Motorola unveils the LEX 700

Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

Consider this hypothetical. An elderly man is separated from his wallet by an armed assailant at approximately 1805 hours on a Wednesday evening. The first officer to respond arrives at 1808, and observes the old guy to be rattled but unhurt. The victim gives — at best — a muddled description. “Medium, maybe...”, “Medium, I guess...”, and “Hell, I don’t know...”

All the old guy can really remember is “the gigantic black gun.” The cop calls it in at 1810. Seconds later, a man is spotted by another officer who had just then been arriving as backup. He fits the description — sort of — and is seen entering a one-story building in a small industrial park. The business appears dark and quiet, but it’s only 1811 hours, and there’s a very real possibility that some employees may still be at work.

Pretty common-sounding scenario so far, right?

Not Uncommon, But Potentially Complicated When the inner- and outer-perimeters are set and a command post has been established — it’s not even yet half past six in the evening — nobody really knows for sure who suspect is. But at 1829 hours, another photo comes in — it’s the perp in the very clothes he’s wearing today, snapped by a person who witnessed the robbery and surreptitiously grabbed a remarkably-good picture on her iPhone. If you zoom in, you can even discern the type of pistol in his hand.

The old guy, standing beside our first first responder, sees it too. “No doubt about it, that’s the guy,” he says.

We’re looking at a ‘regular customer’ who has recently been released from a brief stint in County. A prior booking photo is now distributed, along with a detailed history of the violator’s past encounters with law enforcement. Multiple assaults. The whole nine yards.

At 1832, an email comes in — everyone who works in the building has clocked out and gone home, according to a supervisor who monitors ‘the time clock’ (more accurately, ‘the overtime’), the inventory, and everything else in his small business... except an unannounced armed man in his shop right around the time the six-o’clock news takes its third commercial break.

At 1833, detailed building plans have been beamed to every cop at the scene. Seconds later, an ‘A’ and then a ‘B’ and a ‘C’ and a ‘D’ suddenly appear on the four walls of the structure’s image each copper is looking at. Further, an ‘X’ appears inside a room where the suspect is believed to be hiding.

At 1834, a every cop on scene gets a text message indicating that a live video stream inside that ‘X room’ has been made available thanks to the security company whose cameras cover the whole facility. Somebody, someplace, is giving all the law enforcers involved some very important, real-time and/or near-real-time tactical information.

A red line — like the ‘John Madden Telestrator’ used on broadcasts of NFL football games — then appears on the floor plan, running from the back entrance, through a storage area, past the kitchen equipment, directly to the cafeteria.

One click, and everyone is looking through the lens of a full-color pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera in the cafeteria, controlled remotely by the LT at the CP. Sure enough, there’s our a__hole... very lonely, and before the top of the hour, very, very busted.

Science, Not Science Fiction Whereabouts in the above hypothetical did things stop seeming like a ‘pretty common-sounding scenario?’

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that all those plans and videos and pictures — they were all sent to a handheld device not much bigger than your typical ‘Droid’ mobile phone and all the data was encrypted on a proprietary, public-safety-only, 700 MHz, Band 14 network owned and operated by the city.

I’m really sorry to ‘bury the lede’ like this, but I wanted to paint you a picture which would illustrate the geek-speak which follows. The technology described above is all very doable, and according to what I saw today from Motorola at IWCE 2012, it’s also going to be available to police officers around the time the 2012 World Series gets underway.

Now... The Rest of the Story Apologies to Paul Harvey, Motorola today announced the LEX 700, a ruggedized and compact handheld device designed to deliver data, photos, video, and voice quickly, reliably, and securely over multiple networks. I told you there would be geek-speak. Read on for more.

Very light — I don’t know, maybe a half pound in weight? — the LEX 700 packs a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM memory, something like six different wireless antennas, an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera, and a 740x480 DVD-quality video camera. Oh, and it meets (or surpasses) MIL-STD-810G Method 516.6 Procedure IV drop testing.

I used to do PR work for a very famous rugged computer manufacturer, and I’ve been known to perform demonstrations in that role which are far outside the realm of reasonable (yes, I’ve destroyed a laptop computer... or two). A Motorola guy handed me his prototype LEX 700 on the show floor at IWCE today, but when I realized he had seen the devilish glint in my eye, I decided not to test that Mil-Spec rating.

Nonetheless, I can tell you firsthand that thing is rock solid.

