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tsugutoku · 11 months

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Local Fencing Contractors in Glen Burnie

Glen Burnie boasts a vibrant community of fencing contractors who are dedicated to providing top-notch services to meet your fencing needs. With years of industry experience, these fencing contractors bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every project they undertake. Whether you're looking to install a brand-new fence, repair an existing one, or add custom features to your property, the fencing contractors in Glen Burnie have the skills and resources to deliver exceptional results. Not only do they prioritize the durability and functionality of their work, but they also understand the importance of design and aesthetics. From traditional styles to modern and contemporary designs, these contractors can tailor their services to match your vision and preferences, ensuring that your fence seamlessly blends with the overall look of your property. Furthermore, the fencing contractors in Glen Burnie take pride in their commitment to customer satisfaction. They work closely with clients, providing personalized consultations, transparent communication, and timely project completion. Rest assured that your fencing project is in capable hands when you choose one of the reputable fencing contractors Glen Burnie.

Introduction to Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

Glen Burnie, a vibrant city nestled in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, is home to a diverse community of homeowners seeking reliable and skilled fencing contractors. This subtitle explores the various aspects of Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors, shedding light on their expertise, commitment to quality, and the range of services they offer. Whether you're looking to enhance the security of your property, improve privacy, or beautify your surroundings, Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors have got you covered.

Experience and Expertise: The Hallmarks of Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors boast extensive experience in the industry, which sets them apart as trusted professionals. With years of expertise under their belt, they possess an in-depth understanding of different fencing materials, construction techniques, and design options. Their knowledge and skill allow them to tackle various projects, from traditional wooden fences to modern metal and vinyl installations. Homeowners in Glen Burnie can rest assured that these contractors bring a wealth of experience to every fencing endeavor.

Quality Craftsmanship and Attention to Detail: A Priority for Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

The local fencing contractors in Glen Burnie take immense pride in their workmanship and pay meticulous attention to every detail of the fencing installation process. They employ skilled craftsmen who are dedicated to delivering exceptional results. From precise measurements and accurate fence layout to sturdy foundation work and seamless fence installation, these professionals go above and beyond to ensure that the final product meets the highest standards of quality and durability. Glen Burnie homeowners can expect nothing short of outstanding craftsmanship when working with these contractors.

Versatility and Customization: Tailoring Fences to Glen Burnie's Unique Needs

Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors understand that each homeowner has unique requirements and preferences when it comes to fencing. They offer a wide range of materials, styles, and colors, enabling customers to choose the perfect fence that complements their property's aesthetics and fulfills their functional needs. Whether you desire a classic wooden picket fence to add charm to your front yard or a contemporary aluminum or chain-link fence for enhanced security, these contractors have the expertise and flexibility to bring your vision to life.

Timely and Efficient Service: Meeting Deadlines and Exceeding Expectations

One of the distinguishing features of Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors is their commitment to delivering projects on time. They understand the importance of adhering to deadlines and work diligently to ensure timely completion of each fencing project. Furthermore, these contractors strive to minimize any disruption to your daily routine during the installation process, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience for homeowners. Their efficiency and professionalism consistently exceed customer expectations, making them a reliable choice for fencing needs in Glen Burnie.

Competitive Pricing and Transparent Quotes: Affordability without Compromising Quality

Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors offer competitive pricing for their services, ensuring that homeowners can achieve their desired fencing solutions without breaking the bank. They provide transparent quotes that outline the cost breakdown, enabling customers to make informed decisions within their budget. Despite offering affordable options, these contractors never compromise on the quality of materials or workmanship. Glen Burnie residents can benefit from exceptional fencing services at a price that suits their financial needs.

Commitment to Customer Satisfaction: Building Lasting Relationships in Glen Burnie

Above all, Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors prioritize customer satisfaction and aim to build lasting relationships with homeowners in the community. They understand the significance of open communication, attentive customer service, and after-sales support. From the initial consultation to the final installation, these contractors ensure that customers' voices are heard, their questions are answered, and their concerns are addressed promptly. By fostering strong relationships built on trust and reliability, Glen Burnie's local fencing contractors aim to become the go-to choice for all fencing needs in the city.

Conclusion

In conclusion, local fencing contractors in Glen Burnie provide invaluable services to homeowners and businesses in need of quality fencing solutions. These contractors possess the necessary expertise, experience, and resources to design, install, and maintain a wide range of fencing options tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of their customers. Whether it's enhancing privacy, improving security, or adding aesthetic appeal to a property, local fencing contractors offer reliable and professional services that contribute to the overall value and functionality of homes and businesses in the Glen Burnie area.

#fencing contractors Glen Burnie

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jameskirk-spaceidiot · 11 months

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Local Fencing Contractors in Glen Burnie

Introduction to Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

Experience and Expertise: The Hallmarks of Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

Quality Craftsmanship and Attention to Detail: A Priority for Glen Burnie's Local Fencing Contractors

Versatility and Customization: Tailoring Fences to Glen Burnie's Unique Needs

Timely and Efficient Service: Meeting Deadlines and Exceeding Expectations

Competitive Pricing and Transparent Quotes: Affordability without Compromising Quality

Commitment to Customer Satisfaction: Building Lasting Relationships in Glen Burnie

Conclusion

#fencing contractors Glen Burnie

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lboogie1906 · 2 years

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Donna Fern Edwards (born June 28, 1958) is a politician who served as the Representative for Maryland's 4th congressional district from 2008 to 2017. The district includes most of Prince George's County, as well as part of Anne Arundel County. She is a member of the Democratic Party. A lawyer and longtime community activist, she defeated 15-year incumbent Albert Wynn in the 2008 Democratic primary and, following his resignation, won a special election on June 17, 2008. She was sworn in on June 19, becoming the first African-American woman to represent Maryland. She ran for a full term in November 2008, defeating Republican candidate with 85% of the vote. She ran for Senate in 2016 in the primary to replace retiring Barbara Mikulski instead of running for re-election to her Congressional seat, but was defeated. She sponsored an amendment to the Constitution that would repeal the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. She was born in Yanceyville, North Carolina. She earned BAs in English and Spanish from Wake Forest University, where she was one of only six blackwomen in the class of 1980. After working for Lockheed Corporation at the Goddard Space Flight Center with the Spacelab program, she attended and earned a JD in 1989 from the Franklin Pierce Law Center. She worked for Albert Wynn as a clerk, when he served in the Maryland House of Delegate. She co-founded and served as the first ED of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. She worked to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. She worked with Public Citizen, and then as the ED of the Center for a New Democracy. She became the ED of the Arca Foundation, taking a leave of absence during her political campaign. In the spring of 2015, she, along with several other members of the House of Representatives, introduced the Restoring Education and Learning Act to bring back Pell Grants to prisoners. Her press release outlines numerous advantages to prisoner education, including net benefits to taxpayers who bear the costs of recidivism. She is a national co-chair of the progressive group Health Care Voter. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #zetaphibeta https://www.instagram.com/p/CfWXZP7rE0Qxzi1a6ezeZasM19FC5gc3CmGnK40/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #zetaphibeta

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yasbxxgie · 5 years

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Steve McMurray was not long out of high school when he moved to the United States.

