in a colorful life that has included the Army, adult film roles in the 1970s, supporting parts in Hollywood blockbusters, a battle with substance abuse and nearly three years in federal prison for making a threatening phone calls to his ex-wife in a custody battle. He was released in 2001 after his conviction was overturned.
With his 6-foot-3-inch stature, muscular build and Cherokee and Seminole ancestry, he was the go-to guy for tough American Indian roles in the ’80s. He’s best known for his breakthrough performance as escaped convict Billy Bear in “48 Hrs.” and as the Indian tracker in “Predator.”
He’s forthright to a fault. Asked about the nearly two-dozen adult films he appeared in, he responds brightly, “Oh, you mean my pornos! Well, I always said if I you’ve seen my pornos, you’ve seen my shortcomings.”
When asked why he agreed to do “Mental Scars” despite appearing in only one film in the past 12 years, he responds: “Money. You call me and say, ‘Will you do this?’ and here’s the money and it’s good money, then you go and you do it.”
And as for that traffic ticket — Landham is using his paralegal skills to try to get it dismissed. Rich Daniels, you’ve been warned.
Royal Oak cops get digital cameras
Like any police department, Royal Oak’s routinely gets calls from irate motorists and others saying officers were abusive.
In the past, that triggered days of investigating. Now, Lt. Gordon Young has a new tool he can use immediately.
“As a supervisor, I can say, ‘Hang on, I’ve got the tape right here.’ And sometimes they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’ve got a videotape of it? Well, maybe I was mistaken.’ “
Thanks to a $232,000 federal grant, Royal Oak police have new digital cameras in their squad cars and high-powered wireless microphones in their shirt pockets that transmit 1,000 feet.
They replaced clunky camcorders with grainy images and microphones that worked only within a few steps of a squad car.
Installation, which began last summer, was completed in April. The new gear sends images and sound to trunk-mounted recorders, which automatically download to desktop computers inside the police station whenever an officer drives nearby.
The system not only creates instant, indisputable records of how officers deal with the public, it also provides stronger evidence in cases often difficult to prove: domestic and sexual assaults.
It was for such cases that police cowrote the federal grant application with HAVEN, an Oakland County nonprofit group that’s using about half of the grant to give officers training in handling such cases, said Executive Director Beth Morrison.
After the training, officers at a scene of suspected domestic or sexual violence know to “ask more probing questions and to separate the suspect from the victim” to elicit more truthful answers, Morrison said.
The better evidence is leading to more convictions in all kinds of cases, said Royal Oak City Attorney Dave Gillam.
Although it’s too soon to have statistics, “I’m seeing our total cases scheduled for trial go down, in general and in domestic abuse cases,” Gillam said. Defendants plead guilty more often when confronted with solid video and audio evidence, Gillam said. The better evidence also helps when, in many domestic violence cases, victims drop complaints or recant testimony in the days following an incident.
“We have a verbatim record of what they told police at the scene, to either refresh their memory or use as independent evidence” in court, Gillam said.
Berkley police have ordered similar gear, and a few other departments have it, including Troy and Roseville. That’s good news to prosecutors, said Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Gorcyca, chief of the domestic violence division.
“Hopefully, this will catch on and spread,” she said.
Officers on routine patrols can record virtually anyone who speaks with them because “Michigan is a one-party state; only one party has to give permission for this,” Royal Oak Police Chief Ted Quisenberry said Monday.
That’s correct, said University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman, an expert on evidence.
“What happens between the officers and the people they’re investigating is not private,” so no search warrant is needed, he said.
Take it off, take it alllll off
The 2008 Owen Sound Cops for Cancer Event
Saturday, May 31, 2008
11 am – 3 pm
Mix 106 parking lot – downtown Owen Sound
Come out and enjoy an afternoon of fun and excitement.
For more information please call (519) 376-6011 or The Salon at (519) 372-9398. To register, please stop by The Salon at 897 3rd Ave East in Owen Sound or at the Canadian Cancer Society office at 163 8th St. East or call (519) 376-6011 or to register online at Cops for Cancer in Grey and Bruce County.
To date, the Canadian Cancer Society’s Cops for Cancer program has raised more than $28 million across Canada!
Funds raised help the Canadian Cancer Society fund the most promising research projects in the country, provide information services and support programs in the community and advocate for public policies that prevent cancer and help those living with it.
For a recap of last years event we invite you to check out Follicle Follies, a short video we produced last summer that followed our own intrepid reporter, Adam Reese to the shaving chair.
Atlanta rookie cops on foot patrol
It took Jacob Perez’s feet a few days to stop barking after he started his first assignment.
Now they’re used to carrying the rookie Atlanta police officer’s weight for his entire eight-hour shift — something his feet haven’t done since he was a Marine.
i don’t even want to KNOW where she hid the jewels….
TAMPA, Fla. — A nude maid stripped off her clothes and stripped a Florida homeowner of $40,000 in jewelry in a brazen robbery in the buff.
After the 50-year-old man hired the woman from the Internet on Friday, the maid stole from his suburban Tampa home despite not wearing any clothes, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said.
The woman arrived at the home in a one-piece, light colored dress. She took off the dress and cleaned the house for $100-per-hour, authorities said.
The man told deputies he left the maid alone in the bedroom to clean, according to sheriff’s office spokeswoman Debbie Carter.
When the man’s wife came home from vacation, she discovered $40,000 in jewelry missing from their bedroom.
Police are investigating.
L.A. officers receive department’s Medal of Valor
One took on a man wielding a rifle, seven others engaged in a firefight with men who had bragged about plans to kill cops, and 13 more faced similar life-threatening encounters.
The officers all said they were just doing their jobs.