The LEX 700 will run on emerging public safety LTE, and will also ‘roam’ to Verizon’s 4G LTE, 3G EV-DO, and 1X RTT networks. It can also connect with the 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi networks which are increasingly prevalent in many municipalities. It can join a Project 25 (P25) radio talk group via a P25-LTE gateway. I’m told that a version for the AT&T wireless carrier network is also pending.

Yeah, There’s an App for That Unsurprisingly, Motorola has developed a set of applications designed to provide first responders with “unprecedented access to intuitive multimedia applications that increase situational awareness, enhance tactical collaboration, and enable greater in-field productivity,” according to Motorola literature distributed today at IWCE.

With rich-media applications designed for public safety from Motorola and other third-party developers, agencies will have access to unprecedented use cases such as:

• A shared operational view of an incident with high-quality, real-time video pulled from fixed and mobile cameras or streamed to the field from the command center • Tracking information from mobile computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and real-time collaboration software lets everyone see the positions of field assets and know where they need to be next • Everyday tasks like ticket writing, identity verification and suspect booking are handled within minutes on the scene, and transmitted directly to headquarters so there’s no need to file paperwork

All that bullet-list stuff is directly quoted from the Motorola press release, but from what I saw in today’s event, there’s a very clear path for existing applications now being used on a variety of mobile devices to also be integrated into the LEX 700. The Motorola folks have developed some manner of API layer which will, according to what I was told today, accommodate whatever application your PD has deems to be essential.

I’m a geek. Big time. And even I don’t understand the engineering this type of promise must require. So, following today’s little press event, I asked one Motorola guy at their booth, “Just so I’m clear, if it can connect to the network, you can connect it to the device?”

He nodded, and said, “Yes.”

Interesting. Rugged-as-hell, real-time, handheld tactical Intel for cops.

Hello, Moto.

Police chief: Video refutes blogger's 'babysitting while white' story
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By PoliceOne Staff

AUSTIN, Texas — Dash cam video contradicts an Austin blogger's claims that officers responding to a kidnapping call drew TASERs and roughly handcuffed him as he walked with his granddaughter.

On Feb. 10, police detained Scott Henson while responding to a call about a kidnapping involving a white man and a black girl at a youth complex, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The post on Henson's "Grits for Breakfast" blog, which garnered international attention, said a Travis County deputy questioned Henson's relationship with his granddaughter, who he was walking with. The deputy released them after questioning, and a short time later, APD officers approached.

"The officers got out with Tasers drawn demanding I raise my hands and step away from the child," he wrote. "I complied, and they roughly cuffed me, jerking my arms up behind me needlessly. Nine police cars plus the deputy constable all showing up to investigate the heinous crime of 'baby-sitting while white.'"

During a news conference Tuesday Police Chief Art Acevedo said officers responded appropriately, and video shows an officer calmly trying to ascertain if a kidnapping occurred. Henson refused to identify himself to the first responding officer, Acevedo said, which led to officers stopping him later.

In an email Friday, Henson asked police not to release the video.

Acevedo replied: "Scott, unfortunately we can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. You called us out on our response and I am in a position that I must show those interested that our officers not only reacted properly, but in an outstanding manner."

Henson watched the video last week and said his blog post had errors, but he still felt threatened by police.

New sport combines soccer, 'Tazers'
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By PoliceOne Staff

TORONTO — A new sport combining soccer and "Tazers" is not an Internet hoax, insists a man who started a league he wants to take worldwide.

Ultimate Tazer Ball is "a new game in which players use stun guns to floor their opponents," according to CBC News. A game has yet to be played, but a website advertises four teams and a promotional YouTube video. In the video, player interviews are interspersed with players shocking each other while running and kicking a giant soccer ball. The over-the-top sequences shot in an indoor soccer field appear to be comical.

"It hurts man, it doesn't feel good," one player says about getting hit. "That's why the cops use them."

The weapons are not as powerful as those in law enforcement, said Eric Prum, 25, who founded Ultimate Tazer Ball with German business partner Erik Wunsch.

"If you think it's a police-grade Taser or a lethal or cardiac-inducing Taser, then you could think it's a step too far," Prum said. "But the stun guns we're using are far below the amperage to cause any damage like that. So it's more of a useful tool in an action sport than anything."

Prum said to watch for a tournament in Bangkok, scheduled for March.

"It's not fake," Prum said. "We're very serious about it.”

