Bryan Strawser

CSI: Target from Forbes Magazine.

Presented with a smile, but without comment…

From today’s Washington Post, presented without comment, but with a large smile:

When arson investigators in Houston needed help restoring a damaged surveillance tape to identify suspects in a fatal fire, they turned first to local experts and then to NASA. With no luck there, investigators appealed to the owner of one of the most advanced crime labs in the country: Target Corp.

Target experts fixed the tape and Houston authorities arrested their suspects, who were convicted. It was all in a day’s work for Target in its large and growing role as a high-tech partner to law enforcement agencies.

In the past few years, the retailer has taken a lead role in teaching government agencies how to fight crime by applying state-of-the-art technology used in its 1,400 stores. Target’s effort has touched local, state, federal and international agencies.

Besides running its forensics lab in Minneapolis, Target has helped coordinate national undercover investigations and worked with customs agencies on ways to make sure imported cargo is coming from reputable sources or hasn’t been tampered with. It has contributed money for prosecutor positions to combat repeat criminals, provided local police with remote-controlled video surveillance systems, and linked police and business radio systems to beef up neighborhood foot patrols in parts of several major cities. It has given management training to FBI and police leaders, and linked city, county and state databases to keep track of repeat offenders.

As is appropriate, the Indiana State Police made the arrest in a case making national news today, as reported in today’s Indianapolis Star:

A man wanted in the slaying of a Pennsylvania couple and the possible abduction of their 14-year-old daughter fled from Indiana state troopers at speeds in excess of 90 mph, running other cars off a two-lane highway before he crashed and was captured today, police said.

There’s been alot of yelling and screaming in the media about the Metropolitan Police in the UK shooting and killing a man recently because they believed that he may be a suicide bomber.

And while I regret that they were wrong, they did exactly the right thing.

Smash and others have posted of this as well. There’s no option other than to shoot them in the head.

We can live in a fantasy world if we want - we can bury our heads in the sand like an Ostrich, or we can get serious about thinking about some of the issues we are going to face in the coming years.

Suicide bombers will be one of them.

At the time I took a DHS workshop earlier this year on suicide bombers, only one US police department had a use of force policy that allowed them to shoot a suspected suicide bomber. The United States Capitol Police.

Like it or not, it’s only a matter of time before we see someone participate in a suicide bombing here in the United States.. and we’d better be prepared for it - and the rapid paradigm changes that it will bring about in terms of law enforcement and private security.

Over at Instapundit is this little ditty about the Assault Weapons ban:

PERHAPS THIS IS BECAUSE IT WAS ALWAYS A CROCK, but The New York Times notices that ending the assault weapons ban didn’t matter: Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a…

It’s always been a crock. As a criminal justice major in college, I knew it to be a crock then. It’s a crock now.

Ever read the Second Amendment? Gun control is not the way to go. NYC had major drops in crime without needing additional gun control.

It can be done.