An Under-Utilized Crime-Fighting Tool?
Thermal imaging provides security officers with investigation tools
The use of thermal imaging cameras (TICs) in assault cases is a relatively new concept for first responding officers and investigators. Thermal imaging is the simplified name for Infrared Thermography, which shows variations in heat sources. The technology has been used by doctors, engineers, and fire departments for decades. It is still relatively new and under-utilized by security personnel and investigators responding to assaults.

The Thermal Imaging Camera (TIC) is a valuable tool for investigators and first responding security officers when investigating assault cases. As all experienced investigators and security officers know, bruising from assaults may not show up at all or may only show up , preserve, days after the offense has been committed. As a responding security officer, your job, after securing the assailant, is to document evidence of the assault for use later by the prosecutor.

Though some of TICs are sold for use in construction, engineering, HVAC, and firefighting, they still can be utilized for criminal investigations. Even inexpensive TICs produce very nice thermal images.

I urge you to begin utilizing a Thermal Imaging Camera (TIC) in all assault investigations. There is an extremely high likelihood that a perpetrator who strikes, grabs, kicks, or strangles his victim will leave signature thermal image evidence of the assault on his victim. Your photographs of these thermal images of victims' soft-tissue injuries could be the deciding factor in obtaining a conviction against an assailant.

Additionally, a TIC is a useful security tool for helping locate suspects or lost children (or adults) in outdoor natural areas such as fields or forests. TICs can be used by security, fire protection, and maintenance personnel to help locate fires between walls, on roofs or electrical "hot spots" in industrial machinery. TICs are a multi-function tool that can be utilized by all departments in the private sector. securitymagazine.com

Embattled Progressive DA Wins Closely-Watched Primary
Philadelphia's Rising Violent Crime Front & Center During Campaign

Krasner Blasts Critics Who Blame Him for Rising Violence in Philly, Calls for More Crime Prevention Funding

"We promised reform and a focus on serious crime ... We kept those promises. And this time they put us back in office for what we have done."

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner easily defeated Democratic primary challenger Carlos Vega on Tuesday, taking a giant step toward winning a second term after campaigning on his record of criminal justice reform.

In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one, Krasner is now very likely to win November's general election. He won the 2017 general election with 75% of the vote.

"Four years ago we promised reform and a focus on serious crime," Krasner told supporters at a Center City hotel Tuesday night. "We kept those promises. And this time they put us back in office for what we have done. Not ideas, not promises, but realities."

Krasner, 60, was a defense and civil rights lawyer for three decades, with a long record of suing the Philadelphia police before he was elected as a reformer in 2017. That victory helped propel him to the forefront of a new crop of progressive prosecutors across the country, a reform movement that was tested this election in Philadelphia by rising violent crime.

In his victory speech, Krasner said he had a mandate "from the people most affected by serious crime," voters he suggested had rejected critics who blame the DA for shootings plaguing the city.

"That mandate has rejected, definitively, a politics of fear that is built on falsehoods," he said, calling for more funding for crime prevention. "We have to invest in all those things because we were robbed of them a long time ago. And what we are facing now is the consequences." inquirer.com

NYPD Under Fire for 2020 Protest Response
NYPD Commissioner Shea Insists Cops Did a 'Phenomenal Job' Policing Racial Justice Protests

The top cop blamed "outside agitators" for violence during demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd

Interrogated by city investigators, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea denied the NYPD overreacted during last year's racial justice protests - blaming "outside agitators" for violence and insisting cops did a "phenomenal job."

A transcript of the contentious, two-hour exchange in November with the city Department of Investigation provides an unusually candid depiction of Shea's defense of a police response that's been criticized by numerous protesters and elected officials - including Mayor Bill de Blasio, who eventually apologized for cops' use of what he called "excessive force."

Under aggressive questioning by DOI investigators, Shea initially conceded the Police Department was at times "flying in the dark" - then reversed course and argued the NYPD was prepared for the demonstrations and handled them with remarkable restraint amid flashes of protester violence.

