Woman put on hold by 911 dies

The woman called 911 because her house was on fire and she was disabled. The operator put her on hold despite her pleading for them not to do that. The tape can be heard here and it is very graphic. In this case, the person was calling about a fire, but this could obviously occur with some calling about a crime.

Finally the last of the three big Iowa public universities have started letting campus police carry guns

The story on the University of Northern Iowa can be found here (emphasis added):

The University of Northern Iowa police have been carrying firearms since Dec. 23, following an October vote of the Iowa Board of Regents allowing arming of campus police.

Iowa State University became the first of the state's three public universities to arm officers when it allowed sworn police to carry guns Nov. 12. The University of Iowa followed on Nov. 22. . . .

a change long sought by the public safety directors. Iowa's public universities were the only schools in their athletic conferences that did not allow officers to carry guns.

Thanks very much to Mike Miller for sending me this link.

"Colorado Raid Angers Family"

NEW CASTLE, Colo. (AP) -- An armed law enforcement team broke down the door of a family home with a battering ram and took an 11-year-old to a hospital after authorities feared he was not getting proper medical care for what turned out to be a minor head injury.
Garfield County's All Hazards Response Team raided the home Friday night, a day after Jon Shiflett fell after grabbing the handle of a moving car. Someone - possibly a neighbor - called paramedics.
Jon's father, Tom Shiflett, 62, told paramedics he didn't want them to treat Jon and asked them to leave. He told them he had served as a medic in Vietnam and he had the skill to treat his son.
Caseworkers who later visited the family reported seeing injuries that included a "huge hematoma" and a sluggish pupil. They went before a judge seeking a search warrant and order for medical treatment, citing affidavits from the ambulance crew.
Following the raid, a doctor recommended Jon be given fluids, Tylenol and ice to treat the bruises, according to a copy of the child's patient aftercare instructions. . . . .

Thanks to Rich for sending this to me.

Disarming police in Mexico

The Mexican army has confiscated guns from the entire police force of the town of Rosarito, near the Mexican border with the US.

Mexican authorities suspect that the town's police have been colluding with drug trafficking gangs.

Mexican troops carried out a similar crackdown in January on Tijuana police.

This is what happened after the Mexican government disarmed the Tijuana police the end of last year:

Police in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana have had their guns returned, three weeks after they were all ordered to hand them in.

Mexican federal authorities confiscated the guns to check whether any had been used in drug crimes.

Some officers refused to go on patrol without their weapons, while others carried plastic catapults and marbles to protect themselves.

An official said it was not clear if any officers would face drugs charges.

The authorities' move was part of efforts to crack down on drug traffickers and suspected police collaboration.

Officers attacked

The operation is part of tough measures introduced by new Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The government has sent more than 3,000 soldiers and federal police to the Tijuana area to help fight drug trafficking and gang violence.

They confiscated the local force's weapons during investigations into allegations that some local officers had been involved in drug smuggling.

But Tijuana Public Safety Secretary Luis Javier Algorri said the move had endangered the city's police and residents. . . .

See my recent post here for what also was claimed to have happened when fewer police carried guns in England

Fewer Armed Police, More Violent Crime

From the UK's Daily Mail:

The number of firearms officers working in areas where gun crime is soaring has fallen sharply, figures released reveal.

And despite a steep overall rise in firearms-related offences, the total number of weapons-trained officers has dropped.

In gun crime 'hotspots' such as Liverpool and Nottingham there are around 40 per cent fewer armed officers.

The stark contrast between rising gun crime and falling numbers of armed police was highlighted in statistics released by the Home Office in response to Tory parliamentary questions.

Thanks very much to Brent D. Fowles for sending me this link.

Police hit rates on shootings as low as 17.4 percent

New York City police statistics show that simply hitting a target, let alone hitting it in a specific spot, is a difficult challenge. In 2006, in cases where police officers intentionally fired a gun at a person, they discharged 364 bullets and hit their target 103 times, for a hit rate of 28.3 percent, according to the department’s Firearms Discharge Report. The police shot and killed 13 people last year.
In 2005, officers fired 472 times in the same circumstances, hitting their mark 82 times, for a 17.4 percent hit rate. They shot and killed nine people that year.
In all shootings — including those against people, animals and in suicides and other situations — New York City officers achieved a 34 percent accuracy rate (182 out of 540), and a 43 percent accuracy rate when the target ranged from zero to six feet away. Nearly half the shots they fired last year were within that distance.
In Los Angeles, where there are far fewer shots discharged, the police fired 67 times in 2006 and had 27 hits, a 40 percent hit rate, which, while better than New York’s, still shows that they miss targets more often they hit them. . . .

The one important piece of information that is missing here is the number of people that the police shot at. If you take the estimate that I have that only about 5 percent of confrontations between armed victims and criminals result in the victim firing a gun, a 17.4 percent hit rate would imply that fewer than one percent of criminals would be shot. It would be interesting for someone to explain how this hit rate varies across cities.

Thanks very much to Rich for sending me this link.

Finally, University of Iowa Police will begin carrying guns

Returning University of Iowa students may notice something different about UI Department of Public Safety officers when they get back from their Thanksgiving holiday.

They’re carrying guns.

On Tuesday, UI President Sally Mason said that the public safety department met the training requirements and qualifications set forth by the Iowa Board of Regents and would be able to arm themselves fulltime beginning on Wednesday. . . .

