Justice and Public Safety

The L.A. Police Commission, pointing to success at other departments around the nation, has approved an updated policy letting drones be used in more situations. These include “calls for service.”

A new aircraft there has room for one person, can land on water, is equipped with a parachute, and can fly at night, costing less than a helicopter as well as needing less time to get airborne.

The city’s police department is seeking funding for license plate reader cameras with artificial intelligence. If approved, the devices would be able to automatically alert those associated with a police report.

Drones as first responders is a growing program in police departments across the country, and Virginia Beach will soon be the first city in its region to use the technology.

Drones and aircraft were key in Minnesota's largest manhunt, helping capture an armed and dangerous man without further violence, reflecting a broader trend of law enforcement's growing reliance on aviation technology.

A new State of the 9-1-1 Industry report examines the barriers governments face as they work toward Next-Generation 911, including aging equipment, lack of funding and difficulty coordinating with other agencies.

Officials in Grand Traverse County, Mich., are seeking county board approval for an artificial intelligence-powered “call taking system” that would help identify and reroute non-emergency calls to 911.

The City Council in San Rafael voted unanimously this month to renew the San Rafael Police Department's military equipment use policy, which included introducing a new drone program.

A real-time crime center can be a force multiplier for law enforcement. Using the power of AI and cloud-based technologies, together with a foundation of community trust, is the future of policing.

The three devices are still being deployed in the town, the first municipality to gain state approval for automated cameras. Already, several repeat speeders have emerged, along with $21,000 from two weeks of fines.

A Minnesota solar company is suing Google for defamation, claiming the tech company’s AI Overview falsely stated that the company faced a lawsuit from the Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

Florida Highway Patrol has tapped a vast private surveillance network — searching hundreds of license plates scanned by cameras controlled by a surveillance company — to aid immigration crackdowns.

Working with a journalist who spent 50 years reviewing publicly available hazing data, the University of Maine and the University of Washington have developed a database with histories of those who have died.

County Board members voted for public safety items that will stand up new electronic home monitoring services for offenders, and pay for a bomb robot resembling a dog, to be used in perilous situations.

Days after the university ended its relationship with private security firms, an open letter signed by 800 students, faculty, staff and alumni criticized the timing and placement of cameras in the Diag and Law Quad.

The proposed legislation would permit county courts to use “AI or other machine-assisted translation tools” with or instead of human interpreters in civil or criminal proceedings.

The Dayton Police Department may soon use gunshot detection technology, drones and license plate readers to try to reduce crime in several hot spot neighborhoods in west and northwest Dayton.

The San Francisco Police Department is experimenting with artificial intelligence software that can extract information from body-worn camera recordings to produce first drafts of incident reports.