Sheriff Joe: Birther investigation is 'favor' to Obama
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By Jim Acosta St. Joseph News-Press

PHOENIX — Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, briefed GOP contender Rick Santorum on his investigation into President Barack Obama's birth certificate, the controversial law enforcement official told reporters Tuesday.

After a speech to a Republican gathering in Phoenix where Santorum appeared earlier in the day, Arpaio explained he wanted to inform the candidate of his investigation "as a matter of fairness in case he wouldn't want me to support him."

Arpaio said he plans to endorse one of the four remaining GOP candidates in the coming weeks. But the sheriff added he would not make his choice known before he announces the findings of his birth certificate probe at a news conference set for March 1st. This endorsement would be his second in the race; in November 2011, he endorsed then-candidate Rick Perry.

Santorum, he said, seemed to have no problem with the nature of his investigation.

"He had no problems with what I told him that I may be doing," Arpaio told reporters.

The sheriff said he is conducting the investigation after receiving requests from "the tea party."

Arpaio added he believes he is doing the president a favor.

"I really started this on the theory that maybe I could clear this mess up," Arpaio told reporters. "Wouldn't it be nice for me to do that?"

The White House released the president's birth certificate last year. Officials in Hawaii where Obama was born have verified its authenticity.

A federal Department of Justice investigation into Arpaio's office made public in December described "a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos at MCSO that reaches the highest levels of the agency."

He dismissed the allegations as a politically-driven "witch hunt."

Copyright 2012 St. Joseph News-Press

Supreme Court: Police cannot be sued over warrant
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By Jesse J. Holland Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Wednesday that California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that may have been defective to search a woman's house.

The high court threw out the lawsuit against Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Curt Messerschmidt and other police officials, who were being sued personally by Augusta Millender for the search on her house and confiscation of her shotgun.

Police were looking for her foster son, Jerry Ray Bowen, who had recently shot at his ex-girlfriend with a black sawed-off shotgun. She told police that he may be at his foster mother's house, so Messerschmidt got a warrant to look for any weapons on the property and gang-related material, since Bowen was supposed to be a member of the Mona Park Crips and the Dodge Park Crips. The detective had his supervisors approve the warrant before submitting to the district attorney and a judge, who also approved the warrant.

Bowen and his shotgun were not found at Millender's house, but police confiscated the 73-year-old Millender's shotgun.

The now-deceased Millender sued, saying the warrant was constitutionally overbroad because police had no right to look for any weapon at her house, only the weapon Bowen had used to shoot at his ex-girlfriend. She also argued that the shooting was a domestic incident, so police had no right to look for gang-material at her house.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court agreed, saying Messerschmidt and other officers should have known the warrant was overbroad and therefore lose the immunity that police normally would be granted against such lawsuits.

The court on a 6-3 vote overturned that decision.

"The officers' judgment that the scope of the warrant was supported by probable cause may have been mistaken, but it was not `plainly incompetent," said Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the court's majority opinion. "On top of all this, the fact that the officers sought and obtained approval of the warrant application from a superior and a deputy district attorney before submitting it to a magistrate provides further support for the conclusion that an officer could reasonably have believed that the scope of the warrant was supported by probable cause."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented from the majority.

"Qualified immunity properly affords police officers protection so long as they conduct is objectively reasonable," Sotomayor said. "But it is not objectively reasonable for police investigating a specific, non-gang related assault committed with a particular firearm to search for all evidence related to `any street gang,' `photographs ... which may depict evidence of criminal activity,' and all firearms."

In a separate dissent, Kagan pointed out that gang membership does not violate California law, "so the officers could not search for gang paraphilia just to establish Bowen's ties to the Crips."

The case is Messerschmidt v. Millender 10-704.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press

Video: Polite cop 'harasses' suspect
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By PoliceOne Staff

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Police released video Friday to challenge allegations officers harassed a man as he left his mother's house last week.

James Speet was stopped for tossing a cigarette pack on the ground while walking through a Grand Rapids area known for drug abuse and sales, MLive.com reported. In his police report, Officer Thomas Niemeyer wrote Speet "was cooperative" after the stop, and a consent search located nothing.

Niemeyer had Speet throw the pack into the trash as police checked for oustanding warrants. None were found, and he was let go, according to the report.

Attorney Miriam Aukerman told a federal court police detained and harassed Speet about his panhandling lawsuit against the city. In the video, the lawsuit is not mentioned and the conversation appears calm, polite and centered on a family member's health.