Thanks to Mike Miller for sending me this link.

Finally, Iowa Campus Police Allowed to be Armed

It is something beyond my comprehension, but I have a hard time understanding the opposition to police carrying guns. In any case, the ban on campus police has finally ended in Iowa.

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Police officers at Iowa's three state universities will now routinely carry guns.

The Iowa Board of Regents voted 6 to 2 this morning to change its security policy to include the measure.

Until today, campus officers were allowed to carry firearms only with prior approval from the university president or his or her designated authority, and only in assignments of extreme danger. . . .

Thanks to Allen Forkner fro sending me this link.

Why off-duty police (and their wives) should carry concealed handguns

Before, he never carried an off-duty weapon. Now he does. He never wanted his three children to be around guns; now his wife has a gun permit.

"Overzealous in Knoxville"

There is a bigger advantage to society from people carrying concealed handguns, but this citizen was still in the right:

Trevor Putnam knew the gun laws. The officer who stopped him didn’t.

“When I told him that I hadn’t done anything, he said he’d find a reason to put me in jail,” said Putnam, 24, who works with guns every day as vice president of Coal Creek Armory in West Knoxville.

“It’s not that I have a problem with police officers. I deal with police officers nationwide from Arizona to Maine every day. But I lost my confidence in a legal right that I knew I had.”

Knoxville police officers will get a refresher course on the state’s gun permit laws after an officer who didn’t know the law stopped, frisked and threatened to arrest Putnam for legally carrying a gun inside a Wal-Mart this summer.

Officer Glenn Todd Greene’s actions June 21 at the store on Walbrook Drive in West Knoxville earned him a written reprimand and remedial training for rudeness and not knowing the law, Internal Affairs records show. He’s worked for the Knoxville Police Department for about seven years.

Putnam got a written apology from Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV.

“The officer was wrong I want to personally apologize to you for any embarrassment or inconvenience you may have suffered as a result of this incident,” the chief wrote.. . .

University of Iowa Regents slowly making progress towards arming campus police

The progress is slow, but hopefully it will be done next month.

Council Bluffs, Ia. - The Iowa Board of Regents has delayed a decision on arming campus police until at least October.

The board seemed poised Tuesday to vote on whether to change its 40-year policy prohibiting campus police from regularly carrying firearms. Several regents, including David Miles, Bob Downer and Jack Evans, said they were ready to vote in favor of arming campus police.

Regent Ruth Harkin then proposed development of a comprehensive security policy that would include the arming issue. Regent Craig Lang seconded her motion, which was approved, and the board then voted 7-1 to create a provision in that policy allowing campus police officers to carry firearms in the regular course of duties.

The new policy would need to be approved at a future meeting. That could occur as soon as October. . . .

Thanks to Chris Jens for sending me this link.

Update on Campus Police carrying guns in Iowa

An update on the decision by public universities in Iowa on whether campus police should be allowed to carry guns is available here.

Debate continues at Iowa Public Universities over Arming Police

At the Iowa State forum, Stewart said that having campus police trained and certified to carry guns would help officers protect students. He said ISU police deserve the same level of protection as officers in other communities.

Warren Madden, ISU vice president of business and finance, said an armed police force could react more quickly to serious threats than other law enforcement agencies.

"Sometimes time is a critical element in responding to events," Madden said.

Herman Quirmbach, ISU associate professor of economics and a Democratic state senator from Ames, said arming campus police is not the answer to violence on campus. Rather, Quirmbach said, the university should identify students who may have violent tendencies and get them help.

Faculty at University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University opposed letting police carry guns. The faculty at the University of Iowa voted "12-3 to support arming police." Well, the debate is heating up and the University Presidents have made their decisions even if they haven't been made public yet. One would hope that an economist such as Quirmbach would understand the notion of deterrence. In any case, why does he think that they will be successful in identifying those who will commit the attack (assuming that it is only students who will do it)? What do you do if you fail to identify those who want to do the attack?

Thanks to Richard Featherstone for sending this to me.

Northern Iowa University Faculty Senate Votes Against Letting Campus Police Carry Guns

At a special meeting on Friday, the University of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly against arming campus police.

The senate debated the issue for nearly an hour late in the afternoon as the campus emptied for the long holiday weekend. Ultimately, it decided the university would be safer if campus police did not carry guns. The final vote was 11 in favor of a motion to oppose arming campus police, with three voting against and one abstention. . . .

Professor Jerry Smith makes a strong point about police not being able to respond to an attack. Yet, I think that there is a further point. Not only will unarmed police be unable to respond, but if one believes in deterrence, unarmed police will actually make the attack more likely. The killers engaged in these multiple victim public killings have the warped objective to try to kill or wound as many people as possible and how successful they are is related to the amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and when someone else with a gun is able to arrive on the scene. To the extent to which one can reduce these killers return to harming others, you can deter some attacks from occurring. Basically, some simple economics.

I find it amazing that even professors really believe that campus police, with the same training as other officers, carrying guns will make the campus less safe. The discussion about officers shooting African-Americans as a reason not to arm campus police is truly remarkable.

Thanks to Richard Featherstone for sending me this link.

A new low for even Michael Moore

A youtube presentation by Michael Moore is just completely nuts going after the police that the way he does in this video.