Cook County, Ill., sheriff wages war on prostitution
Chicago Sun-Times
Cook County’s one-year-old Public Morals Ordinance is beginning to get results. More than 100 men looking to pay for sex have been cited under the ordinance, according to the Cook County sheriff's office. In addition, fines leveled against those arrested have brought in nearly $50,000 to support programs for abused women, officials said.More

'Delphus Hicks is walking history': First black sheriff in Tennessee to retire
The Jackson Sun
One of the first things Hardeman County, Tenn., Sheriff Delphus Hicks Jr. plans to do after he turns in his badge is change his cell phone number. "It's going to be good not to get those calls in the middle of the night," Hicks said. The 71-year-old leaned back in his office chair, where he has spent countless hours. The only sign of his age can be seen in his snow-white hair. Hicks, who will retire this week, has spent more than 40 years in law enforcement and 24 years as sheriff of Hardeman County. When he took office in 1978, he was the first black sheriff to be elected in Tennessee.More

Los Angeles authorities plan to use heat-beam ray in jail
The Associated Press via Google News
A device designed to control unruly inmates by blasting them with a beam of intense energy that causes a burning sensation is drawing heat from civil rights groups who fear it could cause serious injury and is "tantamount to torture." The mechanism, known as an "Assault Intervention Device," is a stripped-down version of a military gadget that sends highly focused beams of energy at people and makes them feel as though they are burning. The Los Angeles County sheriff's department plans to install the device by Labor Day, making it the first time in the world the technology has been deployed in such a capacity.More

Buz Mills raising funds for sheriffs' SB 1070 defense
The Arizona Republic
Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate and millionaire businessman Buz Mills is taking on a new challenge. He's focusing his fundraising efforts on helping two Arizona sheriffs defend themselves against lawsuits challenging Arizona's controversial immigration law. Mills is chairing the Border Sheriffs, a new non-profit organization set up to raise private funds to cover the legal fees of Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, two of the state's 15 county sheriffs named in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil-rights groups.More

Officers open fire as 200 inmates riot at California prison
The Associated Press via Google News
Prison guards shot into a crowd to stop 200 rioting inmates at California's Folsom State Prison, wounding five, authorities said this past weekend. Another two inmates were injured by other prisoners during Friday's riot, which began at about 7 p.m. in the main exercise yard and ended after 30 minutes. Prison spokesman Lt. Anthony Gentile said officers fired after other efforts to break up the riot failed.More

Bergen County, NJ, gun buyback yields over 700 weapons
The Bergen Record
Bergen County, N.J., officers collected more than 700 firearms, including a couple of World War II era weapons, during the county's first Gun Buy Back program, Sheriff Leo McGuire said. Standing behind dozens of handguns and plastic bins filled with rifles, McGuire called the program a "successful endeavor" that will prevent future tragedies and promote public safety.More

Cops to gangs: Stop the killing — or else
Chicago Sun-Times
When Labar "Bro Man" Spann rolled into Garfield Park Conservatory in his wheelchair, he thought he was headed to a routine parole meeting. Then he saw Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis, other top law enforcement officials and the reputed leaders of several West Side street gangs. The meeting, it turned out, was anything but routine. The lawmen were there to deliver a message. "They said they would get us if we don’t stop the killing," Spann said.More

Police car wars: With Crown Victoria retiring, rivals in hot pursuit
Detroit Free Press
Chrysler unveiled the first photo of its all-new police car based on the Dodge Charger — providing fresh evidence of a brewing police car war in which rival automakers have one main competitor in their sights: Ford. Although U.S. law enforcement agencies buy just about 75,000 police vehicles a year — a small number compared with the more than 10.4 million cars and trucks bought by U.S. consumers last year — the sales are profitable, given all the high-tech gadgets and upgrades on police cars. More

Gadgets fight crime
San Bernardino County Sun
When James Durrah locked himself inside a house during a standoff earlier this month, SWAT officers first used a rather medieval method - a battering ram - to break down the front door. But they followed that up with one of the most state-of-the-art law enforcement tools, the Robotex robot, one of many new gadgets changing the way police agencies fight crime. The machine, equipped with front and back cameras, infrared lighting, and a speaker, was sent into the residence instead of a police officer.More

Border violence hits close to home
Las Cruces Sun-News via American Chronicle
Daily reports of drug cartel-related killings in Juarez may numb sensitivity to the severity of the situation just across New Mexico's southern border. There is, after all, an international boundary — lined with miles of fence and patrolled by scores of federal agents — that separates Mexico from the United States. Periodically, however, incidents like one over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, call to mind that the raging cartel war is just a stone's throw — or a bullet's shot — away.More

Police exhibit what the new RAPTOR surveillance and crime-mapping technology has to offer
The Saginaw News
Before the city prepared to exhibit its new surveillance and crime-mapping advancements, Saginaw's tech guru Jeff Klopcic seemed giddy. The Saginaw, Mich., Crime Prevention Analysis Center, in one of the old Andersen Water Park buildings, is an office walled with six flat-screen monitors, three desks and a conference table — Saginaw's new crime-solving technology hub, said Klopcic, technical services director for the city.More

Survey: 17 million Americans drove while drunk
UPI
Eight percent of all U.S. drivers, or 17 million motorists, drove while drunk in the previous year, a U.S. Transportation Department survey indicated. That same percentage of people age 16 and older — and 24 percent of men 21 to 24 years old — rode with a driver they thought was drunk at least once in the previous year, the survey by the department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicated.More