He left St. Mary Parish, a rural area in northeastern Jamaica, for trade school in Miami. He spent about a year and a half there, met a Jamaican girl with family in Maryland, and they moved here.

Their relationship didn’t last, but he stayed in Baltimore. Now, more than 30 years later, McMurray owns what some say is the best Jamaican restaurant in Baltimore, doubling as an informal cultural center for what the U.S. Census reported as the city’s largest immigrant group.

But McMurray isn’t a natural chef. “I’m not a big eater,” he said.

He did have entrepreneurial experience, though, having run a small towing company, and thought he could find a market in Baltimore for Jamaican food. So he hired cooks who had more skill, and founded St. Mary’s Restaurant in Charles Village in the late 1990s.

“If I have to be in the kitchen, I’ll be sweating,” he said. “I just built it and they came.”

“The people love this restaurant,” he said.

McMurray is part of a larger trend in the Baltimore area and in Maryland. Baltimore is rapidly losing people, but immigrants continue to move there, helping to stem the population loss.

Baltimore is one of seven jurisdictions in Maryland in which immigrants prevented or minimized population loss in 2018, according to a Stateline report from April that used 2018 Census data.

Almost 2,000 immigrants moved to Baltimore in the 12 months ending July 1, 2018, according to the report, while the overall population dropped by more than 7,300 people. That left the city’s population at just over 602,000.

According to Stateline, a fifth of jurisdictions in the country—many of them post-industrial cities like Baltimore—grew, or shrank less than they would have, because of immigrants. In Maryland, the other jurisdictions were Allegany, Dorchester, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Somerset and Baltimore counties.

Noel Godfrey, who was the president of the Jamaican Association of Maryland for four years until May, said Jamaicans have been coming to the United States since at least the 1940s.

“You can always point to economics or the lack of job opportunities on the island, more to look forward to overseas,” Godfrey said. “Jamaicans as a whole are a very ambitious people and they go after what they want.”

Maryland’s Jamaican diaspora isn’t as big as Miami’s or New York’s, but it is still sizeable. Indeed, three Jamaicans currently serve in the Maryland General Assembly.

Many Jamaicans, including Godfrey and McMurray, moved to the Baltimore area from bigger, more expensive urban areas. Another is Bengallo Morrison.

Morrison, who is from the hills outside Kingston, Jamaica, came to this country on a track scholarship to a community college in New Jersey. His speed in the 800 meters and 1500 meters won him another scholarship to finish his bachelor’s degree—and keep running—at Baltimore’s Coppin State University, where more than half of his teammates were from Jamaica.

He said his first winter in this country was “terrifying.” He didn’t have a jacket, and someone had to buy warm clothes for him.

He has lived in Baltimore and its suburbs ever since. He now lives with his wife, who is also from Jamaica, just south of the city in Anne Arundel County. He flips houses and rents out property.

“I appreciate that you’re able to do that here,” he said. In Jamaica, “opportunities are so scarce.”

Baltimore’s Jamaican community is largely centered in the Park Heights neighborhood in the northwest part of the city, but for generations, immigrants have largely lived in Southeast Baltimore.

“The immigrant community has really stabilized Southeast Baltimore,” said Baltimore City Councilman Zeke Cohen, who represents much of the city’s immigrant community.

Catalina Rodriguez Lima, the director of the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said immigrants mainly move where they know people. She said Baltimore is more affordable than many other jurisdictions, which lack some services Baltimore has such as free legal aid.

“We as a city are very intentional about providing services for immigrants,” she told Capital News Service. “In Baltimore you can still buy a house; in Baltimore your kid can go to school and have (English language instruction); in Baltimore you can open a business and have access to microlending.”

According to the American Community Survey’s five-year estimate for 2013-2017, 49,565 of the city’s 619,796 residents were immigrants, or about 8%. The survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, estimates population and other statistics between decennial censuses.

That’s a decrease in overall population, and an increase in the number of immigrants: According to an estimate for 2005-2009, an average of 639,337 people lived in Baltimore, including 39,685 immigrants. That’s just over 6%.

Across Maryland, about 14% of people are immigrants, including more than 30% of Montgomery County.

More than 101,000 immigrants lived in Baltimore County in 2017, accounting for more than 13% of its population.

It’s not just a recent trend. Baltimore city’s population has been declining for decades, and its immigrant population has been growing since the 1990s.

In the late 1800s through World War I, up to 20% of city residents were immigrants, according to an Abell Foundation report. Most were from Eastern Europe and Italy, including the families of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski. But after World War II, a much lower percentage of residents was foreign-born.

Maryland’s trends reflect the country’s. According to the Pew Research Center, immigrants represented 13.6% of the United States population in 2017, a steady increase from 4.7% in 1970.

After Jamaica, the top countries of origin among immigrants in the city are China, Mexico and Trinidad.

Refugees also account for a substantial number of new residents. Baltimore has accepted nearly half of Maryland’s refugees in the past 17 years, according to an analysis of State Department data.

Rodriguez Lima’s office was created in 2015 by former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as part of her goal of attracting 10,000 families to the city. Rodriguez Lima, who is from Ecuador, said that office may be one reason immigrants come.

Still, Baltimore is not the top destination for immigrants in Maryland. About 40% of Maryland’s immigrants live in Montgomery County, and immigrant growth is faster in other suburban jurisdictions than in Baltimore.

“It’s really difficult to tell someone to come to Baltimore without some sort of network,” Rodriguez Lima said.

But the economy is just as important, if not more so.

Randy Capps, a demographer at the Migration Policy Institute, said immigrants follow construction, and there isn’t as much construction in Baltimore as in the surrounding counties. And the industrial jobs Baltimore lost in the mid-20th century weren’t replaced.

“(Baltimore) just never had a magnet to attract a new wave of immigrants,” he said.

He said the strength of the research and healthcare industries in Baltimore—anchored by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore—combined with the weaker service and construction industries, mean Baltimore’s immigrant population tends to be better-educated than those of other areas.

