A license plate reader camera mounted on a pole beside a city street, with graphic overlays showing plate reads labeled no alerts, stolen vehicle, and warrant.

The Flock Effect

Communities across the country are taking a hard look at license plate readers. Police have had access to restricted national databases for more than five decades, and officers who abuse them lose their jobs and face charges. The technology is newer. The argument is not.

A police officer in silhouette wearing a Uvalde shoulder patch, standing before the Robb Elementary School sign surrounded by memorial crosses and flowers.

Not Guilty in Uvalde

A Texas jury acquitted one of the two officers charged over the response to the Uvalde school shooting. The failures that day were failures of command, not crimes, and the District Attorney should have known the difference.

Two people seated in a darkened room watching body camera footage on a screen, one covering his face, a deputy's hat and flowers on a memorial plinth beside them.

What the Family Sees

Jurisdictions are releasing unedited shooting video to the families of the deceased. In Cincinnati, a father watched his son die on video and then killed a deputy who had nothing to do with it. Transparency has a cost.

Travel mug, flashlight, pen, keys, folding knife and screwdriver on a table beside a copy of the Ohio Revised Code, police lights in the background.

What constitutes a weapon?

A weapon is best described as anything that is not used for its intended purpose. Police academies teach the use of deadly force to neutralize a threat. But when the threat is a moving vehicle, shooting the driver does not stop it. That is a training issue.

Larry Henderson Featured Image

A Badge in a Crowd

Larry Henderson gave thirty-seven years to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, retired, and went back to work three days later. He was killed directing traffic at a graduation by a man who had never met him. A friend writes on the deputy he was, and on the bill that carries his name.