"I think we responded to a very difficult situation," Shea said, according to the transcript, obtained by THE CITY under a Freedom of Information Law request. "I think the officers did a phenomenal job under extremely difficult circumstances."

When pressed about whether he believed the NYPD was prepared, Shea responded, "I do" - and began to refer to police, protesters and what he deemed "outside agitators" as members of different "teams."

The interview with Shea and a separate sit-down with then-Chief of Department Terence Monahan were part of a de Blasio-ordered DOI examination of the NYPD's handling of weeks of protests that erupted after then-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020, a killing captured on video. thecity.nyc

Police Shortage in Seattle
Seattle loses almost 20% of police force amid year of nationwide protests:
"We're not allowed to intercede"
The Seattle Police Department is struggling under the backlash of recent police reforms. The state of Washington has just enacted a dozen police reform laws, following nearly a year of protests over police brutality.

According to one social justice group, more than $840 million were cut from U.S. police budgets in 2020.

This has caused a shortage of police in Seattle. The police chief tells CBS News that 260 officers, which is almost 20 percent of the force, have left in the past year and a half.

Officer Clayton Powell has served nearly 27 years on the streets of Seattle. He said it was his goal to stay on the force for 30 years, but even though he is three years away from that goal, he's retiring early.

"The support that we had in my generation of policing is no longer there," Powell told CBS News' Carter Evans.

Last summer's protests over the killing of George Floyd led to violent clashes with Seattle police. Powell said the stress on officers was compounded by city leaders' decisions to abandon a police precinct and letting demonstrators, some armed, occupy an entire neighborhood for a whole month. As a result, Powell said he and other officers had rocks, bottles, and in some cases, cinder blocks thrown at them, and they had to "stand there and take it."

"When you see businesses get destroyed and families lose their livelihood because of that destruction and we can't do anything about it. We're not allowed to intercede," he said. cbsnews.com

Unarmed Mental Health Teams
D.C. to divert some mental health calls away from police
Starting in June, D.C. police will not be the first responders to some mental health calls in the city. Under a new pilot program, 911 operators will instead send unarmed teams of behavioral health experts and peers to the scene.

The move was recommended last month by the city's police reform commission, part of local and national efforts in the wake of George Floyd's killing to reduce violent contact between the public and law enforcement.

We want to make sure we are not making "something more of an event by sending a uniformed officer there if they are not needed," Cleo Subido, interim director for the Office of Unified Communications said. In "some kind of a situation where there's a distrust of law enforcement, or distrust of the fire department, or of strangers," she said, sending police "could be doing a disservice."

In D.C., officers will still respond to any call involving a weapon or a perceived safety threat, including harm to the person in crisis, Subido said.

That diverges from the D.C. Police Reform Commission recommendation that police be deployed only "where a person in crisis has a weapon or for some other reason poses a significant danger to others" - and then in conjunction with, not instead of, behavioral health experts. washingtonpost.com

Gunfire hits another child, adding to Minneapolis' growing violence

Iowa Senate votes to raise penalties for protest-related crimes, strengthen immunity for police
 

COVID Update

275.5M Vaccinations Given

68% of Workers Don't Feel Safe on the Job
Technology is the Next Frontier of Workplace Safety

A look at how video and computer vision can improve worker health and safety.

Employees throughout the manufacturing industry filed hundreds of worker safety lawsuits in 2020. In fact, 68% of workers globally reported they do not feel completely safe at work, citing inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and employer noncompliance with sanitation protocols, mask wearing and temperature checks. This also resulted in OSHA issuing $3.8 million in penalties for COVID-19-related citations.

In order to keep workers safe and reduce penalties for noncompliance, organizations must adopt innovative technologies, such as video sensors and advanced analytics, and automate functions for employee health and safety monitoring. By automating health and safety monitoring, organizations can liberate themselves from relying on inefficient, manual processes or posted reminders to better enforce mandates and ensure employee safety at all times.

