How can AI help police departments in the United States

 Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform many industries, including law enforcement. In recent years, police departments in the United States have been exploring the use of AI to help them carry out their duties more effectively and efficiently. In this essay, we will discuss some ways that AI can help police departments in the United States.

One of the most significant ways AI can help police departments is by improving their ability to analyze data. Police departments generate vast amounts of data every day, from crime reports to surveillance footage. By using AI algorithms, police departments can process this data much more quickly and accurately than humans can. AI can help identify patterns in crime data, predict where crimes are likely to occur, and even identify potential suspects based on their behavior patterns.

Another way AI can assist police departments is through the use of facial recognition technology. This technology can analyze CCTV footage and match faces to a database of known criminals or suspects. This can help police departments track down individuals who are wanted for crimes, as well as identify potential witnesses to crimes.

AI can also assist police departments in their efforts to prevent crime. By analyzing data on crime patterns and trends, AI can help police departments identify high-risk areas and take preventive measures to deter criminal activity. For example, AI can analyze data on previous break-ins to identify common entry points and methods, which can then be used to secure those areas and prevent future break-ins.

Another potential application of AI in law enforcement is the use of predictive policing. By analyzing data on crime patterns and trends, AI can help police departments identify areas that are at high risk of criminal activity. This information can be used to deploy officers to those areas proactively and prevent crimes before they occur.

Despite the potential benefits of AI in law enforcement, there are also concerns about privacy and bias. Some worry that the use of facial recognition technology could lead to false identifications, while others are concerned about the use of predictive policing algorithms, which could disproportionately target certain communities.

In conclusion, AI has the potential to transform law enforcement in the United States in many ways. By helping police departments analyze data more quickly and accurately, identify suspects, prevent crime, and deploy officers more efficiently, AI can help make communities safer. However, it is essential to address concerns about privacy and bias and ensure that the use of AI is done in an ethical and responsible manner.

Image credit: Pexels via ThisIsEngineering: https://www.pexels.com/photo/code-projected-over-woman-3861969/

Guide to applying for other law enforcement agencies

Applying for a law enforcement agency can be a challenging and time-consuming process. However, with some preparation and knowledge of the application process, you can increase your chances of success. In this blog post, we will discuss the steps you can take to apply for other law enforcement agencies.

Step 1: Research the agencies you are interested in

Before you start applying for law enforcement agencies, you should research the agencies you are interested in to determine if you meet their requirements. Look for information on the agency's website or contact the agency directly to learn about their eligibility criteria and application process.

Step 2: Prepare your application materials

Once you have identified the agencies you want to apply for, start gathering your application materials. This may include your resume, cover letter, transcripts, and any relevant certifications or training documents. Make sure your application materials are up to date, professional, and tailored to the specific agency you are applying for.

Step 3: Complete the application

After you have gathered your application materials, it's time to start filling out the application. Make sure you provide all the required information. Some agencies may require you to take a written test or physical fitness test as part of the application process. Be prepared to complete these tests if necessary.

Step 4: Attend the interview

If your application is successful, you will be invited to attend an interview. This is your chance to demonstrate your skills, experience, and suitability for the agency. Prepare for the interview by researching the agency, reviewing your application materials, and practicing your responses to common interview questions.

Step 5: Complete the background check

If you pass the interview stage, you will be required to undergo a background check. This may include a criminal record check, credit check, and reference checks. Make sure you provide accurate and honest information during the background check process.

Step 6: Attend the training academy

If you pass the background check, you will be invited to attend the training academy. This is where you will receive the necessary training and education to become a law enforcement officer. The training academy may last several months or more, depending on the agency.

In conclusion, applying for law enforcement agencies can be a rigorous process, but with the right preparation and dedication, you can increase your chances of success. Research the agencies you are interested in, gather your application materials, complete the application, attend the interview, pass the background check, and attend the training academy. Good luck!

Recruits trying out for the West Virginia State Police in June 2011 / Charleston Gazette via YouTube.

A ride along with the Prince George's County Police Department

Yesterday evening, March 23, 2023, I traveled to Upper Marlboro to the 8th Prince George's County Police District to do a ride-along. I've ridden along with many agencies in the past but this was without any doubt the largest agency I've used for a ride-along. The shift, 3:30 p.m. to 130 a.m., was very busy in a district encompassing Westphalia, Suitland, District Heights, Capital Heights, and Forestville, all part of a larger county with a population of about 967000 with 483 land square miles.