While Baltimore is losing people, most jurisdictions in Maryland are growing, especially suburban counties. Baltimore saw a net loss of about 1,200 white people and about 17,000 black people between 2010 and 2018, Census data show. Many say they leave because of crime, the quality of the schools and the city’s relatively high property tax rate.

#baltimore city #baltimore #wtop #maryland #jamaican #jamaicans #immigrants #st. mary parish #st mary parish #kingston jamaica

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addictionrecoveryassistance · 5 years

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Detox Centers In Linthicum Heights Maryland 21090

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louishendersonme · 4 years

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The Importance of Spotting and Repairing Parking Lot Sinkholes

Parking lot sinkholes can cause extensive damage if they aren’t repaired as soon as possible.

The parking lot is a crucial space for any business. Your customers need access to it to visit your business, and if it is too difficult to travel through, they may stop visiting you altogether. Damages like cracks and potholes can occur in any parking lot, no matter how well-cared-for it is. What matters is how quickly and successfully you repair the damages. One of the damages you should look out for is parking lot sinkholes. Sinkholes don’t always need to be large; a sinkhole of any size is dangerous to cars and pedestrians. Read below to learn how sinkholes happen and why it is necessary to repair them as soon as possible.

How Parking Lot Sinkholes Form

A sinkhole is not the same thing as a pothole. A pothole is created when asphalt breaks away and is worn down over time. A sinkhole is a gap formed in the soil, often under pavement, that forms due to erosion. Erosion can be caused by heavy rainfall or by burst pipes placed underneath roads. The water eats away at the soil until a large void is created. Without strong soil support, the pavement that acts as the “roof” of this void caves in. What results is a huge hole that seemingly appears out of nowhere.

Sinkhole Damages

Often, when you hear of a sinkhole, it is enormous in size, but most sinkholes that occur are not so extreme. Most parking lot sinkholes are small, close to the size of golf balls or basketballs, but they can often appear close to buildings or walkways. Like pavement cracks and potholes, sinkholes can lead to car damage or personal injuries. Sinkholes may even be more dangerous because if they are allowed to spread, you may lose a large chunk of your parking lot!

Addressing the Problem

Unlike potholes, it is not enough to simply cover the parking lot sinkhole with new asphalt. The cause of sinkholes is erosion, and so that must be addressed. If the sinkhole is near your catch basin, that may indicate the basin is working incorrectly. It may also suggest that the pipes from your basin have corroded or burst. Have your catch basin inspected before having the hole repaired.

If the sinkhole appears under a concrete slab, you may be able to jack the slab up and fill in under it to level it, but you still must find the source of erosion first. If sinkholes appear near your building’s foundation, the stability of your entire building could be impacted. In this case, you should have a safety inspection done immediately. Sinkholes near buildings often indicate that a broken or damaged drainage system isn’t working properly, so you should have that inspected as well before filling the hole.

Maintenance You Can Trust from PTG Enterprises

If you want to protect your pavement and ensure it has a long lifespan, choose PTG Enterprises for your community sidewalks, parking lots and pavement maintenance needs. We offer commercial concrete, asphalt, masonry, paving, consultation, and survey report services throughout Baltimore, Harford, Anne Arundel, Howard, and P.G. Counties. If you are interested in hearing how we can help you, contact us online or give us a call at (410) 636-8777. For more tips and tricks, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Flickr.

The post The Importance of Spotting and Repairing Parking Lot Sinkholes appeared first on MYpavementGUY.com.

This post The Importance of Spotting and Repairing Parking Lot Sinkholes was first published from http://mypavementguy.com/blog

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drcletusgeorges-blog · 5 years

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Dr. Cletus Roy Georges explains more about stress urinary incontinence

Urology specialist Cletus Roy Georges, MD reveals more about stress urinary incontinence and the associated condition known as 'overactive bladder.'

Stress urinary incontinence is a condition wherein which urine leaks out with sudden pressure on the bladder and urethra, according to the Urology Care Foundation, a 22,000-strong member organization committed to advancing urology research and education, headquartered in the community of Linthicum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. A urology specialist with decades of experience in the field, Dr. Cletus Roy Georges explains more about the issue and the associated condition known as 'overactive bladder.' "In mild cases, the pressure which causes stress urinary incontinence may be the result of sudden forceful activities, such as sneezing or exercise, as well as coughing or laughing," explains Dr. Georges, an experienced urology specialist based in Orlando, Florida. Also known as 'SUI,' stress urinary incontinence is a particularly common bladder problem among female patients. "Although occurring rather less frequently in men, male patients may be affected by SUI, too," adds Dr. Georges. In more severe cases, patients may experience the effects of stress urinary incontinence when enduring even routine, non-forceful, day-to-day activities such as walking, standing up, or bending over. "The result," explains Dr. Georges, "can range from a few drops of leaked urine to enough to soak through a patient's clothes." Often associated with another common bladder problem, known as 'overactive bladder' or 'OAB,' those with the latter condition typically experience an urgent need to urinate which they can't control. "The main difference, however, between stress urinary incontinence and overactive bladder," Dr. Georges explains, "is anatomical." "That's because," he continues, "stress urinary incontinence is a strictly urethral problem, while overactive bladder is a problem centered around the bladder itself." Many people with stress urinary incontinence, Dr. Georges goes on to reveal, also suffer from overactive bladder. "This is known," he says, "as 'mixed incontinence.'" Male patients are more likely to suffer from overactive bladder than stress urinary incontinence. "Where stress urinary incontinence is an issue in male patients," explains Dr. Georges, "it is often due to prostate cancer surgery, or damage or injury to the pelvic nerve." In the United States, around one in three women will likely suffer from stress urinary incontinence at some point in their life, according to the Urology Care Foundation. "Established more than three decades ago, the foundation is now a leading advocate in urologic health in the United States and globally, uniquely qualified to speak on behalf of urology specialists such as myself," says Dr. Georges of the organization. Becoming more prevalent with age, predominantly affecting those aged 60-65 and above, therapeutic options available to address stress urinary incontinence include behavioral modification and pelvic floor exercises, as well as surgical intervention, according to Dr. Georges. "With regards to overactive bladder and urge incontinence, meanwhile," he adds, wrapping up, "further to behavioral modification, other treatment options include InterStim therapy, Botox, pharmacological intervention, and percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation." Cletus Roy Georges, MD graduated from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan with a bachelor's degree in zoology with a biomedical option in 1987. Georges subsequently attended Weill Cornell University Medical College in New York City, graduating in 1991 and completing his residency in urology at Chicago's Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center in 1997. Shortly after that, urology physician Dr. Georges started his practice in Sebring, Florida before relocating to Orlando, where he remains settled today.

