Camden City Council Approves Massive Police And Fire Layoffs

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2010/12/02/camden-city-council-approves-massive-police-and-fire-layoffs/

So how is your city doing?
Choices are going to have to be made people.
Get informed on the specifics of your city or county budget.
It would seem to me, that somewhere, something less dire than your police or fire department budgets could be cut.



Camden City Council, as expected, voted Thursday to lay off almost 400 workers, half of them police officers and firefighters, to bridge a $26.5 million deficit.

That’s about a quarter of the city’s entire work force.

Five members of City Council voted unanimously to approve the layoff plan — two other members were absent. The cuts take effect in mid-January.

Exactly how many city workers will be affected is still an open question, although nearly half the city’s police and a third of the firefighters are slated to go.

Karl Walco (right) is with the union that represents non-uniformed Camden city workers.

“If we agreed to everything that the city proposed in concessions, it would only have a minor impact on the number of layoffs

Police to experiment with blinding 'Dazer Laser'?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20011548-71.html

This sounds like a nightmare for the innocent bystander.
My first thought after learning the range of this laser is up to a mile and a half was I wonder what the death toll will be from car accidents from people driving by when they use one of these things.

Perhaps "Don't Dazer Laser me, bro" doesn't quite trip off the tongue. However, police in the Northwest may soon be experimenting with the Dazer Laser, a tool which, well, shoots, blinds, and disorients.

The Dazer Laser is a gun that emits a green light at suspects and causes them to temporarily lose their sight and wonder whether they might have been transported to an alternative galaxy. And, according to King 5 News in Seattle, police in the Northwest might soon be the first to experiment with zapping a green light at a suspected evildoer.

The Dazer Laser, allegedly, has less deleterious side effects than tasers and enjoys a greater distance of use than pepper spray.

But perhaps the most extraordinary claim is that these little babies might be efficacious from not merely 3 feet but up to one and a half miles. The Laser Energetics site (which, I warn you, offers some rather pulsating music) says that the Dazer Laser not only blinds and confuses, but might also make you feel a little sick.

The effects might last "up to hours, depending on the threats physiology," says the site.

BART police pull Tasers, will retrain officers

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/16/MNK81CVF03.DTL




(04-15) 18:47 PDT OAKLAND -- The BART Police Department stripped its officers of Tasers on Thursday, days after a sergeant fired the electric darts of his stun gun at a 13-year-old boy fleeing from police in Richmond on his bicycle, sources told The Chronicle.

BART officials, who said officers would be retrained to use the devices, attributed the decision to the Richmond incident as well as a recent federal court ruling that narrowed the circumstances under which police can use Tasers.

The officials said they could not comment on the Richmond case, citing privacy laws that apply to internal investigations. Interim Police Chief Dash Butler said only that the incident accelerated plans that were already in progress to retrain officers and update policies on the proper use of Tasers, which BART police began using in December 2008.

Sources familiar with the matter, however, told The Chronicle that a veteran sergeant in a moving patrol car fired his Taser several days ago at the 13-year-old boy, who was fleeing from an altercation at BART's Richmond Station on a bicycle.

The darts missed the boy, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/16/MNK81CVF03.DTL#ixzz0lH2mN4hA