• The Uncomfortable Questions Facing Capitol Police over the Security Breach by MAGA Mob

    When die-hard Trump supporters are able to storm the U.S. Capitol and forcefully occupy offices in the House and the Senate, questions over security are going to be asked. Something clearly didn’t go to plan on Wednesday. The man in charge of policing that day, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, has since announced he is resigning. But even with him gone, what will remain are serious questions that will need to be answered about how an angry mob was able to circumvent security and enter the Capitol building.

  • Tragedy at the Capitol: Four Questions that Demand Answers

    How can the U.S. Capitol, surrounded by one of the largest concentrations of law enforcement and national security personnel in the world, be so quickly overrun by Trump insurrectionists hell-bent on “stopping the steal,” halting our cherished democratic processes, and potentially harming lawmakers? Mark Nevitt writes that “it was always drilled home from my time in the military the importance of unity of command and unity of effort…. But prior to the insurrection, Trump himself incited it, in tweets and in a speech that morning. Shockingly, the person at the very top of the chain of command was not interested in protecting the Capitol nor the lawmakers inside during a time of national crisis.”

  • Officials Seek Answers to Why Security Failed at U.S. Capitol Wednesday

    Washington, D.C., officials have joined U.S. lawmakers in calling for an investigation of the police force that protects the Capitol, while offering praise for their actions, after Wednesday’s storming of the seat of the country’s legislative branch by a mob of pro-Trump protesters.

  • Cybersecurity and the Occupation of the Capitol

    On 6 January, a large number of pro-Trump rioters occupied portions of the U.S. Capitol building to protest and disrupt the counting and certification of electoral votes from the November 2020 election. Herb Lin writes that the significance of this event for American democracy, the rule of law, and the depths of extremism in the U.S. populace will be addressed by others, “but I am compelled to point out this siege has created potentially serious cyber risks for Congress and other affected offices.”

  • There Is No Medical Justification for Police Use of Neck Restraints: Neurologists

    Some police departments in the United States continue to teach officers that neck restraints are a safe method for controlling agitated or aggressive people, but that’s a dangerous myth, according to just published article written by three neurologists.

  • Six Men Indicted in Alleged Plot to Kidnap Michigan Governor

    Six men were charged Thursday with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in an alleged plot by right-wing extremists who were angry over her coronavirus containment policies. The suspects were arrested in October after an FBI probe into alleged plans to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in northern Michigan.

  • Germany Worried about “Violent Potential” among Anti-Lockdown Protesters

    Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has identified an “intensified escalation potential” within Querdenker movement that includes coronavirus skeptics. Querdenker adherents, including coronavirus-skeptics and anti-lockdown protesters, claim the COVID-19 pandemic and long-established federal and regional laws aimed at halting the pathogen’s spread infringe on citizens’ liberties.

  • Brazil: Apps Warn Residents of Shootings

    Every year there are thousands of shooting incidents on Brazil’s streets in which innocent bystanders are injured or killed. In some cities, apps now give real-time warnings to residents about areas to avoid. This year alone, there have been at least 3,000 shootings in the state of Rio de Janeiro. But this statistic does not come from the authorities. The number is taken from data supplied by “Onde Tem Tiroteio” (OTT), a crowdsourcing app that warns users about shootouts and where users can report shooting incidents themselves. In English, “Onde Tem Tiroteio” literally means “Where is a shootout.”

  • Teaching Anti-Terrorism: How France and England Use Schools to Counter Radicalization

    The murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty, beheaded by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov in October 2020 after Paty had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a civic education lesson, has understandably caused shock and fear among teachers in France. Many teachers were already struggling to manage classroom discussions on sensitive topics such as the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s publication of the controversial caricatures. Some now fear for their personal safety.

  • Mass Shootings in the U.S. Have Risen Sharply in 2020 – Why?

    Despite the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic using sporadic stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, as of 26 November 2020 there have been 578 mass shootings so far this year. According to data provided by the Gun Violence Archive, which records mass shooting deaths, this is already significantly above the 417 mass shootings recorded in the whole of 2019.

  • Dispelling the “Bad Apple” Excuse for Racialized Policing

    In the first study of its kind, University of Miami researchers find that police exhibit significantly higher levels of anti-Black biases than the general public. Culled from one of the largest, public data sets of hidden biases, those statistics seem to confirm that biases among police are widespread, a finding the researcher hope will lay the bad apple explanation to rest and prompt police departments to focus on eradicating the imbedded biases that workers everywhere bring to their jobs.

  • More than 100 “High-Risk” Islamists at Large in Germany: Security Service

    More than 120 Islamists in Germany pose a “high risk,” according to Germany’s federal police, with 115 more posing a potentially high risk. There is a growing debate in Germany about monitoring extremists, and about streamlining deportation policies for extremists about to be released from jail.

  • Demolishing Abandoned Houses Does Not Reduce Nearby Crime

    Cities across the country have sought ways to improve neighborhood safety and in recent years have pointed to demolishing abandoned housing as a way to achieve the goal. While millions of dollars have been spent on the efforts, a recent study found a program demolishing more than 500 abandoned residential properties in Kansas City, Missouri, did not significantly reduce nearby violent or property crime.

  • FBI Releases 2019 Hate Crime Statistics

    The FBI has today (Monday) released Hate Crime Statistics, 2019, show that, in 2019, there were 7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.

  • Michigan Terrorists Planned to Kill All State Legislators, Blow Up Capitol Building

    The Michigan terrorists who plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and attack the Michigan State legislature building, planned for no one to emerge alive from the building, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.The plotters planned to carry food and supplies with them as they stormed the Capitol building, and barricade themselves inside. Their plan then called for the legislators to face televised “trials,” in which they would be charged with “tyranny,” and then executed. Fox and his fellow plotters believed they would be able to hold on for about a week, during which all the legislators and their staff would be executed and their executions televised.