Internal Affairs looked into the allegations, and Police Chief Kevin Belk maintains Speet was not harassed.

Texas deputy fatally shoots suspect
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By Will Leschper Corpus Christi Caller-Times

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — An Aransas County sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man Saturday afternoon who attempted to draw a handgun on deputies.

Deputies were called about 4 p.m. to a travel trailer on Armstrong Road in Aransas County after a report of suspicious activity.

Upon arriving, deputies saw a man exit the trailer and walk toward them holding a knife, according to a news release.

One of the deputies drew a Taser and instructed the man to drop the knife. The man dropped the knife after deputies again instructed him as he walked past a vehicle.

The man then raised his shirt and reached for a handgun tucked into his jeans, according to the release. The deputy covering the other deputy then shot the man.

Emergency responders were called but couldn't revive the man. Precinct 2 Aransas County Justice of the Peace Diane McGinnis was called to the scene and ordered an autopsy, according to the release.

Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills said the investigation is being turned over to Texas Rangers.

The man's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The officers have been placed on leave, standard policy in an officer-involved shooting.

Copyright 2012 Corpus Christi Caller-Times

2 Fla. women dead in home, officers shoot suspect
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

WESH ORLANDO — Two women are dead and their suspected killer is hospitalized after an Orlando Police Department SWAT team surrounded a home on Bradleys Landing Street in the Lake Nona area.

Officers rushed to the home after neighbors heard gunshots there and called 911 late Sunday night.

"We were all hanging out on my back porch and we heard like five shots — really loud bangs," neighbor Tyler Israel said.

OPD says the man at the center of the standoff, identified as 46-year-old Elmer Banner, killed two women, Debra Banner, 46, and Carol Minich, 70.

Neighbors said SWAT set up a command center and tried to negotiate with the man inside the home for more than an hour before officers moved in.

However, Banner then tried to leave the home from a back door, officers said.

Lake Nona crime scene

"I don't know if he came out with a weapon, but he came out of the house and he was confronted by one of our officers," Sgt. Vince Ogburn said. "He was not obeying commands and he was subsequently shot twice by our officer."

Banner, was taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he is in stable condition.

Officers are calling the case one of deadly domestic violence.

Neighbors are shocked.

"We haven't had anything happen like this before," Israel said.

Elmer faces homicide charges, according to investigators.

Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will conduct a separate investigation, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.

Reprinted with permission from WESH

TASER's new tools: Body cameras and the Cloud
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

By Quentin Hardy The International Herald Tribune

SAN FRANCISCO — Sgt. Brandon Davis vividly recalled the moment before he killed Eric Wayne Berry, but it was not the way it really happened.

"I told him to drop his weapon, twice," said Sergeant Davis, a police officer who worked at the time in Fort Smith, Arkansas. But after repeated viewings of a video of the shooting, captured by a minicamera he was wearing, he said, "it turned out it was nine different times. He kept telling me to drop my weapon." When Mr. Berry raised his .45-caliber pistol toward the officer and leaned at an angle that could improve his marksmanship, Sergeant Davis said, he shot Mr. Berry in the heart.

The shooting, tragedy that it was, was speedily cleared by his superiors because the entire incident was captured on tape. "It happened at noon on a Wednesday," Sergeant Davis said. "I first watched it with the police psychiatrist on Thursday morning. I got out of there and I was cleared for work." He has watched it many times since then, to shed any lingering doubts about his course of action.

Sergeant Davis, who now works on the police force in nearby Greenwood, was testing a new kind of camera, to be worn by an officer, when his fatal encounter was recorded in November 2009. Since then, both the hardware and software in the system have been significantly modified by Taser International, the maker of the camera. Taser is better known for stun guns that deliver a painful and immobilizing electric shock.

On Tuesday, Taser was to announce a camera about the size of a cigar stub that weighs about half an ounce, or about 15 grams. The camera, which clips onto an officer's collar or sunglasses, can record two hours of video during a shift. The information is transferred by a docking station to a local machine, and eventually stored in a cloud-computing system that uses Taser's online evidence management system.

Taser, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, has had its share of controversies over its electric-shock guns, which Rick Smith, the company's co-founder and chief executive, says are used by 17,000 of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

Although it is sold as a nonlethal weapon, the device's safety has repeatedly been questioned. The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the company's safety claims in 2005 and 2006; while it took no action against Taser, the company's shares fell 78 percent in 2005 as sales declined. Law enforcement agencies with tight budgets also slowed their orders.