The standout among these new technologies is artificial intelligence (AI) enabled real-time video analytics, which allows organizations to automate health and safety monitoring. This will become mission critical as the amounts of video data are anticipated to increase as more employees return to in-person work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With digital transformation initiatives expected to consume 53% of IT budgets in the coming years, this capability will help organizations avoid expensive cloud data processing costs. By eliminating the need to send these ever-increasing amounts of Internet of Things (IoT) data to the cloud for processing, video-based AI technology can quickly and accurately produce actionable insights in real time for both cost savings and increased operational efficiency, ultimately increasing overall workplace safety. ehstoday.com

McDonald's Nationwide 'Walkout Wednesday' Strike
McDonald's workers demanding higher wages ahead of the chain's
annual investor meeting
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will join McDonald's workers in strikes planned around the US for higher wages on May 19, the day before the company's annual shareholders meeting.

On "Walkout Wednesday," employees in 15 US cities will go on strike to demand all McDonald's workers make at least $15 per hour. So far, the strikes are planned for Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, St Louis, Raleigh-Durham, Fayetteville, Houston, and Milwaukee.

A demonstration is also planned outside the company's Chicago headquarters, organizers from the advocacy group Fight for $15 said.

McDonald's announced earlier in April that it would raise minimum wages at corporate-owned stores. Entry-level workers will make at least $11 per hour, and shift managers will make at least $15, boosting the average worker by about 10%. The chain is aiming to hire 10,000 new employees in the coming months and says its average hourly wage is expected to reach $15 by 2024.

The raises only impact the 5% of locations owned by the company in the US, not franchises.
businessinsider.com

The Macy's Comeback
Are Americans Shopping Again? Macy's Sales Jump Suggests a Return Is Afoot.

The retailer expressed optimism after sales soared 56 percent in the first quarter, raising its forecast for the year as consumers begin to buy apparel for get-togethers.

A combination of government stimulus and faster-than-expected vaccinations drove a sales rebound at Macy's over the past three months, in what could signal the start of a post-pandemic shopping boom.

Macy's said on Tuesday that sales jumped 56 percent in its first quarter, which ended May 1, from the same period last year, when the start of the pandemic pulverized the retailer's revenue. It raised its sales and profit forecast for the year.

The company, which also owns Bloomingdale's, reported $4.7 billion in sales and a profit of $103 million. That compares with about $3 billion in sales and a loss of $3.6 billion in the same period last year.

"We don't think this is a small-term bump or pop. We think this is momentum that has not peaked yet and is going to continue to play out through our business in 2021 and then to 2022 and beyond."

Macy's is part of a larger group of retailers that have reported higher sales in the first few months of 2021, though its results stand apart because of its focus on apparel and other discretionary items. nytimes.com

Stopping 'Imposters' from Entering the U.S.
Facial recognition debuts at Charlotte airport

Technology to be used on foreign arriving passengers

Federal agents at Charlotte's airport have begun using facial recognition software on passengers arriving from foreign countries, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Friday.

Facial biometrics is "safe and touchless" for passengers and has stopped more than 650 "imposters" from entering the U.S. since September 2018, according to an agency news release.

By law, arriving passengers already must verify who they are by presenting a travel document. With facial biometrics, passengers now pause for a quick photo that's compared with the photo originally submitted to the government to obtain the travel document, officials said.

Imposters use real travel documents issued to other people to try to enter the U.S.

Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Dallas-Fort Worth , Houston and other major airports already use facial biometrics, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rob Brisley told The Charlotte Observer on Saturday. securityinfowatch.com

Walmart says customers starting to shop like normal again as the US economy continues to re-open
Buying behavior is slowly turning to normal as the US economy regains steam and people return to traveling, socializing, and working from offices, Walmart said Tuesday. The retailer made $138.3 billion in sales for the first quarter, up $3.7 billion over the same period last year, boosted by the stimulus payments, it said. Earnings and revenue both topped Wall Street expectations.

People's food shopping behaviors are normalizing, Walmart said, noting that comparable grocery sales declined in the low single digits in the first quarter year-over-year. It attributed this in part to the stockpiling in early 2020, when people bought in bulk in fear of shortages. Walmart said that people are now buying food more frequently. businessinsider.com

Who's to blame for Target's decision to halt trading card sales?

Walmart is doubling down on 'rollbacks' as inflation pushes prices higher