“Depolicing”

Sixty-nine people were killed by police in Canada last year, a record that continues a sharply rising trend in recent years, according to new research by the Tracking Injustice project.

Lethal force by Canadian police officers has seen a “steep” rise in recent years, with 2022 being the deadliest on record, according to new research released Thursday.

The findings come from a first-of-its-kind database compiling police use of deadly force across Canada since 2000. The research is an effort to close the national data gap on officer-involved killings, which are not compiled by any government agency — despite growing calls for statistics to track racial disparities.

Some Austin City Council members are speaking out about the police department’s vacancies and ongoing problems at the 911 call center after a chaotic scene unfolded downtown on Saturday night.

Street racers took over an intersection at South Lamar Boulevard and Barton Springs Road, drifting in the middle of the street and setting off fireworks as throngs of people looked on at the mayhem.

One law enforcement officer was injured and several police cars were damaged in the fracas.

#Austin #TX
“Video from Central Austin on Saturday night showed what police are calling ‘street racing incidents,’ including a large street takeover at the intersection of South Lamar Boulevard and Barton Springs Road.”

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— Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) February 19, 2023

Having retired from the Los Angeles Police Department some years ago, I often look at the day’s news and ask, “How can anyone be expected to do that job today?” The latest inspiration for this question came Friday with the news that two Los Angeles city councilmen are trying to make it easier for the LAPD chief to fire officers accused of misconduct.

Last year, Brian Lande, an officer in the Richmond, Calif., police department, had to draw his gun to stop two drunk men from clobbering each other to death with metal rods.

In 2015, he threatened deadly force to stop a fight between two more drunk men. One was armed with a hatchet. Another, with a wrench.

On another occasion, he drew his firearm to arrest a man hopping a backyard fence, fleeing the scene of a burglary.

None of these was remarkable in Richmond, a working-class city just east of San Francisco that’s notorious for its drive-by shootings, break-ins, carjackings, and countless petty crimes.

Many police chiefs say staffing levels have not rebounded from a wave of resignations that started with the pandemic and the 2020 unrest.

WASHINGTON — As American police departments seek to overcome an exodus of disgruntled officers and a sudden decline in applications, they are wooing recruits with some of the tactics a football coach might use to land a prized quarterback.

In Fairfax County, Va., in the suburbs of Washington, future officers are being treated to a “signing day” ceremony where they formally accept their job offers.

Out-of-state residents who want to join the police force in Louisville, Ky., are being flown in to take entrance tests, put up in a hotel and paired with an officer for a ride-along.

Last year, as riots, looting, and anarchy erupted on the streets of Minneapolis in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, the city saw its homicide rate skyrocket from 48 murders in 2019 to 84 last year. Things haven’t improved in Minneapolis this year, and the city could end up seeing the most murders in its history, surpassing the 97 homicides recorded in 1995. There’ve been at least 67 homicides in the city in 2021, but as PBS and the Star-Tribune newspaper report, the crime is concentrated in just a handful of the city’s neighborhoods.

Maybe it isn’t news that the liberal town that launched Bernie Sanders ‘s political career defunded its police department in the wake of George Floyd ’s murder. And maybe it isn’t news that crime got worse in Burlington, Vermont, immediately after the police force was forced to cut jobs.

But the New York Times wrote a lengthy article documenting how crime has risen in the 45,000-person city since the City Council voted to cut the police force by 30%. The quotes from the otherwise liberal residents of the city are quite revealing.

Department gets creative with recruitment as employment figures hit historic low

The murder rate in New Orleans is the highest in the land and the man in charge of holding the thin blue line in the Big Easy now has far fewer police officers after years in which hundreds have departed.

If Superintendent Shaun Ferguson was managing a police force in the London of Arthur Conan Doyle, or Dorothy L Sayers, now would be the time to send for a gentleman with an independent income and an enthusiastic interest in violent crime.

This can only be great.

As the city of Seattle experiences historically high crime, its police department continues to dwindle and recruitment efforts continue to fail. One former King County Sheriff puts it bluntly: “we’re screwed.”

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost six officers in August, according to a police source, bringing the year’s total separations to 122 and nearly 500 since the city council opted to defund the police department in 2020. What’s more alarming is the 350 officers that will be eligible for retirement at the end of the year. If even a fraction leaves the department, Seattle may not have a fully functioning police department.