#drcletusgeorges #cletusroygeorges #cletusgeorgesurology

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cathrynstreich · 5 years

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Volunteering Works Program Announces 2019 Mentoring and Grant Recipients

The National Association of REALTORS® and the Good Neighbor Society have announced the recipients of the 11th annual Volunteering Works grants and mentoring program. The program matches REALTORS® who work on newer, small-scale charitable efforts with mentors and awards them with funding for their project.

The five Volunteering Works recipients will receive a $1,000 seed grant and a year of one-on-one mentoring from a member of the Good Neighbor Society, composed of past recipients of NAR’s annual Good Neighbor Awards for volunteer service.

“This year’s recipients are committed to addressing needs in their community and have the drive to make a real difference,” says NAR President John Smaby. “The opportunity to work with Good Neighbor mentors will help them grow and improve their nonprofits for years to come, and NAR is proud to support those volunteers by offering mentoring, guidance and funding.”

The Volunteering Works recipients were selected based on their devotion to their communities through volunteer work and the potential to improve or expand upon their good with the help of an expert mentor. Their mentors are past winners of the Good Neighbor Awards, the highest honor that NAR awards to REALTORS® who are involved in community service.

2018 Volunteering Works mentoring recipient Carl Carter of RE/MAX Elite in North Little Rock, Ark., founded the Beverly Carter Foundation to teach safety strategies to REALTORS® after a man posing as a homebuyer killed his mother.

“Volunteering Works has taught me to dream bigger, and has filled me with the confidence and renewed conviction to pursue my mission of making the real estate profession safer,” says Carter, who was mentored by 2001 Good Neighbor Ron Phipps. “The mentorship has stretched my vision and creativity to new places.”

The 2019 Volunteering Works program was made possible thanks to Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

“Wells Fargo is delighted to join NAR in recognition of the volunteerism and leadership of REALTORS® who make a meaningful difference,” says Heidi Vogel, interim executive director of Wells Fargo Foundation housing philanthropy initiatives. “We applaud all the REALTORS® engaged in the Volunteering Works program since they directly contribute to the important work nonprofits do in their communities.”

The 2019 recipients of Volunteering Works grants and mentoring are:

Hannah Ensor, RE/MAX Premier Properties, Louisville, Ky. In 2017, Hannah Ensor founded Baht Babies, a nonprofit organization that supplies educational materials, medical supplies and water filters to refugees and displaced persons on the Thailand/Burma border. She will receive guidance from 2018 Good Neighbor Elias Thomas of EXIT Key Real Estate in Shapleigh, Maine, who has led Rotary projects to build dams in India, on how to generate awareness and motivate more people to volunteer.

Michael Hunstad, ABR, e-PRO, CRS, SFR, Broker, Counselor Realty, Anoka, Minn. Since 2009, Michael Hunstad has turned a small holiday gift program funded by his local association into Toys for Joy, which ensures thousands of children have gifts under their Christmas tree. Each year, he helps raise $45,000 and spearheads a backpack collection and birthday club for children in need. Hunstad will seek advice from 2017 Good Neighbor Louise McLean of RE/MAX Solutions in Merritt Island, Fla., co-founder of Space Coast REALTORS® Charitable Foundation, on strategic planning, expanding programs and recruiting volunteers.

Stephanie Mitchum, ABR, Coldwell Banker, Wallace & Wallace, Knoxville, Tenn. In 2017, Stephanie Mitchum founded Love & Mercy Ministries to reach homeless inner-city teens. She meets every Monday with 10-25 at-risk teenagers to help them establish personal goals and gain stability. Today, two teens are in college, four have been awarded college scholarships and two are in rehab. She helped 18 get state IDs and birth certificates so they can seek employment and housing. She will receive guidance from her mentor, 2007 Good Neighbor Bert Waugh of Prudential Northwest Properties in Portland, Ore., founder of Transitional Youth, to recruit mentors and become a more effective ministry.

Candice Payne, 5th Group Realty & Management, Chicago, Ill. In 2017, Candice Payne’s desire to protect the homeless from plunging temperatures during Chicago’s Polar Vortex led her to rent hotel rooms that housed more than 122 people. That act of kindness resulted in national publicity and an influx of donations that will enable her new nonprofit, Action For a Cause, to turn shipping containers into tiny homes on donated land. She will receive guidance from her mentor, 2017 Good Neighbor Mony Nop of Compass in Danville, Calif., founder of Mony Nop Foundation and co-founder of Tri-Valley Nonprofit Alliance, on how to build an effective working board of directors.

Alicia Stukes, iGoldenone Realty and Concierge LLC, Upper Marlboro, Md.For three years, Alicia Stukes, founder and CEO of I’m Bruised But Not Broken LLC, has provided services and resources to victims and survivors of domestic violence in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties. Stukes’ goal is to collaborate with other nonprofits to service the entire state of Maryland. She will seek guidance from her mentor, 2015 Good Neighbor Ida Petkus of Keller Williams at the Lakes in Celebration, Fla., founder of Domestic Violence Advocacy Center, to expand the grassroots nonprofit, increase fundraising and improve community outreach.

To learn more about Volunteering Works or the Good Neighbor Awards, go to www.nar.realtor/gna.

The post Volunteering Works Program Announces 2019 Mentoring and Grant Recipients appeared first on RISMedia.

Volunteering Works Program Announces 2019 Mentoring and Grant Recipients published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

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deniscollins · 5 years

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‘I Will Not Say His Name’: Police Try to End Notoriety of Gunmen in Mass Shootings

Some law enforcement officials believe that the most important information they could provide to the public following a mass killing was the identity of the suspected perpetrator. Others believe doing so provides the killer fame, and disrespects families of the victims. If you were a law enforcement executive in Virginia Beach following a mass killing of 12 people, would you: (1) provide the killer’s name once and then always refer to the killer as “the perpetrator” or (2) continually use the killer’s name in public announcements? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

The city manager has not said his name in public. The police chief snarled it just once.

They have called him “that 13th person,” “the suspect” and “the perpetrator.” But since DeWayne Craddock killed a dozen people when he opened fire at a Virginia Beach government office on Friday, top local officials have observed a self-imposed, near total silence about his identity.

“We’re going to mention his name once, and then he will be forever referred to as ‘the suspect’ because our focus now is the dignity and respect to the victims in this case and to their families,” the police chief, James A. Cervera, said on Friday night, hours after the attack.

The intentional effort to deny killers attention represents a sharp departure from how information about mass shootings was disseminated in the era before they became so common. It reflects the growing evidence that perpetrators are driven by a desire for fame. And it is also one of the few concrete steps public officials can take to avert what is known as the copycat effect, especially as new data confirms that many assailants are influenced by information about previous attackers.

