Meet the SWAT Team’s Latest Weapon: The Wallbanger
The Wallbanger is a new $1,500 device used by law enforcement officers to breach doors. It also serves as a flash-bang device to distract criminals. It’s named after the man who invented it, Sandy Wall.
“This device allows them distance from the door, so they can still get in be effective and accomplish their mission and not be as close to danger,” Wall said.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team is testing the device and could purchase a few if approved by administrators and county commissioners.
Wall worked in law enforcement at the Houston Police Department for years. He remembers a time in the 80s when there wasn’t much training for police officers and much less equipment to help them do their job.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE/SEE VIDEO HERE
When the men in blue start feeling blue
Clarke Paris walked across the stage cool, calm and relaxed.
“Hey, Clarke,” an officer said to him.
“Hey, how are you? … How’s work? … How’s the family? … Enjoying the weather?” Paris replied.
Then Sgt. Clarke Paris of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police walked across the stage with a swagger: sunglasses on, hands on his hips, chest puffed out.
“Hello, Sarge,” an officer said to him.
“Hello, Officer. Be good. Stay out of trouble. Stay safe,” Sgt. Paris responded.
Role playing first as an everyday citizen and then as a member of law enforcement, Paris was trying to demonstrate how the public perceives the police, how the police perceive each other and how police officers perceive themselves, Paris said.
This formed the basis of “The Pain Behind the Badge” documentary and seminar, which was offered March 16 and 18 at Middlesex County College in Edison for more than 500 police officers from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Maryland.
“The Pain Behind the Badge” was developed about four years ago by Paris, who realized that he was suffering mentally from the stress of his job as a 21-year policeman. He said he began his career as a proud, strong cop who thought he was handling his life and work just fine.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
VISIT PAIN BEHIND THE BADGE WEBSITE HERE
Delaware state police to ditch VHS
Delaware State Police plan to start replacing VHS surveillance gear in 350 patrol cars with digital video cameras.
The state’s congressional delegation secured an earmark of $500,000 for a pilot program of 70 cameras last year and another $1.5 million this year for the rest of the agency’s patrol cars.
Sen. Tom Carper visited the State Police Museum on Monday to announce the federal contribution.
Typically, cameras are used to document traffic stops and field sobriety tests and to monitor officers to ensure professionalism.
Videotapes must be changed every eight hours, labeled, taken to evidence rooms and logged. But images from digital cameras are passed wirelessly to a server and may be called up by date or other identifying information.
LINK
Speedy recovery!
These ss’s are from the Weather Channel’s story of the Brooklyn Heights (OH) officer who was thrown over the side of the bridge when a car crashed into him while he was helping a stranded motorist last month. He is recovering from his injuries and hopes to be back to work soon.
Get well soon, Lt. Lambert!
STORY
Thanks for letting me know about the story, BG!
And NO, I don’t usually watch the Weather Channel. Hell, I didn’t know they carried anything but the weather!
Mill Creek Cops save suspect caught in brier patch from drowning
Mill Creek police report that officers saved a teen who was a shoplifting and hit and run suspect from drowning.
Police went to a Shell service station in the 3400 block of 132nd Street Southeast at 1:12 a.m. Monday after shoplifting and a hit and run accident were reported.
Two juvenile males stole beer, then hit a car as they left in a black SUV.
Officers stopped a black SUV near 132nd Street Southeast and 35th Avenue Southeast. The passenger got out and ran.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
Head of NYC Cops & Kids gets outpouring of support to keep boxing program alive
Ring the bell!
When the owners of Flatbush Gardens, the quality, affordable apartment complex in East Flatbush, read a story that appeared in this space in January about a former narcotics detective named Patty Russo, of NYPD Boxing, who runs NYC Cops & Kids, they reached out to him.
The PAL, in its infinite wisdom and lasting meanness, closed all the boxing gyms in New York, including ones that Russo ran in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Park Hill on Staten Island.
Since his appointment in 2006, PAL head says Felix Urruita PAL had gone through a “paradigm change.” He says boxing insurance costs too much. That certain corporate funding streams complained that boxing was “barbaric.” That “old school” boxing guys aren’t accountable to the PAL “corporation.”
PAL’s decision to downsize boxing left an awful lot of inner-city kids who’d chased dreams in the squared circle of truth out on the street, where gangbangers fight with knives and guns instead of gloves.
It made zero sense.
Shot officer in good spirits, calls fellow cops ‘heroes’
Officer Robert Salerno
The young cop who was seriously wounded yesterday in a Bronx shootout hailed his three partners as “heroes” for jumping to his aid.
Lying in his hospital bed, unable to speak because of a tube down his throat, Officer Robert Salerno jotted down on a notepad to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly: “The other guys are heroes,” as he also sketched out exactly what happened inside the housing project when he was shot by a crazed gunman.
“He drew a diagram showing the apartment, showing the bedroom, showing where he was and when he was hit, when he went down [the other officers] had to go into the line of fire to save him,” Kelly said after visiting the cop this morning at Lincoln Hospital.
Shot while on duty, K-9 is on the mend
Bandit the police dog greets his partner, Sacramento Police Officer Gary Dahl, on Wednesday at the VCA Animal Hospital in Rancho Cordova, where Bandit is recovering from a bullet wound to the neck.
Bandit was injured when police exchanged gunfire with a suspect in a home invasion in Meadowview on Monday.
The suspect, identified Wednesday as Meng Xiong, 32, of Fresno, was shot and killed in the incident, and his brother Zang Xiong, 23, was arrested. Police suspect Meng Xiong at gunpoint tied up a 17-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy at the home on Oneil Way.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
Wisconsin girl donates bullet proof vests to K-9 officers
A Janesville-area girl has made it her mission to help out police dogs. She’s raising money to buy them bullet-proof vests.
And it’s all because of a special dog that helped her in the hospital.
Kaitlyn Simpson loves taking pictures of animals. She sells photos to raise money for police dogs.
But on this day, it’s her mom taking pictures, of Kaitlyn and K-9 A.J. of the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department. Kaitlyn’s donations bought A.J. a bullet proof vest.
“It’s actually really great. I’ve been waiting for this for about a month now I think,” said Kaitlyn.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE/VIDEO HERE
Oakland cops’ survivors reflect on anniversary
A year has passed since a young man with a long history of violence gunned down four officers in Oakland, creating three widows, taking fathers away from their eight children and delivering a parent’s worst nightmare – outliving a child.
The grief remains fresh for loved ones, including two widows and an officers’ mother who spoke to The Chronicle. Each had a different story. They spoke of the dangers inherent in police work and of the tightly knit community that grows around officers, in part because of the high-risk, lonely and often-scrutinized nature of the job.
They also spoke about their views of Oakland, where the killings prompted anguish over entrenched problems in some neighborhoods. They said they saw much more in the city than the events of March 21, 2009.
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