Public Safety
Covering topics such as corrections, criminal justice, emergency management, gun control and police/fire/EMS.
Enhancements and weatherization efforts mean this year’s freezing weather did not overwhelm the state’s electric system. But policymakers face tough decisions as future load projections grow.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has suggested using the extra money on pension debt, budget reserves and, possibly, another round of stimulus checks. The Legislature has until June 15 to pass the final budget.
A report found that the city’s police department only met its response time goal for high-priority calls 46 percent of the time. Fort Worth has the slowest response time goal of Texas’ five largest cities.
New research has found that federal law does not currently extend the security protections users receive over their phone’s personal data to modern vehicles, which often pull information from the driver’s phone.
During the 2021 session, state lawmakers passed bills affecting police oversight, affordable housing, ballot counting and cold medicine. Here’s a look at some of the new changes.
After the murder of George Floyd last May, Democrats across the state called for immediate police reform. Now as crime rates increase, many of those same lawmakers are calling for more officers. Can the state have both?
Some of their concerns, such as housing costs and homelessness, track with those of their constituents. But elected leaders should pay more attention to crime, inflation and other issues increasingly on the minds of residents.
An increase in theft has spurred the City Council to propose increasing the areas in which electric fences would be allowed, including the downtown, commercial and mixed-use districts. They would still be prohibited in residential zones.
Most of downtown Mayfield was destroyed and dozens of residential blocks have been wiped out. “War zones don’t look this bad,” Gov. Beshear said, but residents were optimistic about rebuilding.
The controversial lab uses DNA to create “virtual mugshots” of crime suspects. Defense advocates consider the images unreliable. Police use of the company has continued more than a year after City Hall said the arrangement had been terminated.
Public health, justice and safety suffer when we reflexively deploy police to respond to mental health crises, “quality of life” disorder and other societal ills beyond officers’ training.
More than a dozen current and former Torrance, Calif., police officers and recruits exchanged racist text messages for years. The discovery could undermine hundreds of cases in which those officers either testified or made arrests.
It will cost the city $938,000 each year for the next 10 years to gain access to 250 body cameras, which is more equipment for less money than officials originally had anticipated. But the tech may not arrive until 2023.
A climate bill that is being negotiated in the U.S. Senate would dedicate $14 billion over the next decade to clearing vegetation and debris to prevent wildfires. More than 7 million acres burned in California in the last two years alone.
Natural gas powers the majority of electricity in Texas, especially during winter. Some power companies say the state’s gas system is not ready for another deep freeze.
Millions of crime predictions left on an unsecured server show PredPol mostly avoided Whiter neighborhoods, targeted Black and Latino neighborhoods.
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