The refrain has echoed in the ritual news conferences held in the wake of mass shootings across the country in recent years. While law enforcement officials once believed that the most important information they could provide to the public was the identity of the suspected perpetrator, the attention now is on not humanizing someone who may inspire another.

“I will not say his name today,” Timothy Altomare, chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, said last year at a news conference after the shooting at the Capital Gazette’s newsroom in Annapolis, Md.

“I refuse to do it. I wish you wouldn’t do it. But I know better,” he said. “He doesn’t deserve us to talk about him one more second.”

The gunman’s name also went unspoken at the initial law enforcement news conference about the 2017 killings at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex. “We do not want to glorify him and what he has done,” said Freeman Martin with the Texas Department of Public Safety. And the authorities there vowed to continue to refrain from saying it.

The district attorney in San Diego County, Summer Stephan, has also intentionally held back from publicly citing the name of the man accused of bursting into a synagogue in Poway, Calif., in April, killing one and wounding three on the last day of Passover.

“We want to be clear that this sort of hate, and hateful crimes, will not be tolerated,” Ms. Stephan said. “And this is why I’m not going to even mention his name.”

The approach reaches beyond the United States. New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has vowed never to speak the name of the white supremacist charged with killing 51 people at two mosques in her country in March.

“He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless,” she told Parliament.

It is hard to pinpoint when some law enforcement officials started to push back against naming killers. After the 2012 Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, the parents of one of the victims, Alex Teves, began a social media campaign to urge people not to use names, called #NoNotoriety. The group’s message has been endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the International Police Association.

In 2015, a sheriff in Oregon refused to speak the name of the man who killed nine people at a community college. The next year, James Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, refused to say the name of the man who killed 49 at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

“You will notice that I’m not using the killer’s name and I will try not to do that,” Mr. Comey said, before explaining his reasoning: “Part of what motivates sick people to do this kind of thing is some twisted notion of fame or glory. And I don’t want to be part of that for the sake of the victims and their families. And so that other twisted minds don’t think that this is a path to fame and recognition.”

The refusal to repeat a suspect’s name is not universal. At the newsconference following the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall that left 11 people dead, for instance, the authorities said the suspect’s name multiple times. And some people believe that decisions by law enforcement to avoid naming assailants make little difference, particularly for relatives of the victims.

“Not saying his name is not going to take away anything that happened,” said the Rev. Sharon Risher, whose mother died in the attack on a church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. Ms. Risher said that she makes certain to mention Dylann Roof, the gunman who was sentenced to death in January 2017, during speeches because “you need to know who he is and when this name comes up, the evil this person caused.”

But the approach to not name suspects has recently been more widely embraced, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum, as chiefs and sheriffs have come to recognize that mass shooters often kill for the sake of attention.

“The sense is that is part of the reason these people do this, so let’s not feed into that,” Mr. Wexler said.

Explicit evidence of “fame seeking” exists for nearly half of the deadliest mass shootings since 2010, according to Adam Lankford, a criminology professor at the University of Alabama, who presented his data at a National Science Foundation workshop in April. His research found that 90 percent of high-fatality shootings have some circumstantial evidence of a desire for attention.

“The evidence supporting these types of strategies is stronger than ever before because we have more cases and more data,” Dr. Lankford said. “And law enforcement is also increasingly desperate to do something that would make a difference.”

Several law enforcement officials said that their departments have no official policy to avoid uttering a suspect’s name. But it has become the custom, or in some cases, an instinct. At a news conference following the shooting at a manufacturing warehouse in Aurora, Ill., last February that left five people dead and five officers wounded, Kristen Ziman, the city’s police chief, avoided naming the killer more than once.

“My thought was that he’s not deserving for his name to come across my lips and to anyone else’s ears,” Chief Ziman said. “So many people that we have seen in the past have done this for notoriety, or to try to one-up the last body count, for lack of a better terminology. And so it becomes this thing to become notorious, and I don’t want any part in giving notoriety to any human that is going to commit these heinous acts.”

Even inside her own police department she doesn’t say the name during meetings or debriefings.

“I call him ‘the shooter’ or I call him ‘the killer.’ Everyone knows who we’re talking about,” she said.

In Virginia Beach, law enforcement officials released the suspect’s name the morning after the attack.

By then, Rick Smith, the chief of police in Marysville, Wash., noticed the city’s approach immediately when he watched the news conference on Friday. He has lectured other law enforcement officials on the practice since implementing it himself in 2014, after a school shooting in his city that left five people dead, including the gunman.

“In the past, we were trying to do all the right things, cooperating with the media to get information out there, and a certain shooting would get associated with a certain individual’s name,” Chief Smith said. “But there is now a consensus that that is not the appropriate route to go.”

“I absolutely agreed with it,” he said of Chief Cervera’s statement in Virginia Beach. “It was the right approach.”

#Mass Killings

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baltimorecheckbook · 4 years

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Local nonprofits receive grant money from Anne Arundel Community Foundation’s fourth round of crisis response funding

The Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County funded July 15 grants totaling $32,000 for 15 county nonprofits, according to a foundation release published Thursday.

from Baltimore Sun

#Baltimore Sub

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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How to Find the Cops America Needs

Officer-involved shootings continue to be a major problem for police departments across the country. According to the Fatal Force database compiled by the Washington Post, 3,743 people have been shot and killed by police since 2015, with 746 of those deaths occurring in 2018 alone.

While a number of these incidents may be the result of officers responding to legitimate threats to their safety, and the safety of others, many still point to a pattern of violent and irresponsible reactions to situations that should have ended differently for everyone.

One solution has been to train officers in de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques, an option tried in major departments such as New York and Seattle. But increasingly, members of the criminal justice community say police need to take a much closer look at who they’re hiring, and how those men and women are being selected for a job that puts people’s lives in their hands.

“The traditional police hiring process really tends to eliminate people; it’s not designed to hire the best,” said Tom Wilson, director of the Police Educational Research Forum’s Center for Applied Research and Management, in an interview with The Crime Report.

According to GoLawEnforcement.com, an online employment resource for nationwide law enforcement, the standard hiring process consists of a written exam—usually multiple choice—an oral board interview, a physical agility test, a polygraph, a psychological exam, a background investigation, and a medical exam. Each candidate completes each exam and then moves on to the next.

Wilson, a 25-year veteran of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, compares it to a “funnel.”

“You start at the top end of a funnel, and you get all these people to apply and then maybe by the time you actually hire somebody you whittle it down to one out of ten, twenty, thirty, forty.”

