May 2004 Issue

Anyone who wanted a reminder of the deadly serious reason why TREXPO exists needed to look no further than the hallway outside the conference's seminar area.

Twice each year, the Tactical Response Expo (TREXPO), in its East and West Coast versions, offers a showcase for the latest in equipment and services for tactical police operations.

POLICE magazine asked three police officers from the Redondo Beach (Calif.) Police Department to wear five pairs of patrol boots for one shift each and tell us what they thought. Officers Dave Atwater, Denise Brenner, and Corey King gave their ratings to their test boots.

L.A. County's Terrorism Early Warning group was the brainchild of two L.A. Sheriff's Department officers who saw a threat in the rhetoric of a then little-known Islamist radical named Bin Laden. It was August 1996 and Osama had just issued his first fatwa, urging his followers to conduct global terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens.

Improved cooperation between Marshals and local cops is the goal of a new federal initiative that was established after 9/11.

If you want the federal “cop carry” bill to be law, then make your voices heard.

Lest we all get too caught up in a case of the "gotta-have-its," we elected to take a quick look at the need for change, and how it must be balanced with an agency's budget, real-world threats, and ability to train its officers.

The advent of portable police radios severed the umbilical cord that tied a cop to his or her car. Portable police radios have since assisted officers with timely broadcasts of suspect information, expedited requests for fire and rescue, and saved lives.

The knife that really caught my eye was the Butch Vallotton-designed Val-Matic. What sets it apart from other knives is its double-action opening.

If you are looking for the best software for creating composite pictures of suspects, check out IQ Biometrix's FACES 4.0.

Hearsay rules confound police, lawyers, and judges alike. "Hearsay" is a statement made outside the courtroom that might be true or false, repeated in court to prove that it was true.

Perhaps these dummies had their eyes on one of the stolen cars we'd recovered parked in front of the precinct and figured they'd change the plates and drive off. Then again, these guys weren't deep thinkers and I'd probably be giving them too much credit for thinking that far ahead.