The Weekly Briefing 🇺🇸

Curated news and insights for police leaders, technologists, and researchers

Jul 14, 2025

Rural Shootings on the Rise
In 2024, U.S. law-enforcement agencies recorded 1,260 fatal shootings—the highest annual total since tracking began—with county sheriff’s offices involved in a third of those cases despite representing roughly 25% of agencies; killings by sheriffs rose 43% from 2013 to 2024, compared with a 3% increase for municipal police. In one high-profile incident, Otero County (N.M.) Deputy Jacob Diaz-Austin, responding at over 120 mph to a welfare check, fired approximately 40 rounds at 17-year-old Elijah Hadley—18 after Hadley had fallen to the ground holding a BB gun—and now faces first-degree murder charges. Rural deputies typically patrol alone across large areas, receive an average of 38 annual in-service training hours (versus 46 for city police), and frequently contend with mental-health and substance-use crises on limited budgets. 🔗 Read more

DHS Intelligence Unit Pauses Cuts
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has temporarily halted plans to lay off roughly 75% of its workforce—cuts that would have reduced staff to under 300—after objections from law-enforcement associations, Jewish community groups, and lawmakers who warned that the deep reductions risk crippling the agency’s ability to share timely threat information. I&A, created post-9/11 to relay intelligence to state and local partners, has faced long-standing calls for reform but drew fresh controversy over its role in domestic surveillance. The paused cuts align with broader White House efforts to slim federal agencies, but the agency’s future staffing and structure remain under active review. 🔗 Read more

Durham Police Jager the Belgian Malinois puppy. He has tan-coloured fur, which is black around his big eyes and nose. His ears are standing up but the tips have flopped down and are pointing at the floor. His head is poking out of a large police dog handler vest.

Stray Puppy Joins Durham Police
Durham (UK) Police has officially welcomed Jager, an eight-week-old Belgian Malinois found as a stray in Hartlepool, into its Dog Support Unit as a trainee general-purpose police dog. After being rescued by Stray Aid, Jager was vetted for police work and will spend the next 12–18 months training to track suspects and locate missing persons. He joins three newly qualified explosive-detection springer spaniels—Gracie, Angus, and Teddy—who will serve both locally and at high-profile events across the UK. 🐕 Read more

Mid-Year 2025 Officer Deaths Down 53%
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s mid-year report, 42 officers died in the line of duty during the first half of 2025—53% fewer than the 89 fatalities recorded in the same period of 2024. Firearms remain the leading cause with 22 deaths (down 21%), followed by 13 traffic-related fatalities (down 50%), and seven “other” line-of-duty deaths—including health-related cases—a striking 80% decrease. Of the fallen, 39 were male and three female, with an average age of 43 and 13 years of service; each left behind roughly two children. 📋 Full report

American Gun Violence Goes Global
The United States endures over 600 mass shootings annually—making gun violence the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1–17—and its pattern of school and public massacres has begun to spread abroad: researchers document copycat incidents in at least 35 politically and economically similar countries, from the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack in New Zealand to the Austrian school massacre in Graz last month, often directly inspired by U.S. shooters like Columbine and Virginia Tech. While America’s per-capita firearm death rate has remained steady over 50 years, mass‐shooting incidents have surged, exporting a “cultural script” of targeted violence that undermines U.S. soft power, prompts travel advisories from allies, and fuels foreign critiques of U.S. gun laws—highlighting how domestic policy gaps now have concrete global repercussions. 🌎 Read more

Crime Gun Intelligence Center Spurs Decline
Chicago has seen a double-digit drop in nearly every major violent-crime category through mid-2025—homicides are down over 30%, aggravated assaults by 16%, robberies by 34%, motor-vehicle thefts by 28%, and more—thanks in part to the Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) launched in spring 2024. Housed under one roof, the CGIC teams Chicago Police with Cook County prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies, ATF, FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, Secret Service, Illinois State Police, and other federal partners to process ballistics and DNA evidence months faster than before. With 191 homicides recorded through June—the fewest in a decade—and 44 related arrests already made, Supt. Larry Snelling credits the CGIC’s rapid intel sharing and multiagency collaboration for allowing CPD to target shooters more strategically and drive down violent crime. 🕵️‍♂️ Read more