The “funnel” only serves to weed out those who don’t make it to the next step. Most departments then rely on their training academies to further identify who has the desired and necessary skills they are looking for, and who doesn’t.

“If you don’t pass mustard in the academy, if you’re not able to pass certain requirements and tests, then you will be eliminated from the process,” said Wilson.

But police academies aren’t always reliable filters. With police departments around the country facing high demands for new officers, some cities’ academies are graduating people who are both ill-prepared and ill-suited for the job ahead.

Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, for example, who are under pressure to hire thousands of new officers, have been criticized for the quality of their new hires. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Police Department’s academy graduated more than 97 percent of its recruits over a four year period. According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, a third of Baltimore police recruits set to graduate lack even a basic understanding of the laws governing constitutional policing.

“As long as you have (hiring) quotas, you have targets, and when you have targets you’re eliminating good people,” said Stan Mason, host of the radio program Behind the Blue Curtain, in an interview with TCR.

Lowering standards begins at the hiring level.

A 25-year veteran of the Waco, Tx., Police Department, Mason was part of the selection process in his agency for 15 years. He points out that for most departments, and especially those in major municipalities, lowering standards to meet numbers begins at the hiring level.

As a result, even positive efforts like diversification can yield poor candidates when selection comes down to just filling required slots as soon as possible.

“When you have to meet numbers and you get down to the last two black guys, neither of them might be worth a thing,” said Mason. “But, one of them is going to get in there because you gotta fill those books.”

Stan Mason

Mason recommends that cities and their departments focus instead on better understanding the demographics of their communities, stressing a need for departments that strive for a cultural diversity that mirrors the demographics of the cities or towns they police and, as a result, are better equipped to provide the kind of officers those communities really need.

It’s a necessity that Wilson agrees is long overdue for recognition.

“It’s time we start recognizing that different people bring different skills to this job, and we need that diverse background,” said Wilson, who adds that even just changing where and how departments hire those people is a step in the right direction.

In the wake of low unemployment rates, negative public scrutiny, and a shift in what younger generations want in a career, developing new and innovative hiring practices to fill the ranks of police departments is critical.

A 2017 national survey by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence found that governments are having more trouble hiring police than any other category of personnel. According to Wilson, this may be due, in part, to an outdated hiring strategy.

“It’s not the old standby that we go to the local colleges, or state colleges, or military bases,” said Wilson. “We need to start branching out a little bit.”

Some departments are.

Proactive Recruiting

In 2017, the Michigan State Police put full-time recruiters in the field, made community partnerships with the Black Caucus Foundation and America Corps, visited churches that recommended candidates, and launched an aggressive social media campaign with videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. Their most recent academy class, set to graduate in 2019, is the most diverse they’ve had in 20 years.

In Dallas, Chief U. Renee Hall launched a program that seeks to hire recent high school graduates as supplemental public service officers who will receive college tuition reimbursement and, upon program completion and reaching hiring age, become eligible to attend the police academy.

Its goals include attracting a new pool of recruits from different areas in the communities that the police serve and thereby strengthening trust.

However, Mason insists that innovative hiring campaigns like these, while positive efforts, are only successful if the departments know the people they’re serving and choose the right officer for the right community.

“You have to understand your city,” said Mason.

“You can’t hire two Blacks, 17 whites, and one Hispanic and say, ‘wow, look at us: we got more people.’ You just have more resources. If the resources can’t be applied effectively, what good is it?”

And for officers like Mason, making sure that departments are hiring people who know the communities they are policing is essential to ensuring everyone’s safety and understanding.

A 2017 report by the Pew Research Center found that in a national survey of nearly 8,000 police officers, 72 percent considered knowledge of the people, places, and culture of the areas they work extremely important to doing the job effectively.

However, many departments today find a lot of their officers live outside the communities they serve.

Does Location Matter?

According to The New York Times, in cities like Baton Rouge, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, a majority of officers don’t live within the city limits. In fact, data journalism outlet FiveThirtyEight reports that only 15 of the nation’s largest police forces even require residency for their officers at all. As a result, the number of officers policing communities they actually know is rapidly dwindling, creating greater risk for potentially deadly mistakes.

“If you have a white officer, who has never been around black people, is this guy going to fit in Detroit, Chicago, or Baltimore?” asked Mason.

“This guy can’t handle it; it’s culture shock.”

Faced with this reality, finding the best officers can’t just be about finding the people that culturally or ethnically best suit a specific community.

For David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a leading national authority on racial profiling, it must also be about finding the people who are able to make a connection with, and adapt to, any community’s culture.

The first step begins with paying attention to how a candidate behaves at home.

David Harris

“If I’m recruiting people, I want to know what they do in their own community,” said Harris, a criminal justice author who has also worked as a professional trainer for law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

According to Harris, finding men and women who demonstrate a concrete commitment to the community in which they live, even if it’s not the one they’re applying to serve, is essential to finding out what kind of police officer they will be in the future.

“Do they coach Little League? Do they work at a soup kitchen? Volunteer for meals on wheels? Anything,” said Harris.

“Show me that they are people who care about that sort of thing.”

By finding such community-involved and adaptable individuals, Harris believes that departments can move closer to the more empathetic and conscientious officers that people want. And the departments that will have the best luck in finding these kind of men and women are the ones who reach out to those very same communities and ask, “what do you want.”

While conducting research in this area for his 2005 book “Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing,” Harris had the opportunity to observe the St. Paul Police Department do just that.

“They went to the community and asked them what kind of police department and officers they wanted,” said Harris.

“The people didn’t come up with physically strong, willing to run into a burning building. What they came up with was good communicator, honest, having integrity, being able to talk to people. Those were the things that the community was interested in. What any community would be interested in.”

For Harris, this kind of cooperation and communication should be the norm, especially during the hiring process. For example, by including civilians and members of the community in police department’s review boards, which interview candidates on their qualifications and character, departments may have a better chance of improving the whole process and veering away from hiring the kind of command and control police officers traditionally sought after in the past by boards comprised mainly of a department’s sworn officers.

In fact, according to the Report on 21st Century Policing, released under the Obama administration, civilian involvement with local law enforcement agencies is essential to improving the state of policing in this country. And while police popularity may be low, a 2017 study by the Urban Institute found that large percentages of people living in the most challenging areas of cities like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Birmingham, also professed a desire to work with police to solve neighborhood issues.

Community Involvement in Hiring

“A civilian group, or the community more broadly, can and should certainly be helping an agency determine what its priorities are,” agreed Seth Stoughton, an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, and a former Tallahassee, Fl., police officer, in an interview with TCR.

