Axis Communications and 2N Named Commercial Integrator’s 2022 BEST Award Winners

Axis and 2N garner accolades for products and solutions making a genuine difference in the commercial AV and IT industries.

Commercial Integrator, publisher of the foremost business handbook for AV and IT technology professionals, recently announced the winners of its 2022 BEST Awards. The awards highlight the best hardware, software, services, and resources of 2022 that are helping commercial AV and IT integrators sustain and grow their businesses.

Axis Communications won in the Audio Components & Processors category for its AXIS D4100-E Network Strobe Siren, the world’s first network strobe siren. The product uses the power of light and sound to deter intruders, ensure on-site safety and improve operational efficiency. Integrated through VAPIX, MQTT or SIP, the strobe siren comes with various light and sound patterns for protection in any environment.

AXIS Device Manager Extend Base, a cloud-based software application, took top honors in the Programming, Design & Engineering Solutions category. The free application provides a user-friendly dashboard interface for instantly discovering, monitoring, and managing all Axis device inventory on the network.

Read more here
 

Another Weekend of Big City Gun Violence

1,340 Shootings - 409 Killed - 1,401 Injured in 15 Big Cities Past 11 Weekends
The D&D Daily's Big City Weekend Violence Study - Memorial Day to Labor Day

The Daily's study analyzes weekend shooting data in 15 major U.S. cities from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend 2022

Starting Memorial Day Weekend, the D&D Daily began compiling and analyzing data from 15 major U.S. cities to get a snapshot of summer gun violence.

This past weekend, from August 5th through August 7th, there were 122 shootings recorded in these same cities, resulting in 32 deaths and 129 injuries.

The chart below shows the totals for each of the past 11 weekends dating back to Memorial Day weekend.

The D&D Daily will continue to track this data throughout the summer to capture the weekend violence trend in our nation's big cities as warm weather typically brings about more crime and violence.

Click here to see the list of incidents per city and follow along each week this summer as this spreadsheet will be updated every Monday. docs.google.com

Read more coverage about America's crime and gun violence epidemic in the section below
 

Regional AP Leader Arrested for Stabbing Murder
Arrest made in murder of 19-year-old woman from Ecuador found in woods
The Gwinnett County Police Department has arrested Timothy Krueger in connection with the murder of a 19-year-old Ecuadorian woman.

The Hall County Sheriff's Office discovered the body of Sarai Llanos Gomez decomposing in a wooded area off Paradise Point Road in Flowery Branch on June 20. They later identified the victim on July 25 and have been actively investigating her death as a homicide since.

Detectives obtained a concealing a death warrant for Krueger and Gwinnett homicide officials obtained search warrants for his home where he was taken into custody on Aug. 4. Authorities said he ultimately provided a full confession.

The 49-year-old confessed to stabbing Gomez several times with a knife which ultimately led to her death, according to an arrest warrant. The murder occurred at a home along Cardinal Lake Drive in Duluth, records show. He was later taken to the Gwinnett County Jail and charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

According to LinkedIn, Krueger has been in the loss prevention industry for 20+ years, most recently as Regional Asset Protection Leader for Ascena Retail Group. Throughout his career, he has held roles with Justice, Michaels, and Musicland.

Gomez, the victim, was a 19-year-old mother of two children, who moved to the United States from Ecuador for a better life, and to send money back home, her family said.

Gomez had moved to the U.S. last year: first to Chicago, then to Atlanta where she was offered a waitressing job at a Buckhead hotel. But the job wasn’t what she had signed up for. Gomez's mother said that, instead, it was to become a sex worker. One day before the disappearance, Sarai told her mother she tried turning it down. 11alive.com gwinnettdailypost.com

Murders, Shootings, Thefts & Robberies Surge in NYC
NYC crime rate climbed 31% in July compared to July 2021 amid surges in murders, shootings, thefts, robberies
A spike in shootings and murders in July fueled a 31% increase in the city’s crime rate over the same month in 2021, the NYPD said Friday, continuing to fuel a hot-button political issue that has the mayor and governor at odds.