I rode with Officer Bonnacorsky in his Ford Taurus. We first went to put gas in his vehicle at one of the county-owned properties that are exclusive to county vehicles only for gas service. It was a nice day in the Washington region with temperatures around 74 degrees. We then went to wash the car but I have to say, I have no clue where exactly we were. The car wash was busy with citizens also taking advantage of the nice weather. Surprisingly after that, we didn't get any calls and sat in an empty parking lot across from Buffalo Wild Wings for almost an hour. The officer was joined by one of his co-workers from the same beat, Office Deramus. They later explained to me that they were savoring the downtime at the beginning of the shift because they knew too well that the storm was coming. 

We went to our first call of the shift shortly after, to settle a vehicle tow dispute. Right after we cleared that call, it just got busy almost non-stop until the end of the shift. We took a check well-being call that we cleared quickly. Then Officer Bonnacorsky was on his way to another "routine" when he diverted himself to the unavoidable: the type of call I often read about in the news every other day about DC and PG County Police, a shooting. Code authorized! Lights and sirens, please. An individual had just been shot and the suspect fled in a black Lexus. Upon arrival at the scene, I observed a light skin male being cared for by EMS personnel. He was shot in the elbow area. He told responding officers a car approached him and, for reasons unclear to me, there was a semi-tense exchange and the individual in the car called him "lemonade." The victim was upset about the name-calling and the suspect shot him and fled. 

In Prince George's County style, we didn't stay too long at the scene. A detective showed up and there were other officers at the scene too. We cleared this call and got dispatched to a breaking and entering. Lights and sirens on this one too. We found nothing. Clear. 

We later dealt with a homeless man who knew how to play the game. "I want to kill myself," he told Officer Bonnacorsky. But he didn't EP him (emergency petition for mental evaluation). Instead, he called an ambulance to transport him voluntarily. Later into the evening, we stopped by a Hibachi restaurant with other officers: Morris and Beck, both corporals with the department. We all ordered our food. As we were about to start to eat... shots were fired according to an Auto Theft officer who was trying to stop one individual. This sounded serious at the time. I didn't even take a bite of my food, a hibachi with a mix of steak and chicken. Once again, with code, we respond to the area. Details emerge that it was the officer who discharged his weapon accidentally, but a gun was found in the juvenile suspect's vehicle who ended up being arrested. I have no idea what prompted the interaction or if it was even related to auto theft.

The Prince George's County Police Department -- not to be confused with the smaller, less funded Sheriff's Office in the same county, is the fourth largest law enforcement organization in the state, after Baltimore City Police, Baltimore County Police and Maryland State Police. I was glad to have participated in the ride-along as it opened my eyes to "real" police work, not to say we don't do anything out in the country.  I ended the shift around midnight and headed back home. 

District 8 building station photographed at the end of my ride-along shift on March 24, 2023, just after midnight. The police station is housed on the first floor of this building. Other floors have office space for detectives and officers in charge of various training programs. 

I'm finally getting published!

After months of efforts to try to get some law enforcement websites to publish my work on police books, I had a break yesterday. A representative of Officer.com, owned by Officer Media Group -- the same company that publishes Officer Magazine -- informed me by e-mail yesterday that my interview with Kristen Ziman, a former police chief in Aurora, IL, was published. I read the e-mail while at the Kepler Theater at the Hagerstown Community College, as I was about to go inside the auditorium for a police academy graduation event. I was excited to say the least, considering that the better-known website Police1.com had rejected my submission. I know it's a far fledged comparison but this was like, to me, a doctor getting published in the American Journal of Medicine. Serious law enforcement officers and leaders have articles published and that is something that I wanted to accomplish for a while. 

Obviously, that is not a pre-requisite for a successful career in policing. Some law enforcement officers or leaders take some type of FBI leadership course. Some do nothing. I had my website to fall back on, after all. I wanted, however, a wider reach of my audience. Not only did Officer.com publish my interview, but it was on their front page all day yesterday, Saturday February 3. Unlike Police1.com, Officer.com is allowing me to keep the original interview on my own website, blueredmedia.net, and even promoted my website to its readers at the bottom of the interview (with a picture of me). I don't believe I would have been able to publish my own work on blueredmedia.net had it been picked up by Police1.com, based on my understanding of their terms.

