The Weekly Briefing
Curated News for Public Safety
KEEPING CHIEFS UP AT NIGHT – In Santa Fe County, N.M., last month, local police leaders stood before a packed auditorium and showed photos of their uniforms so residents would know what they look like — and, more pointedly, what ICE does not. "Whatever happens around the country, whoever is president, you are our community. We are your officers," Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye said with the help of a Spanish interpreter. "It is a fundamental human right that you feel safe in your home regardless of where you're from." Meetings like this have been playing out nationwide in recent weeks. Police departments are holding town halls, releasing videos and statements, and adding FAQ sections to their websites. They're trying to communicate the same message: They are not immigration officers and residents should not be afraid to call them.
MORE: It's not uncommon for many people living in the U.S. without legal status to be wary of police. But as the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts have intensified, local police leaders say the fear many immigrants experience has also ramped up, and it's making their jobs harder. "The one issue, honestly, that's keeping police chiefs up at night is dealing with immigration," says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. "Dealing with their communities, dealing with federal law enforcement, they really find themselves caught in the middle and trying to navigate that ground as best they can."
GALVANIZING – Attacks on Tesla dealerships, cars and equipment are "rudimentary" and require little planning, according to an FBI and Department of Homeland Security assessment, which says lone offenders are the ones carrying out the attacks. “These criminal actions appear to have been conducted by lone offenders, and all known incidents occurred at night, making identification and arrest of the actors difficult,” the assessment says. “While they may perceive these attacks as victimless property crimes, these tactics can cause accidental or intentional bodily harm,” the assessment dated March 21 and obtained by ABC News says. “Some individuals with political or social goals are likely to view the publicity surrounding these past incidents as validation that these tactics are successful in drawing public attention, and they may be galvanized to engage in similar violence.”
ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT – The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) is the Intelligence Community’s (IC) official, coordinated evaluation of an array of threats to U.S. citizens, the Homeland, and U.S. interests in the world. A diverse set of foreign actors are targeting U.S. health and safety, critical infrastructure, industries, wealth, and government. State adversaries and their proxies are also trying to weaken and displace U.S. economic and military power in their regions and across the globe.
MORE: Both state and nonstate actors pose multiple immediate threats to the Homeland and U.S. national interests. Terrorist and transnational criminal organizations are directly threatening our citizens. Cartels are largely responsible for the more than 52,000 U.S. deaths from synthetic opioids in the 12 months ending in October 2024 and helped facilitate the nearly three million illegal migrant arrivals in 2024, straining resources and putting U.S. communities at risk. A range of cyber and intelligence actors are targeting our wealth, critical infrastructure, telecom, and media. Nonstate groups are often enabled, both directly and indirectly, by state actors, such as China and India as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers. State adversaries have weapons that can strike U.S. territory, or disable vital U.S. systems in space, for coercive aims or actual war.
TROOPER OF THE YEAR
MERGER – The U.S. Justice Department is considering merging the lead agencies enforcing drug and gun laws in a major shakeup as it follows President Donald Trump's instructions to sharply streamline the government, according to a memo first reported by Reuters. In addition to potentially merging the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, department leaders are considering eliminating field offices that handle antitrust, environmental and civil cases, according to the March 25 memo. A possible merger of the ATF and DEA into a single agency would "achieve efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction and regulatory efforts," the memo says.
ELIMINATION – As Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vows to “eliminate FEMA,” the agency is in turmoil, with disaster assistance, grant money, and hiring largely stalled, threatening its ability to respond to major disasters, multiple FEMA officials tell CNN. Top officials from FEMA and Department of Homeland Security met Tuesday, CNN has learned, to discuss the future of the disaster relief agency and their options for shutting it down. The group, which included Noem, FEMA Acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton, and long-time Trump ally Corey Lewandowski, debated the possibility of rescinding President Donald Trump’s recent executive order establishing a FEMA Review Council and instead moving more quickly to dismantle the agency, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting.
INNOVATION AND RATIONAL POLICING – New York’s police commissioner is adamant. Jessica Tisch won’t run for mayor. She says no despite being urged to run by many business and civic leaders. A great deal of money, it would appear, is waiting to get behind her if she does. A registered Democrat, she even has the backing of the New York Post’s conservative editorial page. “Allow us to dream,” they wrote last month. In an interview in her office at One Police Plaza, Ms. Tisch shuts down all talk about the mayor’s job. “I am a public servant. I am certainly not a politician,” she says, almost hissing the word “certainly.” “I enjoy the work of running agencies. So no, I am not a mayoral candidate.”