A member of the Columbia, S.C., Police Department’s civilian advisory council, Stoughton explained that, as part of the department’s inclusive selection process, a member of his council always attends both police applicant interviews and officer disciplinary hearings.

Seth Stoughton

Enjoying an equal voice and vote alongside the police chiefs and commanders in the room, these men and women can ask questions and provide feedback on a candidate that helps to better decide if they are the best choice for the job.

Another example of this kind of successful cohesion is Washington D.C. where, according to PBS.org, the Office of Police Complaints (OPC) has won praise for an effectiveness that is based on community outreach, independence, and authority to approve policy and training recommendations to the department.

But while the OPC may be an example of a best-case scenario when it comes to organizing civilian involvement and cohesion with police in the hiring process, Stoughton warns that no two departments are alike. Things like independence and authority are hard to come by, he said.

“The devil is in the details,” Stoughton observed. “How do you pick which civilian or set of civilians is going to be involved in this? How much say does the civilian have?”

In a country with roughly 18,000 different law enforcement agencies, finding the right answer to these questions is no easy task. A report by the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) states that the largest impediment to establishing approaches to civilian oversight are the wildly different practices of any two jurisdictions, which can depend on a variety of political, cultural, and social influences.

Inconsistency of this kind can lead to board members being selected by the chief of police or a political official, a biased situation that some would consider no different than having the chief select an officer.

In addition, further damage can be done by the civilian members themselves, who, according to a study by the Columbia Journal on Law and Social Problems, can not only display bias towards the department that hired them, but could also be overly deferential to the police because of a lack of experience.

Shortcomings like these are exemplified by cities like Seattle and Albuquerque where, despite having established civilian oversight and apparent transparency in the past, they find themselves facing an uphill battle to improve their police departments.

In Chicago, a debate continues over whether civilian groups should oversee police at all. While it may be a small step in the right direction, civilian involvement is far from the only solution to finding today’s best, brightest and most empathetic police candidates.

“I think civilian involvement in the hiring process is an easy thing for most agencies and jurisdictions to do,” said Stoughton.

But he added, “I don’t think it entirely or substantially solves some of the problems that various agencies in various communities have experienced.”

Gypsy Cops

When it comes to proper hiring, one of the largest of those problems are known as “gypsy cops.”

Recently, communities in Cleveland were outraged to find out that Timothy Loehman, the Cleveland officer who shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice, had been hired by the nearby Belair, Ohio police department on a part-time basis.

Despite losing his job in Cleveland for failing to disclose that the Independence, Ohio police department had previously found him unfit to be a member of their own department, Loehman was also permitted to apply at departments in Euclid and RTA. Though he has recently quit amid public pressure, he was still hired in Belair despite his very public and questionable reputation.

“Most would assume that if police departments knew what happened with an officer at a prior department you wouldn’t hire them,” said Roger Goldman, a Callis Family Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law, to TCR.

Roger Goldman

“That is absolutely not the case.”

Instead, police departments around the country have been rehiring officers with terrible records for years. And while some departments may look into a former officers past before hiring, they are too often either not digging deep enough or are willing to ignore prior misconduct and hire people who are a risk in the face of both state laws and department budgetary issues.

“State law can get in the way of screening officers who come from prior service,” said Stoughton.

According to the Washington Post, some states shield police personnel records, including firings, from public records, while state laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s allow police some form of collective bargaining rights. Thus, police unions are able to appeal any discipline taken against an officer and, more often than not, have them reinstated.

The process is lengthy, complicated and costly and, as a result, many departments prefer to avoid liability altogether and only provide a former employee’s start and end date.

“One agency might not want to tell another agency exactly why an officer no longer works there, because they might be afraid of a defamation lawsuit,” added Stoughton.

On the other end, Goldman said that police departments, especially smaller departments, will often choose to roll the dice on a former officer with a poor record just to save money, rather than spend what they may not have in order to train a completely new hire.

It’s a decision that can cost lives.

“What got me started in all of this was a cop at a St. Louis, Mo., department who was playing Russian roulette with suspects, and despite that was hired knowingly by another department that couldn’t afford a better cop,” said Goldman, who adds that the officer later ended up fatally shooting an unarmed suspect in the back.

‘Desperate for Bodies’

“Some departments are so desperate for bodies that they’re willing to hire anyone.”

But Goldman explains that this pattern can be broken by taking sole authority for hiring out of the hands of local departments and sharing it with the state.

For the last 40 years he has successfully crusaded for state laws that allow for decertification of police in instances of misconduct. Noting that state licensing boards already exist for occupations such as lawyers, teachers, doctors, and even plumbers, he argues that the policing field needs this same type of oversight.

Since New Mexico became the first state to get the authority to revoke licenses in 1960, 46 states have followed suit and established commissions with the power to decertify officers and a total of 30,000 officers have been decertified, according to an article from The Guardian.

However, four states—California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—still lack these kinds of regulatory bodies. Twenty of those states that do have the power can only decertify if the officer has been convicted of a crime, according to The Atlantic. Even some states that have the power to decertify often fail to utilize it, such as Louisiana, which The Advocate reports has only decertified six officers in the last 12 years.

While the issue of decertification is currently only an individual state concern, when plagued with these kinds of inconsistencies Goldman states that it may not be able to succeed without federal involvement.

“These are local matters, but you need federal oversight to make sure that individual departments come up to standards,” said Goldman.

Federal involvement of the Department of Justice (DOJ), in a fashion similar to the consent decrees issued after Ferguson in Missouri, Seattle, and Chicago, could help to motivate state efforts by denying funding to departments that fail to comply with set guidelines. In addition, where there is currently no national database for recording decertified officers, activity by the DOJ could require one.

“Just how we now have the National Practitioner Databank for healthcare professionals, that has any disciplinary action that has been taken against the practitioner run out of Health and Human Services; so too if a police officer goes across state lines a licensing board would be able to access a federal databank,” said Goldman.

But, so far, the feds have done very little.

Since 2003, states have been required to submit data on officer-involved killings of civilians to the DOJ, but many have repeatedly failed to cooperate, with little to no resulting penalties, reports NBC.com. The only existing resource for recording decertified officers is the National Decertification Index, an independent databank that 45 states submit to and which accounts for 25,000 of the total 30,000 recorded since 1960.

In addition, the current administration has stated that it considers policing a matter of exclusively local oversight, going so far as to suggest cutting funding for the DOJ’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which provides information and funding to advance the practice of community policing in departments nationally, a major blow to a seemingly already faulty system.

Yet, step by step, state by state, there are pockets of improvement.