Murders were up 34% last month compared to July 2021, the NYPD data shows. Police counted 47 murders in July 2022, up from 35 committed in July 2021. Shootings were up 13% in July 2022 to July 2021. The city recorded 178 shooting incidents last month, up from 157 it counted in July 2021.

The increased in murders and shooting incidents combined with spikes in robberies and thefts to boost the overall crime rate by 31% this July compared with July 2021.

Grand larcenies were up 41% in July 2022 compared to July 2021. Last month, police recorded 4,588 grand larcenies, which under New York law are thefts of cash or property worth more than $1,000. That was up by 1,326 from the 3,262 recorded in July 2021.

Robberies were up 37% in July 2022 compared to July 2021. Police counted 1730 robberies in July 2022, up by 469 from July 2021.

Despite the bump in July, New York City’s murder rate is down 4% so far in 2022 compared to 2022. Police have recorded 253 slayings so far this year, compared with 264 in the first seven months of 2021. Shooting incidents are down 9% so far this year, with 816 reported in 2022 compared with 894 at the same point in 2021.

But increases in other crimes have boosted the citywide crime rate year to date by 37%, police data shows. nydailynews.com

NYC's Bail Reform 'Atom Bomb'
Ex-NYPD top aide John Miller: Bail reform was ‘atom bomb’ that ‘set us back a decade’
A former top NYPD official said Sunday that state lawmakers “set us back a decade” by dropping an “atom bomb” on the criminal-justice system with their 2019 bail-reform laws.

Ex-Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller blasted the state’s bail-reform measures as “all ideology over common sense,” saying the laws were pushed by “advocates for people who commit crimes.”

Miller, who retired from the NYPD a few weeks ago after nearly a decade there, told radio’s “Cats Roundtable” that violent crime was at its lowest in 2018 and 2019 — before bail reform was passed in Albany.

“And then you saw crime start to climb, and it really set us back a decade in terms of shootings and murders, which is shame,” Miller told AM 770 host John Catsimatidis. “It’s like having a cure for a disease and then having the hospital take the vaccination away.”

Critics of bail reform, including NYC Mayor Eric Adams, have blasted the laws for allowing repeat offenders back on the streets and not jailing people accused of violent crimes before trial.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has suggested that judges are to blame for the ongoing surge of violence.

“[Legislators] balled [the reforms] into one budget bill and then snuck them out in the middle of the night. And we’ve been suffering from it ever since,” Miller said. “I don’t think anybody bothered to read them. I think it was all ideology over common sense.

“And I think the criminal-justice system is a complex ecosystem where you can make changes and adjustments, and there are reforms that made sense that are in there,” he said. “But you can’t do all of that at once and drop it like an atom bomb on a system that that’s complicated and not expect turmoil." nypost.com

Editor's Note: As pictured above, NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller spoke at the D&D Daily's 2018 "Live in NYC" dinner event, where he addressed a crowd of retail LP/AP executives, solution providers, and some from the law enforcement community on the NYPD's counter-terrorism efforts, "precision policing", and the importance of public-private partnerships in combatting organized retail crime.

Is Nationwide Violence Finally Leveling Off?
A Drop in Murders in the United States

Despite the grim headlines, 2022 is less violent so far than last year.

Crime, murder and mass shootings have dominated headlines this year. Just over the weekend, a shooting in Cincinnati wounded nine people, and another in Detroit killed one and wounded four.

But the full crime data tells a different story. Nationwide, shootings are down 4 percent this year compared to the same time last year. In big cities, murders are down 3 percent. If the decrease in murders continues for the rest of 2022, it will be the first year since 2018 in which they fell in the U.S.

The declines are small. But they are welcome news after two years of large increases left the murder rate nearly 40 percent higher than it had been.

One reason for hope: The likely causes of the spike in murders in 2020 and 2021 are receding. Disruptions related to Covid probably led to more murders and shootings by shutting down social services, which had kept people safe, and closing schools, which left many teens idle. But the U.S. has opened back up, which will likely help reverse the effects of the last two years on violent crime.

The aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 also likely caused more violence, straining police-community relations and diminishing the effectiveness of law enforcement. That effect, too, has eased as public attention has shifted away from high-profile episodes of police brutality.

