The Weekly Briefing
Curated News for Public Safety
EVIL FOUND THEM – A convicted felon allegedly "executed" two Virginia police officers at point-blank range as they were already lying on the ground wounded and defenseless following a weekend traffic stop, authorities said. Virginia Beach Police Officers Cameron Girvin, 25, and Christopher Reese, 30, were both pronounced dead early Saturday after being shot multiple times in a "horrific" encounter that was caught on the officers' body cameras and their squad car dashboard camera, according to Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate. "I can tell you from the video that after he executed our officers, he calmly walked away," Neudigate said of the suspect, identified as 42-year-old John McCoy III of Virginia Beach, who police said they found dead from an apparent suicide. "We asked them to go out in this community and keep us safe from evil. And last night, evil found them," Neudigate said during a news conference on Saturday.
HOSPITAL SHOOTING – A police officer (Officer Andrew Duarte) was killed and five other people were wounded when a man took medical staff hostage and opened fire at a York, Pennsylvania, hospital on Saturday morning, officials said. The gunman, identified by authorities as Diogenes Archangel Ortiz, 49, was also killed, authorities said. Two other law enforcement officers were shot by the gunman and are in stable condition, York County District Attorney Tim Barker said at an afternoon news conference. An intensive care unit doctor, nurse and a custodian suffered gunshot wounds and a fourth employee was injured in a fall, according to Barker. The gunman had arrived at the hospital carrying a bag with a handgun and zip ties and went straight to the ICU, where he held staff members hostage, Barker said.
MORE: The weekend incident happened as the nation continues to grapple with mass shootings in places usually considered safe. It was one of at least 37 mass shootings in just the first two months of this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Like CNN, the archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter. And in the first month of this year, at least 31 officers have been shot in the line of duty – including two who were killed, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police. For health care workers, the violent situation came as they grappled with rising threats in their workplaces. Health care professionals are five times more likely to experience workplace violence than workers in other fields, according to the American Hospital Association.
OVERSEAS MARKET – About 10% of the cars stolen in the US today are smuggled overseas, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which runs a New Jersey-based task force that integrates the efforts of local and federal law enforcement and coordinates crackdowns up and down the East Coast. Nowhere is international stolen-car traffic more robust than in the trade from the eastern US to ports in West Africa. With long-established routes hauling millions of shipping containers each month, car thieves have become bold in their efforts to slip stolen vehicles into this flow of legitimate commerce. Used-car brokers in West Africa know what models their customers will snap up, so they call US-based thieves to beef up inventory of highly desirable models. “They will give orders: ‘I am looking for a 2024 Mercedes SL350 with leather interiors,’ ” says Noel Moloney, a detective who retired in December after four decades investigating car thefts, first with the New York City Police Department and then with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “They will have someone sitting at a gas station in Philadelphia looking at people. He has an order for that specific car, and a woman goes in, buys her coffee and leaves her car running. Or he might be able to have her followed and some guys would carjack that car.”
FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS – The U.S. has formally placed eight Latin American gangs on a list of terrorist organizations, ratcheting up pressure on powerful transnational criminal groups involved in U.S.-bound drug trafficking and human smuggling. Six Mexican drug cartels were formally designated as foreign terrorist organizations, along with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and the nearly extinct Mara Salvatrucha from El Salvador. They join a group of about 60 Islamic militant groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas that mainly operate in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. President Trump on Inauguration Day issued an executive order announcing the designations without naming the specific groups. The list of Latin American organizations will be published in Thursday’s edition of the Federal Register. The designation will allow U.S. prosecutors to stiffen sanctions against people convicted of being members of the organizations or providing them with material support. It also can open the door for U.S. armed forces to take potential military action against some groups, analysts said.
CAN’T RESIST SELFIES – According to the FBI, burglars who recently targeted famous athletes such as Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Joe Burrow bounced from city to city using cars they rented with fake IDs. They ditched the cars as needed, along with the burner phones they used to coordinate with one another. They would hide in woods while monitoring the patterns of security guards, then break into the homes of wealthy athletes by breaking small windows or prying open sliding doors before converting jewel-encrusted watches, designer bags, gold chains and rings into cash, using loot launderers far from their victims. Their booty had an estimated value of about $3 million, taken from some of America's best-known athletes. But the seven Chilean burglars who targeted the star athletes over three months late last year also made some rookie mistakes that allowed law enforcement to eventually catch up, as detailed in a 20-page affidavit included in a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.