MORE: Crime “is down across every city borough,” she says, and down “by 28% below ground, in our subways.” Ms. Tisch has tweaked CompStat—the daily counting of crime statistics by precinct, introduced by Commissioner William Bratton in 1994—into a computation of crime by “zones.” Precincts are too big, she says, with an average area of 4 square miles. There is an additional focus now on “pockets of crime, or pockets of violence, or trouble spots,” where cops are dispatched in concentration. She calls it “a scalpel approach to fighting crime”. Another welcome Tisch obsession is with New York’s quality of life—scourges such as abandoned vehicles, unruly vending, out-of-control scooters or e-bikes, vagrant encampments and drinking on the subway that “affect the livability of the city and your ability to enjoy the streets and the streetscape,” as she puts it. New York “is the safest big city in America. You can go your whole life, if you’re lucky, without being a victim of crime. But you can’t really go a day without seeing or experiencing some quality-of-life issue that is irksome.”
INNOVATION AND FORCE MULTIPLIERS – Blog post from National Policing Institute President Jim Burch on innovation, highlighting crime gun intelligence centers (CGIC): Innovation is a powerful tool in law enforcement. Identifying what works and how best to use it can be a force multiplier, which is especially valuable as agencies face resource challenges. When considering innovations in policing, technological advances rightfully come to mind. But that’s only part of the picture. To gain a full perspective, it’s helpful to briefly examine how an “innovation” is defined—and how innovations are advancing policing.
POLICING DESERTS – Speaking at the Scottish Police Federation’s annual conference at the Trump Turnberry Hotel near Girvan, Ayrshire, earlier today, chairman David Threadgold warned: “Chronic underinvestment in policing, and in particular the police estate has resulted in a situation where large areas of our country have become policing deserts with an almost invisible policing presence, providing an utterly reactive service.” He criticized the Scottish Government for falling officer numbers, which he said is leading to higher workloads for the remaining staff. Mr. Threadgold said: “Since its inception in 2013, Police Scotland has closed over 140 police stations across our country, three in the east of Scotland in the last month, with many more across the communities of Scotland in the pipeline.
REGISTER FOR ONE OF BEST CONFERENCES – The 2025 American Society of Evidence-Based Policing (ASEBP) 9th Annual Conference will take place from April 30 to May 2, 2025, at the University of Arizona, Tucson. This event brings together police professionals, researchers, and policymakers to explore innovative strategies and evidence-based practices shaping the future of public safety. With engaging keynote speakers, dynamic workshops, and valuable networking opportunities, the conference is a platform to learn, share, and contribute to meaningful advancements in policing.
HYDROGEN-FUELED DRONES – On October 7, 2023, Hamas used cheap Chinese drones bought on Alibaba to disable our cameras and monitoring systems,” Levinson, a reserve combat commander, told The Times of Israel. “Serving on the northern border for more than two months, I experienced how the [Iran-backed] Hezbollah group was taking down soldiers with drones.” I came back to work at the drone startup I founded a couple of years ago with the urgency and need to take action and provide the best tech for the most complex missions, as drones are reshaping modern global warfare and can get Israeli soldiers out of harm’s way,” Levinson said.
MORE: “In 2019, we started focusing on the heavy lifting aspect, so we started our operations in Israel and built a drone that could lift 70 pounds of payload, about 35 kilograms,” said Levinson. “As most traditional drones run on electric batteries and are limited to staying aloft about 40 minutes or at most an hour, we created drones that are powered by hydrogen fuel cells.” Hydrogen power increases flight time fivefold over traditional batteries for the Heven drones, which are designed to carry larger payloads, the startup says.
OFFICER ASSAULTED — “NEVER ENCOUNTERED THIS”
OFFICER DOWN – Marysville (CA) Police Officer Osmar Rodarte was shot and killed while serving a search warrant. Officers were serving 20 drug trafficking search warrants to stop a transnational drug trafficking ring from Mexico through the United States. When the regional SWAT team entered the home, the suspect opened fire striking and killing Officer Rodarte.
St. Tammany Parish (LA) Sheriff's Office Sergeant Grant Candies was killed by the driver fleeing a traffic stop. The driver was driving recklessly without a tag on the car when a deputy attempted to stop the vehicle. When the driver refused to stop and continued to drive at speeds of 85-90 mph while swerving on the roads, a pursuit ensued. Just after midnight, Sergeant Candies was deploying a spike strip to assist with stopping the vehicle pursuit when he was struck and killed.