2020 was a chaotic year overall, with Covid, protests about police and a presidential election. This turmoil fostered social discord and anomie, which also could contribute to murders: As people lose trust in each other and their institutions, they are more likely to lash out in crime and violence. As the chaos recedes, the violence may be receding as well.

A balanced view

Experts caution against making too much of the year’s trends. The decreases so far are relatively small, and they could end up a blip. Robberies and some property crimes are up in big U.S. cities. And America still has far more gun violence than its peers, largely because of widespread gun ownership. But the trend, right now, is heading in a good direction. nytimes.com

Amazon's Response to Crime Surge
Amazon Closes Seattle Store Over Safety Concerns

Closing Marks Company's Second Safety Move in Its Hometown, Latest Withdrawal by Big-Name Retailer

One of Amazon's pioneering Amazon Go retail locations in its hometown of Seattle has been closed, a victim — at least for the time being — of crime and safety concerns in the city.

The move is Amazon's second safety-driven withdrawal in the city in six months and the latest announcement of such a closing by a major U.S. retailer.

“We have temporarily closed our Amazon Go store at 4th & Pike in Seattle for the safety of our store employees, customers and third-party vendors, and are hopeful conditions in the area will improve and we can reopen in the future," an Amazon spokesperson said in an email, adding that employees had been offered positions at other Amazon stores.

Amazon grabbed headlines in March when it announced the reassignment of 1,800 employees from the nearby office building at 300 Pine St., one of the dozens of properties the company leases or owns in the city center. An Amazon Go store in that building also closed recently, though the reason could not be determined.

The Fourth Avenue Amazon Go store is the latest in a wave of closings, withdrawals or other restrictions enacted by retailers as cities nationwide have struggled to erase pandemic-magnified blight and street crime from their urban cores. Among the most noted was Walgreens' decision in October to close five San Francisco stores because of what it referred to as "organized retail crime." costar.com

Mall of America Bolsters Security After Latest Shooting
Security boosted at Mall of America following shooting in Nike store
After a gunman fired inside a crowded Nike store at the Mall of America on Thursday, work is underway to prevent another shooting inside the massive shopping complex. The Bloomington mall reopened Friday with more security in place. However, the Nike store remains closed as investigators work to find the gunman and another man.

As police piece together what happened, store managers in the mall are doing their own debriefing. April Kimball, the store manager at Home & Beyond, had gone through a similar experience on New Year's Eve, when a gunman opened fire on the mall's third level, injuring two people, one of them a bystander.

Kimball says that the response from her staff to this most-recent shooting was less chaotic and more like a drill. Her staff, which includes her two daughters, locked the doors, turned off the lights, and took themselves and about a dozen customers into the back room.

Dozens of security cameras cover the ceilings inside the Mall of America. One of them is located near the Nike store. However, police have not yet released the surveillance footage. Shoppers and store managers at the mall Friday said they noticed extra officers in uniform, as well as some under cover officers, wearing earpieces and carrying two-way radios.

Crowd sizes, the managers estimated, appeared to be slightly below normal. cbsnews.com

Police Response Times to Retailers Won't be Improving Any Time Soon
‘We’re triaging’: Cops combat violent crime as ranks dwindle
From Philadelphia to Portland to Los Angeles, killings and gun violence are rising at the same time officers worn out by the pandemic and disillusioned over the calls to divest from policing that followed George Floyd’s murder are quitting or retiring faster than they can be replaced.

Departments are scrambling to recruit in a tight labor market and also rethinking what services they can provide and what role police should play in their communities. Many have shifted veteran officers to patrol, breaking up specialized teams built over decades in order to keep up with 911 calls.

Police Executive Forum (PERF) Survey: Police Workforce Trends

● RESIGNATIONS: Increases in resignations were more significant. Agencies reported an overall 18% increase in the resignation rate in 2020-21, compared to 2019-20.

● RETIREMENTS: Increases in retirements were even larger. Among all responding police departments, there was a 45% increase in the retirement rate. (In small departments, a small number of retirements may result in a high percentage increase in the retirement rate. But even in the largest agencies, with 500 or more officers, the retirement rate increased by 27%.) apnews.com

Should Mall of America get metal detectors at the door? Security expert weighs in

Video: Preventing the next shooting inside the Mall of America

In Case You Missed It

Amazon Streams "Philly D.A."
The Progressive Who Defined the Progressive Movement

'Philly D.A.'