Fears about the safety of Tasers remain, despite company claims they are safer than nightsticks or guns. "Don't Tase Me, Bro," a video of a student receiving shocks at a political event in 2007, has been seen more than six million times on YouTube, keeping concerns high. Last spring, a team of cardiologists at the University of California, San Francisco, said Taser-related safety research might be biased because of ties with the company, something Taser denies.

Mr. Smith, who has had himself shocked in public with his products seven times in order to allay fears, said, "You have to lead from the front."

But the camera system, called Axon, is one way to defuse the controversies. Taser already has 55,000 minicameras mounted on Tasers. But the camera is set off only when the gun is drawn. It could do the same for police shootings. The video, however, would not capture the events leading up to that point and provides no context that might justify the weapon's use.

"One big reason to have these is defensive," Mr. Smith said. "Police spend $2 billion to $2.5 billion a year paying off complaints about brutality. Plus, people plead out when there is video."

Sergeant Davis says Mr. Berry's widow later claimed her husband was holding a cellphone, not a gun, but the video exonerated the officer.

In Taser's cloud evidence system, which resides on Amazon.com's cloud storage service, the videos can be tagged and labeled for record-keeping. The software has editing capabilities to protect the identities of some people captured on the video, like victims of child sex crimes or undercover officers. The video cannot be deleted while in the camera, though an officer can choose when to turn his camera on and off, something Mr. Smith does not think will happen often during confrontations because the videos could help clear law-abiding officers.

"When people know they are on camera, they act like better citizens," said Hadi Partovi, an Internet entrepreneur who is on Taser's board.

That goes for law enforcement officers, too, said Mr. Smith. "We have more cameras on cops than anyone else."

Jay Stanley, a policy analyst with the speech, privacy and technology project at the American Civil Liberties Union, was enthusiastic about the prospect of body cameras on law officers.

"We don't want the government watching the people when there is no reason, but we do support the people watching the government," he said. "There are concerns about police editing or deleting files, but over all, the cost and benefits make it worthwhile."

By holding the video evidence on remote servers, Taser hopes to help law enforcement agencies achieve the cost savings that cloud computing has provided for business and industry. The cloud product, Taser says, does not require an information technology professional on the police department's payroll. It cuts down on losses from poor storage of disks or tape, loss or theft of evidence or even evidence-tampering.

Taser will charge clients on a sliding scale that involves both the amount of data stored and customer support. The system could cost a small department a few thousand dollars a year or a large force a few hundred thousand dollars. Taser is initially offering the first year of the service at no charge in the hopes of luring a lot of customers to the cloud. The new cameras sell for $1,000, including a battery that lasts 14 hours.

In an era of tight budgets, that might not be an easy sale. "This is at least a $1 billion opportunity," said Mr. Partovi, who is better known for inventing, along with his twin, a social music sharing service called iLike, which was sold to MySpace in 2009 for about $20 million. "Once video is up in the cloud, why not photos? Why not all sorts of evidence? It will make it easier for different agencies to collaborate."

Taser's competitors say wearable video will be big, but they doubt the police will move to cloud-based evidence systems. "'CSI' and all those shows with 'video forensics' mean juries have come to expect camera evidence," said John McConnell, an entrepreneur in Nashville, Tennessee, who has sold dashboard cameras to police departments for over a decade. He is moving into body cameras, but asks, "Have you ever seen a law enforcement agency outsource their evidence room?"

If body cameras do catch on, the images will almost certainly flood the Internet. Video from cameras mounted on dashboards of police cruisers is already a staple on YouTube. Footage of a New Hampshire law officer's killing in 2007 has been seen 2.3 million times.

Some of Sergeant Davis's deadly encounter is also online, through a local television station that got the footage. That is fine with him, he said, because it could possibly serve as a useful training model for other officers.

Copyright 2012 International Herald Tribune

Parole for convicted cop killer Frank Wetzel?
Author: PoliceOne Senior Editor Doug Wyllie

In 1958, Frank Wetzel was convicted of murdering two North Carolina Highway Patrolmen — Trooper Wister Reese and Trooper James Thomas Brown — in two separate incidents, in two different counties, on the same night. It was Tuesday, November 5, 1957 when Trooper Reece reportedly stopped Wetzel for a speeding violation on U.S. 220 near the village of Ellerbe in Richmond County. Reece was shot to death, apparently before he could even draw his sidearm. Not long later, Trooper Brown stopped Wetzel nearly 50 miles away, in Lee County, and was similarly slain.