Correctly Benchmarking Police Stops
A new study of Philadelphia police stops illustrates how relying on simple population figures as a benchmark drastically overstates perceived racial disparities: while Black motorists appeared 4.4 times more likely to be stopped than White drivers using citywide population rates, alternative denominators—such as calls for service, hot-spot crime locations, or suspect and arrestee data from NIBRS—shrink that gap dramatically and even reverse it in some cases. By comparing nine different exposure measures, the authors show that “naïve” denominators ignore where officers actually concentrate their patrols and the populations they encounter. The findings underscore the importance of selecting benchmarks that reflect departmental priorities—whether violent-crime hotspots, high-priority calls, or community-reported suspect characteristics—to yield a more accurate picture of stop practices and guide equitable, data-driven policing. 📖 Study here

NJ State Police Unions Sue to Block Profiling Probe
Three unions representing New Jersey State Police—Non-Commissioned Officers, Fraternal, and Superior Officers associations—have filed suit against Attorney General Matt Platkin to quash five April subpoenas and bar his outside counsel from probing alleged racial-profiling slowdowns in traffic enforcement. The unions argue that Platkin’s 2023 report (covering 2009–21 stops) already subjected troopers to rigorous civilian and internal oversight, and they characterize his grand-jury subpoenas as unconstitutional retaliation and “union busting.” Tensions date back to legislative efforts to remove the State Police from the AG’s control and troopers’ 2023 warnings about traffic-stop scrutiny, which coincided with a documented drop in stops and prompted Platkin to appoint Preet Bharara to lead the criminal investigation. 🔗 Read more

FHP Clinches Third Straight Crown
The Florida Highway Patrol’s black-and-tan Corvette—seized in a drug bust—won America’s “Best Looking Cruiser” contest for the third year in a row and will grace the 2026 American Association of State Troopers (AAST) calendar, with proceeds funding scholarships for troopers’ children. 🚔 Read more

Police Roll Out Real-Time Translation
Joliet officers are deploying Axon Body 4 cameras that provide two-way, real-time voice translation in over 50 languages. The cameras automatically detect the language being spoken and translate both the officer’s and civilian’s speech during interactions. Deputy Chief Chris Botzum noted the technology will help officers communicate—and even share a lighthearted moment—when language barriers previously prevented understanding — in a city where more than 28% of residents speak only non-English languages. 📷 Read more

Florida Teen Handgun Carrying Up
A study in Pediatrics reports that general handgun carrying among Florida adolescents climbed from 3.7% in 2002 to 6.0% in 2022—a 65% increase—driven notably by rises among females, middle‐schoolers, and White students. Researchers analyzed responses from over 700,000 participants in the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey and found that, despite this overall uptick, in‐school carrying fell 60% (from 1.1% to 0.4%) alongside a 39% drop in favorable attitudes toward school gun possession. The authors recommend tailoring early prevention efforts to specific demographics—especially female and younger teens—while continuing attention to rural and male youth, and call for further research into how school‐safety measures and security presence may influence these divergent trends. 🔫 Read more

Precision Policing: Drones and “Street Segments”
Police Chief Teresa Theetge highlighted Cincinnati’s new approach to combating crime by harnessing drone technology—equipped with spotlights and PA systems—to conduct after-dark surveillance in hotspots like Smale Park, enabling officers to detect and deter criminal activity remotely. She also stressed the task force’s focus on targeted “street segments” rather than broad neighborhoods, concentrating patrols where violent incidents and drug-related offenses cluster to maximize impact, recover firearms, and execute timely arrests. 🔗 Read more

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