Follow the rise of the progressive movement in the most incarcerated city in the U.S.

Backed by a $1.2M George Soros donation Larry Krasner, a former 25 year civil rights attorney, intends to turn the system upside down. And quite vocal about his absolute commitment to the progressive movement.

Retail theft is a major discussion point hot button throughout the series.

These 8 60-minute episodes follows Krasner's campaign and first year in office. amazon.com
 

US: 93.9M Cases - 1M Dead - 89M Recovered
Worldwide: 589.6M Cases - 6.4M Dead - 561.1M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 787
*Red indicates change in total deaths

Never-Ending Nightmare for Front Line Workers
For essential workers who suffered through COVID, monkeypox is déjà vu

Union officials warn they are seeing the same plodding response to monkeypox that they saw in COVID-19

Even though hundreds are still dying from COVID every day and several thousand are hospitalized in the U.S., the pandemic has receded into the mid-summer background hum of American life. Variants come and go, and whatever residual risks exist for essential workers in healthcare or congregant care we expect them to just suck it up.

Just like the ever present risk of workplace violence, including the potential for a random assault rifle attack, it's all part of the implicit 21st century take-it-or-leave-it social contract imposed on the essential workforce. Hazard pay? What hazard?

Now, freshly mixed into the risk-threat matrix for nurses and other front line workers, exposure to the monkeypox virus — which the New York Times reported was "a virus similar to smallpox" but with symptoms that were "less severe." The virus, which originated in Africa and was first seen in the late 1950s, is primarily spread through close physical contact, like sex, but does pose some occupational health risk for healthcare and other frontline workers in congregant care or hospitality settings.

Public health experts and union officials warn they are seeing the same plodding response to the monkeypox virus that was so evident during the onset of COVID — when the lack of testing and contact tracing gave the virus a running head start. And as with COVID, the failure to contain and limit the occupational health exposure to the virus put the broader society at risk as healthcare workers inadvertently spread COVID. salon.com

Fall COVID Surge Will Fuel More Remote Work
New Covid Variants Will Fuel Fully Remote Work This Fall

Remote work will win this fall as the threat of new COVID variants looms large.

The monumental battle over fully remote work is heating up this summer as more traditionalist business leaders are demanding that their employees come to the office much or all of the time. The Biden administration predicts COVID variants may lead to 100 million infections in the fall.

During both the Delta surge and the Omicron surge, traditionalist companies that tried to force their employees back to the office, and experienced extensive drama and stress over this approach, had to roll back their plans.

Besides, going back and forth from home to the office and back home seriously undermined productivity, harmed engagement and morale, and impaired retention and recruitment. We’ll see the exact same yo-yo effect at Tesla, Apple, Google, and other companies led by traditionalist executives in a few months. psychologytoday.com

Employer Response to Monkeypox
Monkeypox: What Does this Mean for Employers?
The latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has barely been contained, yet employers are now being hit with employee inquiries related to monkeypox. As this virus spreads, states and localities are declaring emergencies while employers are struggling to determine how to respond to this new challenge, including what steps they should take to protect their employees in the face of potential outbreaks.

The good news is that, unlike COVID-19, the monkeypox virus is not as transmissible in the workplace, medical experts are more familiar with the virus's transmissibility and symptoms (because it is not a “novel” virus) and vaccines for monkeypox already exist. Employers should note, however, that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) requires them to maintain a safe workplace for all employees and in all places of employment, and that individuals infected with monkeypox may require a longer recovery period as compared to COVID-19 and other common viruses. littler.com

Seattle Ending COVID Hazard Pay for Grocery Store Workers

Fauci warns of ‘trouble’ for those with BA.5 variant if not up to date on vaccines

Monkeypox Not Likely to Spread Through Workplace, Travel

Facial Recognition Tech: Balancing Safety Benefits & Privacy Concerns
Supermarket chain under fire over its use of ‘Orwellian’ facial recognition technology and ‘secret watch-lists’ to cut crime
A British supermarket chain is facing a legal challenge over its use of “Orwellian” facial recognition technology and “secret watch-lists” to cut crime in its stores.