According to a May 2011 report by Charlotte (N.C.) TV Station WSOC, Wetzel is now nearly 90 years old and has Alzheimer’s disease. “The Department of Corrections has medical parole, which is offered to some terminally ill or aging inmates,” said that report. “But convicted killers aren’t eligible.”

Alzheimer’s disease or not, Wetzel — quite probably the longest-serving inmate in the North Carolina prison system — is now seeking parole. Despite having been sentenced to two consecutive life terms for two counts of first-degree murder, Wetzel has maintained his innocence from the get-go in his criminal proceeding, claiming he was nowhere near either scene.

A History of Violence According to a variety of sources, Wetzel had escaped from a mental institution in New York State (he had been held there for observation pending trial in an entirely different matter), and made his way to North Carolina. There is widespread speculation that he was en route to Mississippi to attempt to break his brother out of death row.

The late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once called Wetzel’s crimes “savage acts” and the North Carolina Highway Patrol has vehemently opposed every one of Wetzel’s parole requests. According to one of my sources in matters related to parole for convicted cop killers, Wetzel had been involved in “numerous burglaries in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina.”

Following the murders of Troopers Reese and Brown, a massive manhunt for Wetzel ensued — with officials closing the borders of the Tar Heel State so that more than 500 officers could search for the killer. The FBI was quickly also called in on the effort, and a states-wide bulletin was issued about Wetzel.

“Twenty-seven hours after the killings, a black 1957 Oldsmobile was discovered in Chattanooga,” said a 1995 Associated Press report about Wetzel’s continued claim of innocence in the killings. “Inside, the FBI found Wetzel’s fingerprint on a North Carolina license plate. A .44-caliber Magnum pistol, a number of .22-caliber guns, and several boxes of ammunition — all stolen — also were in the car.”

Wetzel was eventually apprehended in Bakersfield, California several weeks later, and returned via train to North Carolina to stand trial. While he has maintained for more than six decades of incarceration that he is innocent of the killings of Troopers Reece and Brown, it bears mentioning in this space that two different juries found Wetzel guilty of first-degree murder.

According to a report by the Raleigh News Observer in September 2011, prison officials in North Carolina call Wetzel “the most potentially dangerous convict in the entire State prison system, which houses more than 11,000 prisoners, who have committed every crime in the book.”

Make Your Opinion Known We’ve been doing this stuff for a while. A few years back, we supported the effort to prevent the parole of Anthony Wayne McIntosh, who had been convicted of murdering a 22-year-old police officer Jeffrey Phegley in 1987. As recently as just last month we helped to prevent the parole of would-be cop-killer Ollie Tate. Now 79-years-old, Tate had been up for parole despite his attempted murder of Tony Luketic, an Ohio police officer — as well as Luketic’s mom — back in 1995.

During the many months in between, we’ve partnered in a half dozen similarly successful efforts — maybe more, I really have not been counting.

Longtime readers of this space are already familiar with the basic options I have provided in years past for voicing your opinion to one parole board or another. I’ve counseled that you can post a petition at roll call and send it to the parole board in question — this is generally the most successful tactic because you can write just one letter and collect dozens, if not even hundreds, of signatures from your PD. Similarly, you can send a personal letter to that same address — these work really well too, and give you the freedom to say exactly what you want in the language of your choosing.

Another option is now available to you.

My friends over at ODMP have begun an outstanding program through which you can track — and respond to — issues related to proposed parole for cop killers. You can now simply click here for an online petition form ODMP has posted in the name of Patrolman Wister Lee Reese, and here for the online petition form ODMP has posted in the name of Patrolman J. T. Brown.

While you’re there, perhaps you’ll also want to send a note to prevent the parole of Robert Hayes, who was convicted of killing New York City Transit Officer Sidney Thompson in 1973. Why not also support the effort to prevent the parole of Donald Webb, who was convicted of killing Akron (Ohio) Police Officer Gary Yost in 1975.

There are others. Many too many others. I’ll write on this topic again sometime down the line I’m certain, but in the meantime I would like to commend the folks at ODMP for organizing such a robust database of these killers, and creating such a simple mechanism to send your letters of support for the friends, family, and fellow officers of these fallen heroes. Nice job guys.