The causes of these alarming gaps in equitable access to emergency care are complex. Fixing the problem won’t come from patchwork efforts or temporary fixes.
Gov. Laura Kelly appointed Col. Erik Smith to head the state law enforcement department, which has been a consistent source of troubles for years, including allegations of domestic violence, sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination.
Advocates are resisting a police program intended to curb gun violence, claiming it targets young Black men. A report found that three in 10 stops and four in 10 searches by the teams had no legal basis.
The agency inadvertently started a wildfire last year that burned more than 60 square miles after a prescribed burn went wrong. It was the third prescribed burn that went awry last year.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake off of the coast triggered a tsunami warning that created confusion, traffic jams and evacuations despite the alert later being canceled. Some worry the inefficient system could erode public trust.
The Lafayette, La., police department has started piloting 100 e-citation machines, as replacement of paper ticketing, to reduce time and safety risks for officers issuing citations.
The state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation is implementing new, cutting-edge software tools to better help police agencies solve crimes, including drug detection, gun examination and forensics analysis.
To decrease dispatch wait times, the city’s police board wants to implement an auto-attendant to sort calls for police, fire, EMS or non-emergency assistance. But Motorola says the implementation could stretch into next year.
Six of the state agency’s regional units, including the North Bay area, are testing new video technology that will utilize AI to speed response to fires and other natural disasters as they happen.
The study of more than 6 million cases found that 46 percent of traffic stops were of Black or Hispanic motorists, far more than their share of the state’s population. Officials called the findings “deeply troubling.”
Just 19 percent of the Dallas Police Department’s sworn officers are women, but they hope to establish a support system for each other and to fight the industry’s culture of harassment and sexism.
An elite group of wildland firefighters trained to parachute out of planes and into remote areas to fight blazes, in hopes of quickly stopping fires at their source and preventing further damage.
A new audit found that there is a “high likelihood” that hundreds of state troopers collectively falsified tens of thousands of traffic ticket records over the last decade. The state has launched an investigation into the matter.
Law enforcement officials agree that 911 response merits a more nuanced approach. But powerful police unions are against proposals that might reduce their control over 911 operations, and the budget and staff that go with them.
Proponents of the technology claim that it can be used as an important crime-fighting and security tool. But critics argue that mistakes and wrong identifications could put innocent people in prison and threaten data privacy.
Public arrest data from 2018 to 2022 revealed that Black people made up 69 percent of arrests for possession of 2 ounces or less of marijuana, but they make up about 24 percent of Dallas’ population.
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