The Southern Co-op chain, which has stores across the south of the U.K., has come under fire from Big Brother Watch, a privacy group, which described the group’s FaceWatch security system as “Orwellian in the extreme,” “deeply unethical” and “chilling.”

In a complaint to the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office, Big Brother Watch said: “The supermarket is adding customers to secret watch-lists with no due process, meaning shoppers can be spied on, blacklisted across multiple stores and denied food shopping despite being entirely innocent.”

Southern Co-op’s technology captures images of customers as they enter, converts those images into biometric data, and compares that information to a database of known individuals who have committed crimes or displayed antisocial behavior in their stores. It is a list of individuals identified by the company—not a list of people with criminal convictions.

In response, the supermarket told Fortune: “We would welcome any constructive feedback from the ICO as we take our responsibilities around the use of facial recognition extremely seriously and work hard to balance our customers’ rights with the need to protect our colleagues and customers from unacceptable violence and abuse.”

The supermarket added that, “The system does not store images of an individual unless they have been identified and evidenced as an offender, including those who have been banned/excluded.”  fortune.com

Security Staff Shortages As Rowdy Crowds Increase
After Reopening, Sports Venues Attract Rowdy Crowds but not Security Staff
The National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) surveyed North American professional sports venue security leaders earlier this year to learn how they are maintaining or improving security operations, and what sort of new and evolving challenges they face.

Despite outsourcing 90% outsourcing security, 95 percent of the security professionals surveyed said they experienced staff shortages over the past two years.

So why are venues short-staffed? Most security directors cited COVID-19 (86.8 percent), followed by staff simply not turning up for work (84.2 percent). Seventy percent of survey participants said absenteeism among security staff has increased since the start of the pandemic.

While they're increasing recruiting and retention benefits and programs these efforts have helped, she says, however, venue security directors are still having trouble meeting pre-COVID staff numbers. asisonline.com

Price Gouging Investigation
Tyson Foods refusing to comply with subpoena for meat price gouging probe, NY attorney general says
Tyson Foods Inc, one of the largest U.S. meat producers, is refusing to comply with a subpoena for a civil probe into possible price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic, New York's attorney general said on Wednesday.

Letitia James, the attorney general, asked a state judge in Manhattan to require Tyson to turn over materials including contractual terms, prices, and profit margins for its sales of meat to New York retailers from December 2019 to April 2022.

James said Tyson stopped complying after providing "limited" information, based on the Springdale, Arkansas-based company's "novel and unfounded argument" that New York's price gouging law did not apply to meat imported from outside the state. yahoo.com

Disappearing Shopping Baskets?
Customers stealing shopping baskets instead of buying bags, NJ supermarkets say
Shortly after New Jersey enacted a strict plastic bag ban three months ago, employees at the Aberdeen ShopRite noticed something unusual — the store’s handheld plastic shopping baskets were vanishing.

They soon realized brazen shoppers who didn’t bring their own bags and didn’t want to buy 33-cent reusable bags were simply leaving the store with their groceries stuffed in the shopping baskets.

“They were taking them out and never returned,” said an Aberdeen ShopRite employee who declined to give her name. “We went down to no hand baskets at all.” nj.com

The Toys 'R' Us Revival Continues
Toys ‘R’ Us locations: Full list of Macy stores where the iconic toy retailer has reopened
The iconic toy retailer has reopened in nine states, with dozens more locations set to open before the holiday shopping season.

CVS Closing Multiple Locations in August & September

Walmart Layoff Fallout: 3 issues that have plagued the company

FDA Infant Formula Update: August 5, 2022
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

Director of Loss Prevention job posted for HMS Host in Bethesda, MD
The Director Loss Prevention is responsible for overseeing the company’s Loss Prevention efforts in order to protect the company’s assets, including money, product and employees; and performing all other responsibilities as directed by the business or as assigned by management. This is a management position and typically reports to the VP Finance North America Operations. careers.hmshost.com