Regardless, this is something to be proud of. I will keep educating myself, reading public safety books and other types of books as well in order to better myself. Both Officer.com and Police1.com do not generally accept book reviews, so that is still going to be a challenge to get my work picked up. I would have to interview or write about someone of the same caliber than Ziman for hopes to get published.

The interview on officer.com can be viewed here. The blueredmedia.net version, which is very similar, can be viewed here.

Desktop view.

Mobile view.

Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021

New state laws from the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 are slowly going into effect and I learned about new directives yesterday during a meeting, even though such directives have, technically, been in place since July 2022.

What is the Maryland Police Accountability Act?

This law, which was passed in 2021 by the Maryland Legislature, requires all counties to create police oversight boards serving a different function each. The three police oversight boards consist of: a Police Accountability Board, an Administrative Charging Committee, and a Trial Board. In Wicomico County, population 103980, the County Council and the county executives signed into law the creation of the three police oversight boards in April 2022. In Washington County, population 154937, that was done in June 2022, about a month prior to the effective date of such boards. Based on my understanding, two boards -- instead of three -- were created in Washington County, which is also where I currently work. Here, there's the Police Accountability Board and a Charging Committee which, it seems to me, also handles a Trial Board, or oversees it.

How did this bill start?

This was brought up during a police meeting with my agency I had yesterday, where we also discussed the new marijuana laws that went into effect on January 1, 2023. We were reminded to be careful as law enforcement officers in the state of Maryland as we are being more and more scrutinized. As part of the Maryland Accountability Act, most police agencies will be required to have a body camera program by July 2023 (with a few more agencies given an extra deadline of July 2025). All these laws were enacted following the George Floyd incident that occurred in May 2020, and the nationwide protests that followed in June 2020.

What other states have adopted similar bills

Maryland is not the only state to pass police reforms: according to an analysis from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, 300 police reform bills were passed nationwide after Floyd's killing in May 2020. California, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Virginia are among those states (there's clearly more). In Maryland, then-governor Larry Hogan tried to veto the bill to no avail. As an opinion writer puts in The Hill, "Maryland police (officers) have a tough road ahead."

Sources: 
Wicomico County Government: https://www.wicomicocounty.org/755/Maryland-Police-Accountability-Act#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20Maryland%20Legislature,which%20serves%20a%20different%20function.
Washington County Government: https://www.washco-md.net/police-accountability-board/
University of Maryland College Park, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism: https://cnsmaryland.org/2022/10/28/states-approved-nearly-300-bills-affecting-policing-in-wake-of-george-floyds-murder/
The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/553683-maryland-police-have-a-tough-road-ahead/

A ride along with the Hagerstown Police Department

HPD's Officer Morris assisting a partner on a traffic stop near the Police Department headquarters.

UPDATE OCT 12, 2022: I spent my second day riding along with HPD in the same beat zone. The shift was a little busier and I rode with Officer Dailey, a one-year veteran. I once again enjoyed observing the patrol work done by the HPD officers. The report queue certainly do build up on officers as they go from call to call, even if not all calls generate reports. In fact, my ride-along ended about three hours early due to Officer Dailey having to complete reports before ending her shift. 

I spent the evening with the Hagerstown Police Department (HPD), after my own tour of duty at the Hagerstown Community College Police Department (HCCPD), as part of a two-day ride along. Both agencies are in Maryland. To educate myself more about police work, I decide to ride along with that agency.

This evening, I rode with Officer Morris, an 8-year veteran of the force. He was assigned to the West End part of the city. It was rather a slow shift with just three calls (domestic disputes and a traffic accident) and a traffic stop assist. However, Hagerstown, population 43500, is a busy and often difficult city to police. It's also referred to as "Little Baltimore," a clear acknowledgment to Baltimore located about 75 miles away, which was once notorious for its high crime rate -- and still is to some extent. I never thought I'd give HPD a thought. It's a broken department with a high turnover rate. Half of my police academy class has left the department. There are also a few others, not affiliated with my police academy class, who departed, often leaving for smaller departments. I'm being told due to the call volume, people end up burning out. Among other things.

But I liked what I experienced on the shift. Officer Morris stated a fact I already knew: the grass is not always greener on the other side. Officer Morris acknowledged HPD has its flaws, but any other agency has them as well. He stated that a downside for HPD was the lack of a take home program for patrol officers (officers assigned to special units enjoy that benefit). 