MORE: In the document, the FBI lays out how the gang members were undone by allegedly posting photos for co-conspirators to see via an iCloud site. Images obtained and released by the FBI show three of the alleged burglars, along with an unidentified fourth man, posing with watches apparently stolen from the home of Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis Jr. Largely because of the images, the men are in federal custody and have been charged with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. They could face up to 10 years in prison.
THE POWER OF FOCUSING ON PLACE – Matt Ashby, a professor of crime science at the University of College of London, writes: The head of Amnesty International UK claims in this Guardian article that "The evidence that [predictive policing] keeps us safe just isn’t there". But that's simply not true. Let's look at what the best-available evidence on predictive policing shows. First, what is predictive policing? There are two types: Using data to focus police patrols in places with most crime. This is the most-common type. Using data to identify people who are most likely to be victims/offenders. I'm going to focus on place-based predictive policing, because it's the most commonly used type in the UK. So what does the evidence show?
MORE: First, evidence from the US. This randomized controlled trial (the highest quality type of evaluation research) found that place-based predictive policing caused "significant reductions in crime and disorder calls for service", including for assault, robbery and burglary. Importantly, this study also looked to see if the extra police patrols just caused crime to move to nearby neighborhoods (known as 'displacement' of crime) and found it didn't. Displacement is a very common concern about place-based policing, but actual crime displacement is quite rare. Another randomized controlled trial from the US found predictive policing reduced the harm caused by crime, did not increase ethnic disparity in arrests, and was supported by local residents (including a majority of non-white residents).
MISSING DATA – Nearly 60% of law enforcement agencies in the state are not submitting their crime data to a statewide resource that could be used to track criminal activity, according to data analyzed by the Clarion Ledger. This data comes from law enforcement agencies who did and did not report their crime stats to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety through an online reporting system called the National Incident-Based Reporting System, also known as NIBRS. In 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation replaced its century-old national crime data collection program, the Summary Reporting System used by the Uniform Crime Reporting program, with NIBRS. This new system collects more detailed information on each incident such as the crime's time of day and demographic descriptions of victims.
HEAD OF FBI AND ATF – President Donald Trump's newly-confirmed FBI director, Kash Patel, is expected to take on another top law enforcement role in the administration as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to a White House official and two other sources familiar with the plan. Patel's appointment could be made official as soon as next week with a swearing-in ceremony, the sources said. The ATF, a law enforcement agency housed in the Department of Justice, is responsible for enforcing federal laws regarding the illegal use, sale and trafficking of firearms and explosives, as well as the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products.
MORE: It has been a frequent target of Republican lawmakers who perceive the agency as infringing on the Second Amendment, particularly as former President Joe Biden empowered it to regulate the sale of "ghost guns" and close a loophole that eased the process of buying a firearm. Trump earlier this month signed an executive order to “halt existing policies designed to curtail the clear right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.” A White House release on that order accused the ATF of unfairly targeting gun owners.
DUTY TO REPORT – Colorado lawmakers are running a bipartisan bill to set expectations for reporting misconduct in the state’s crime laboratories, an effort that comes in the wake of revelations that a former forensic scientist allegedly mishandled thousands of DNA tests over her career. “We are here because of due process and fairness — the idea that if a (Colorado Bureau of Investigations) employee sees data malfeasance going on, they have a duty to report and disclose, so that district attorneys can make a decision whether or not to act and whether it would impact their cases,” said Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican sponsoring the bill.
MOVING TO SUBSTACK – I’m excited to share that The Weekly Briefing is moving to Substack! This shift means a smoother reading experience, better email deliverability (no more missing issues), and an easy way to engage with me and other readers through comments and discussions. It also makes subscribing—and getting others to subscribe—much easier (and, yes, even unsubscribing, if you must). Plus, you’ll have quick access to past editions and a seamless way to share key insights with colleagues. Nothing changes on your end—you’ll still get the same insights on policing, public safety tech, and crime every Monday. But now, it’ll be even easier to read, share, and be part of the conversation.