Public Safety Roundup

Champaign County Crime Stoppers have a new initiative to encourage more tips on crimes involving guns. WCIA had a video segment on the initiative here with video of their press briefing here and information sheet here. The News-Gazette had a quick blurb on it as well:

Champaign County Crime Stoppers unveils 'Gun Bounty Reward' initiative
After the slew of recent shootings, Champaign County Crime Stoppers is upping the ante for people who give information regarding gun-related crimes.

In what they're calling a "Gun Bounty Reward," anyone who provides Crime Stoppers with information leading to the arrest of a person who used a gun during the crime will receive $1,000.

"A shooting incident will occur, the police will go out and sweep the neighborhood, and no one allegedly knows anything," said John Hecker, president of the organization's board. "We're very hopeful that this program that we're announcing today will provide the incentive for individuals to come forward anonymously — I want to underscore that, because we've gone to great lengths to assure the anonymity to provide that information to law enforcement personnel."

Full blurb here.

Urbana Police Department is taking some crime reports online in certain situations. Video segment from WCIA here. Quick explanation from that page:

The police department is now taking your crime reports online.

The catch is that there's only a handful that apply. Those include drive-offs under $150 in motor fuel, retail thefts under $300, criminal damage to property under $500, theft under $500.

Police say for crimes when there is no meaningful and specific information available, reports will only be taken via web reports; if you have information like names, or complete license plate numbers, an officer will come take a report in person.

The local Police Training Institute described an optional 10 hour course on training police officers on "Policing in a Multiracial Society." From a News-Gazette interview last week:

In today's world, especially post-Ferguson, we know that racism is something that exists in America ... so we need officers that are culturally competent.

We want to increase the officers' awareness of their own social identities and their racial beliefs. ... We want to increase their knowledge about certain theories and research related to the intersection of police and race.

These are things like implicit bias, color-blind racial ideology, what are microaggressions, institutional racism and the socio-historical experiences of racial minority communities.

We want to develop officers to be able to think about this critically and apply this knowledge to their everyday policing.

Full interview here.

There were also a couple recent related posts on public safety including Local Flu Updates with hospital restrictions and a regional spike in influenza like illnesses. Another post was on the expansion of training opportunities for fire departments throughout the area with limited resources and budgets via the Cornerstone Training program. And finally there was a News-Gazette article on school zone safety in the area today that involved tracking cell phones that was a bit odd, but gave our local school zones a "D rating" somehow.