I'm spending another evening tomorrow, Tuesday, October 11, with HPD. 

Do police officers have a duty to "protect and serve?" It's not as obvious of an answer as you think

This week-end, a friend of mine asked me out of the blue what is the role of a police officer, what is our job description. After briefly hesitating as I got caught off guard, I started saying that we, as law enforcement officers, wear many hats. We play the role of social workers, advisers, maybe sometimes lawyers, etc. Then I stated the obvious, that we also protect and serve, which is the cliche often given in the description of a police officer's job.

My friend was apparently waiting for me to say those words. He then had me listen to a podcast produced by NPR affiliate WNYC called "Radiolab." I was asked to listen to the episode called "No Special Duty," which was initially broadcast in November 2021. 

I learned something interesting listening to the program. The United States Supreme Court has ruled back in 2005 that law enforcement officers have no duty or obligation to protect and serve despite that motto being widely used across jurisdictions (you see it on our police vehicles). This was actually a case law, Town of Castle Rock v Gonzales. 

Here are the facts of the case from Oyez.org: 

"Jessica Gonzales requested a restraining order against her estranged husband. A state trial court issued the order, which prohibited the husband from seeing Gonzales or their three daughters except during pre-arranged visits. A month later, Gonzales's husband abducted the three children. Gonzales repeatedly urged the police to search for and arrest her husband, but the police told her to wait until later that evening and see if her husband brought the children back. During the night Gonzales's husband murdered all three children and then opened fire inside a police station, where police returned fire and killed him. Gonzales brought a complaint in federal District Court, alleging that the Castle Rock police had violated her rights under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution by willfully or negligently refusing to enforce her restraining order. The Due Process Clause states: "No state shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." The District Court dismissed the complaint, ruling that no principle of substantive or procedural due process allowed Gonzales to sue a local government for its failure to enforce a restraining order. On appeal, however, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found that Gonzales had a legitimate procedural due process claim. A rehearing by the full appeals court agreed, ruling that Gonzales had a "protected property interest in the enforcement of the terms of her restraining order," which the police had violated."

This escalated to the US Surpreme Court with a central question: can the holder of a restraining order bring a procedural due process claim against a local government for its failure to actively enforce the order and protect the holder from violence? Surprisingly, the Supreme Court sided with the Castle Rock Police Department. Again, from Oyez.org:

"In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that Gonzales had no constitutionally-protected property interest in the enforcement of the restraining order, and therefore could not claim that the police had violated her right to due process. In order to have a "property interest" in a benefit as abstract as enforcement of a restraining order, the Court ruled, Gonzales would have needed a "legitimate claim of entitlement" to the benefit. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia found that state law did not entitle the holder of a restraining order to any specific mandatory action by the police. Instead, restraining orders only provide grounds for arresting the subject of the order. The specific action to be taken is up to the discretion of the police. The Court stated that "This is not the sort of 'entitlement' out of which a property interest is created." The Court concluded that since "Colorado has not created such an entitlement," Gonzales had no property interest and the Due Process Clause was therefore inapplicable." 

The episode I listened to cited another incident involving NYPD officers who delayed helping a man getting stabbed on a subway platform, even as they saw the suspect with the knife. The victim in that case sued the Police Department but also lost the case on the same grounds, that police officers do not have a duty to protect and serve.

The Radiolab presenter stated that she interviewed lawyers about those cases and that said lawyers stated even though they disagreed with the ruling, that it actually made sense. If police officers were forced to protect and serve, that the country would suddenly become a police state where anyone committing a crime, no matter how insignificant the infraction, would be arrested without any discretion used. 

This is not to say that an officer can ignore a call for service without any consequence. I know for a fact that in Washington County, Maryland, it is well understood that officers in the various law enforcement agencies in the county do respond to calls for service, especially with violation of protective order calls. Although this Supreme Court case essentially means prosecuting an officer for failing to act would be a challenge, disciplinary action is almost certain for an officer who choose not to respond to such a call in this county. Washington County tends to have well run agencies that are progressive. I'm not using the word "progressive" in a political way, but rather meaning those agencies tend to keep up with social trends affecting the way police operate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJtCZMIcj4I&t=331s