Public Safety

  • Heavy Israeli air strikes near Damascus destroy Iranian missile shipment to Hezbollah

    Israel launched heavy airstrikes Friday and Sunday on a military base near Damascus, destroying shipments of sophisticated Iranian Fateh-110 missiles to Hezbollah. These were the second and third such strikes in as many months. Israel’s first strike on Syrian targets took place on 30 January. That strike destroyed advanced SA-17 surface-to-air missiles the Assad regime was trying to ship to Hezbollah on orders of Iran.

  • Woman who killed N.J. trooper in 1973 makes the FBI’s most wanted list

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    Joanne Chesimard, a former member of the Black Liberation Army who killed a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, has become the first woman to make the FBI’s most wanted list. The reward  for her capture and arrest has doubled to $2 million. In 1979 Chesimard escaped jail, and since 1984 has been living in Cuba, using the name Assata Shakur.

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  • Delaware develops comprehensive schools safety program

    Delaware has become the first state to develop a comprehensive school safety model which includes a central portal for school safety plans. A Web-based portal to serve as a repository for all public school safety plans in the state will be developed, and will become accessible to school safety teams in time for the new school year this fall.

  • Three of Dzhokhar’s friends charged with destroying evidence (Updated)

    Three college students have been arrested on suspicion that they helped Dzhokhar Tsarnaev destroy evidence which would have provided details about his and his brother’s preparations for the marathon bombing. One of the three then lied to police when asked about their actions. The three are likely to face charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice. One of three will also be charged with lying to federal investigators.

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  • GAO investigates DHS ammo purchases

    DHS is again facing questions about the department’s large ammunition purchases, at the same time that a bill is being introduced which would limit the amount of ammo a government agency can legally buy.

  • Preserving biological evidence

    A new NIST/NIJ handbook provides forensic laboratories, law enforcement agencies, and the judicial system with state-of-the-art guidelines and recommended best practices for preserving biological evidence so that it is available at any time to solve “cold cases,” confirm the guilt of criminals or exonerate the innocent.

  • Central Washington State proposed for a UAV research and testing site

    The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 enacted by Congress calls for establishing six unmanned aircraft system research and testing sites in the United States. A consortium of Washington State-based organizations will soon submit the final section of a proposal to site an unmanned aircraft system research and testing facility in central Washington. If successful, the proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will result in the FAA naming the Pacific Northwest Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Center as one of six U.S. testing facilities later this year.

  • Seeking new ideas for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs)

    Troops operating in forward locations without telecommunication infrastructure often rely on a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) to communicate and share data. A constraint with current MANETs is they can only scale to around fifty nodes before network services become ineffective. DARPA is exploring new technologies unencumbered by Internet Protocols (IP) which could be the key to enabling large MANETs. The Internet facilitated far-reaching technical advances, but in this technology area the Internet may be the roadblock.

  • Kenya police: (fake) bomb detectors work, making Kenyans safer

    A British businessman was convicted of selling Iraq and Afghanistan fake bomb detectors – the two countries used millions of dollars in U.S. aid money to purchase the sham devices (the devices were, in fact, $20 golf ball finders which the businessman sold for $40,000 each). The police in Kenya purchased twenty-six of the sham detectors, but Nairobi police chief says the devices work, and that Kenya is safer for them.

  • Female DNA found on Boston bomb fragments

    FBI investigators found female DNA on fragments from the bombs used in the Marathon attack. The finding was first reported in the Wall Street Journal. Mikhail Allakhrdov, a man who some of Tsarnaev’s family members and friends described as the mysterious “Misha” who radicalized Tamerlan, said that he had not been in contact with Tsarnaev for several years, and that he never encouraged him to take up violence. Allakhrdov, a Ukrainian Christian who converted to Islam, admitted that a few years ago he was Tsarnaev’s “spiritual tutor.”

  • Assessing security at schools, houses of worship

    The Office of Infrastructure Protection of DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate will be conducting a virtual roundtable on the topic of “Conducting Security Assessments: A Guide for Schools and Houses of Worship.”

  • U.K. businessman convicted of selling fake explosives detectors

    James McCormick, a British businessman, was convicted of having made millions in profits from selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq, Georgia, and several other countries. McCormick bought $20 golf ball finders in the United States, then sold the devices, which had no working electronics, for $40,000 each. The Iraqi government used more than $40 million in U.S. aid money to buy 6,000 of the devices, despite being warned by the U.S. military that the devices were a sham. The Iraqi military used the fake detectors at check-points, leading to scores of soldiers and civilians being killed by suicide trucks which went through the check points undetected. The police in Kenya says it will continue to use the devices.

  • California considering lead ammo ban

    Health and environmental advocates are trying to make California the first state to enforce a statewide ban on the use of lead bullets for hunting. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there are 400,000 pieces of lead shot per acre in wild game territory which can be eaten or washed into rivers and waterways. The USGS also says that 60,000 metric tons of lead fired off last year is the second largest use of lead in the United States behind batteries. The CDC reports that lead is so abundant in meat harvested through hunting, that pregnant woman and children should never eat it. The NRA opposes the ban, saying it could possibly the end of hunting in California.

  • FBI looking for a “person of interest” who may have helped the Tsanaev brothers

    Lawmakers with knowledge of the investigation into the Boston marathon bombing said over the weekend that law enforcement agencies are looking for a “person of interest” who may have been involved with the Tsarnaev brothers in preparing the attack. The lawmakers highlighted the fact that law enforcement agencies are not convinced that the brothers acted alone, without any help of one or two more people.

  • Lawmakers renew effort to reach bipartisan gun control compromise

    Lawmakers have quietly begun discussions over gun control measures, with a bi-partisan group of senators trying to come up with a compromise to solve the differences that led to the failure two weeks ago of a comprehensive overhaul effort.