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On a muggy summer night in Georgia, it feels like you can reach out and squeeze water out of the air. Such were the conditions on July 23, 1999, when officer Jorge Mestre of the Cobb County Police Department was dispatched to a house in the Atlanta suburb of Austell, Ga.
No one other than a patrol officer is better able to understand the vital role of a police vehicle in today's law enforcement. The wrong vehicle can affect officer morale, reduce efficiency and increase a department's operating costs appreciably.
Just Give Me A Hundred Good Cops, And a ton of ammunition... That's what I was thinkin' when I reviewed the situation in Lagos, Nigeria.
With today's cutting-edge rifle systems like the AR platform, the performance possibilities inherent in these designs have generated a high level of interest in correspondingly high-tech optical sights.
According to media accounts, nearly 100 officers who joined the force during a 1989-90 recruitment drive-when background screening and standards were all but non-existent-were later charged with criminal wrongdoing.
The implication was clear: if laser would display target speeds for a stationary wall, what other errors were possible?
You'd never see it in a high-speed pursuit, and no SWAT team would ever consider it for storming a terrorist hideout, but some police departments are finding there's a place for a new and versatile electric vehicle - the GEM - in their fleets.
I get in behind him and with one hand on the mike and the other on the steering wheel, put the license plate out on the air. The suspect slams on the brakes. I drop the mike, steer and brake to avoid hitting the truck.
In keeping up with the expansion of the category "police vehicles," we've widened our annual roundup to cover some of these newer "mobile offices" as well as the newer models of old patrol classics.
More innovative speed enforcement technologies have appeared in the last five years than in the previous two decades. Law enforcement agencies can now pick and choose from a bewildering buffet of high-tech devices, including digital radar, lasers and cameras.