Message from NSA

Have you seen the new Deputy and Court Officer magazine?
As a deputy or other law enforcement officer, you understand the importance of being informed, knowledgeable, and up-to-date on the latest technologies and trends relating to law enforcement.
The National Sheriffs’ Association has recently released a publication dedicated to deputy and law enforcement officers who are on the street, called Deputy and Court Officer.

Deputy and Court Officer focuses on:

• presenting deputies in their many faceted roles, as street patrol, court officers, corrections officers, civil
• process, and warrant officers to name a few
  
• providing product reviews to support the deputy to better do his/her job
  
• providing employment opportunities
  
• providing scholarship opportunities and educational opportunities
  

Police Cameras Fail in Detroit
The Detroit News
The Detroit Police Department has spent more than $18.5 million since 2001 on an in-car camera system so ineffective that the top brass this spring told the Justice Department they should "tear it out at the roots in order to start from scratch," according to internal documents. The total cost could be higher. But police can't find all invoices for the mishmash of cameras and computers that are plagued with image and audio problems. They work less than 17 percent of the time, according to confidential reports and internal records obtained by The Detroit News.More

"Toughest Sheriff" Vows Face-off with Feds Over Illegals
The Washington Post
The man who likes to call himself "America's toughest sheriff," Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., is planning a showdown with the feds. The sheriff has announced he will defy the U.S. Department of Homeland Security by doing a street sweep for illegal immigrants one day after the expiration of the agreement that has permitted him to conduct such operations for the past three years. The sheriff has said he expects the deal not to be extended, though federal officials have remained publicly noncommittal.More

Georgia Sheriff's Unit Cracks Prescription Drug Ring
The Dodge County News
The Laurens County Sheriff’s Narcotics investigators have uncovered an illegal prescription scheme. Suspects, acting as patients, were allegedly obtaining thousands of narcotic muscle relaxers and anxiety and pain pills from an Eastman physician. Detectives said that three of Dr. Channing Jun’s office staff had been in on the scheme. They would move the record of the patients’ visit to the last visit to the back of the file so the doctor would not realize he had just seen the patient and prescribed narcotics to them.More

L.A. Police Chief at Odds with City Council on Recruiting
the Los Angeles Times via Boston.com
As he prepares to leave office, Police Chief William J. Bratton is battling the Los Angeles City Council one last time in an effort to protect what is considered among his most important legacies: increasing the size of the Los Angeles Police Department. Bratton, a Boston native who also briefly led the Boston Police Department, plans to address the council in a last-ditch attempt to dissuade its members from following through on a proposal to suspend the department’s recruiting efforts until January. The suggestion that the city can save money by shrinking the police department strikes a raw nerve with Bratton, who steps down at the end of October.More

How Not to Fill a Montana Jail
The New York Times
First they begged the state of Montana to send them sex offenders, but the state said no. Then they asked every other state in the country if any of them could spare a few hundred inmates, but no one could. Next they tried to get the federal government to let them have at least a few of the detainees from Guantánamo, but nothing came of that. So, after many failed efforts to fill the $27 million jail they built two years ago hoping to create jobs, the economic development team of the small, poor town of Hardin, Mont. did the logical thing -- they turned their empty, 464-bed prison over to a shadowy private military contractor with a Serbian accent who promised to create jobs and make the town "the safest place in the United States to live, and in six months the best place to live."More

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Discusses Border Violence
KFOX
The newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico made his first visit to UTEP Friday to discuss the rising tide of violence across the border. Nearly 1,900 people have been killed in Juarez this year, already surpassing the death toll from last year. Carlos Pascual spoke about the connection between that violence and the illegal drug trade.More

Convicts Still Calling From Texas Prisons
NBC DFW
One year after Texas prison operators promised to get mobile phones out of the hands of inmates, records show mobile phones are still getting into convicts hands. A state report shows that authorities confiscated 995 cell phones between January and August, a rate that will top last year's 1,226 seizures if it continues, according to the Austin-American Statesman.More

Inmate Tries Daring Escape with Newspaper
The Associated Press via AOL News
State prison officials said an inmate is in solitary after he tried to escape from Columbia Correctional Institution. Department of Corrections spokesman John Dipko said 49-year-old James Frederick was supposed to pick up food carts when he bolted for the perimeter fences. He had stuffed his clothes with newspapers to protect him from razor wire that lined the top of the first fence.More

Calif. Governor Signs Legislation to Curtail DUI Collisions
the California Chronicle
California Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 91 (Feuer), a bipartisan public safety measure that will help decrease drunk driving by requiring DUI offenders to install ignition interlock devices (IIDs) on their cars. It creates a pilot project in the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Tulare requiring IIDs on any vehicle owned or operated by an individual convicted of a DUI offense. California taxpayers will not bear the costs associated with the IID; rather, the offenders will be required to pay.More

Smugglers Using Helicopters to Transport Drugs Across US-Canada Border
the Calgary Herald
Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U. S. Attorney's office, says a report was filed detailing the ease with which B. C. pilots are trained for drug-smuggling runs. Helicopter flight school operators don't check students' backgrounds, and criminal record checks are not required for licence approval. Smuggling by chopper is a "very serious" border-integrity and public-safety issue, Langlie said. "We've seen a lot of smuggling by air from Canada into the U. S."More