Colorado recently passed a law stating that former officers cannot be hired by another department unless they waive any nondisclosure agreements that they may have made. New York, through regulation, has had the power to decertify since 2016, and Hawaii has recently enacted a decertification bill. In the ongoing effort to find the best possible officers, decertification helps prevent departments from hiring anything less and holds them to the same standards as other professions that are not given a badge and a gun.

“Like we do with lawyers, we can do with cops: take away their license, probation, suspension, so forth,” said Goldman.

“Policing requires the same kind of oversight that all these other occupations have.”

“In policing, thinking doesn’t go very deep and it doesn’t go very far.”

Peter Sarna, a 40-year police veteran and former chief of the Oakland Police Department, thinks that ideas like this are sorely lacking in the policing field overall.

“In policing, thinking doesn’t go very deep and it doesn’t go very far. It doesn’t look out over the horizon to see what the long term effects might be,” said Sarna in an interview with TCR.

A nationally recognized expert in police training and use of force, Sarna believes that this absence of foresight has not only led to circumstances like the gypsy cops, but also trapped policing in an outdated and unrealistic performance model: one that expects all their officers to be able to perform a variety of different task specific skill sets, at any given time, and to be able to switch rapidly between those skill sets depending on the task.

In addition to the basic tenets of the job, and the everyday potential for danger, police officers today are now called upon to handle a variety of new situations that they were before rarely called upon to deal with. From policing the mentally ill to performing disciplinary actions at schools, all while dealing with an increasingly popularized negative image of policing in general, police today are wearing a lot more hats—perhaps even too many.

When it comes to hiring and selecting, expecting to find large amounts of people who can perform all these duties effectively might be a tall order.

“Maybe you have 1 percent of your cops that you can recruit who are stars,” said Sarna.

“They have the mindsets, they can move quickly among different types of calls, they can catch bad guys, solve family fights, they can do spectacular work. But they’re a small percentage of the workforce.”

Looking for the ‘Renaissance Cop’

According to Sarna, this model of a “renaissance cop” ignores a stark reality of the profession: it requires a multiplicity of tasks performed by a variety of officers to succeed. While the goals of having de-escalation skills, empathy, and conflict resolution abilities in every officer are important and necessary to pursue, he insisted that there will always be those officers who are better at one aspect of the job than the other.

Instead of wasting time searching for new hires based on an idealized model of the perfect cop, he believes that the whole policing profession needs to be restructured and that police officers should be selected for specific positions based on the strengths they develop and bring to the job before and after training.

It is an idea that mirrors the kind of division of labor found in most hospitals today.

“You go to a hospital and there’s a doctor for every part of the body,” said Sarna. “It’s extensive.”

This kind of division of labor is more than necessary in the policing field, where the types of calls for assistance vary widely. And a recognition that certain types of calls warrant specialization and demand certain skill sets has begun to grow, especially when concerning the handling of the mentally ill.

In cities like New York and Chicago, departments have started Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) programs and created teams of trained officers who respond to any call involving the mentally ill or those in distress.

Sarna, who served as a rank-and-file officer in Oakland before becoming chief, pointed out that this type of specialization was attributable to much of Oakland’s success at that time. And though the “warrior vs. guardian” debate continues to define how officers are chosen, he insists that understanding the need for both, and how to properly assign them, is the key to a more successful, and safer, style of policing.

Tough Questions

But first, departments need to start asking themselves some tough questions.

“Do we need to specifically select a top tier of cops who are crime fighters and can do it well within the law?” asked Sarna.

“And do we also need ‘community service officers’ who can handle a lot of the tedious, mundane things that need to be done to work well?”

For Capt. Victor Davalos, Commanding Officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Recruitment and Employment Division, there are no easy answers to these questions. He argues that a department’s ability to implement this kind of overarching specialization depends on specific factors.

“It’s important to know the differences, limitations and environment that every department operates in,” said Davalos.

Though it may be an option for larger departments, he notes that specialization is a luxury that most smaller departments, and even medium-sized departments like the LAPD, can’t afford.

“Unlike, for example, New York, which has about 30,000 officers, we only have approximately 10,000,” Davalos told TCR.

“We have to do a lot more with a lot less.”

And while the LAPD does have a program similar to the CIT teams in New York, where their officers are partnered with mental health specialists and respond to mental health calls together, and can also utilize a SWAT team to respond to very dangerous and high risk situations, Davalos points out that, in any department, there are a lot of calls to service in between those two dimensions.

“We really need officers that are able to respond to all types of situations,” said Davalos.

In order to find them, he and the LAPD feel that, rather than trying to restructure the whole department, a lot of progress can be made by simply making adjustments to policies and procedures that would make hiring easier and better suited to the times. And, for some departments, one such adjustment that is currently up for discussion is the use of marijuana.

Should Past Marijuana Use Disqualify?

In the past, drug use of any kind was considered an automatic disqualifier for service. But as marijuana laws become more relaxed around the country, with Business Insider reporting recreational use legal in 10 states and medicinal consumption legal in 33, police departments are following suit. In places like Chicago, Denver, Portland, police departments are relaxing their policies on past marijuana use in an effort to attract candidates who would otherwise be passed over.

Davalos says the LAPD is following suit.

“As those laws continue to evolve, so must we, so we remain current and we’re not using outdated guidelines,” said Davalos.

In addition, the LAPD and other departments are also reconsidering disqualifying applicants based on credit checks and certain criminal records, both of which, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, disproportionately impact racial minority candidates who are more likely, for multiple reasons, to have low credit scores and more contact with criminal justice in their communities.

By adjusting certain aspects of selection in this way, departments ideally have a chance at widening the pool of applicants they have to choose from.

Aram Kouyomdjian

This was the case in Philadelphia where, in 2017, after lowering the college credit requirements and raising the hiring age, the police department experienced a 20 percent increase in applications from the roughly 5,000 annually that they were accustomed to. More applicants arguably allows departments to be more selective in their hiring and take the time to find the best possible candidate, opening a pathway up to those most needed that gets them through the hiring process much faster for much less.

“If I’m trying to process 10,000 people, many of whom are unqualified, that is a harder drain on my resources than if I’m processing 7,000 candidates who are more qualified,” said Aram Kouyoumdjian, Assistant General Manager (Public Safety) of the City of Los Angeles Personnel Department, the entity that handles testing and produces the lists of eligible candidates certified to be hired for the LAPD’s final review, to TCR.

“It actually makes the process easier for them and for us.”

According to Kouyoumdjian, this more streamlined process, and resulting influx of officers, has allowed his department, which handles every aspect of hiring but the police department interviews, to fine-tune testing to focus more on reading comprehension and communication skills, adjust physical exams to be more in line with what is done in the academy, and take a much harder look at applicants backgrounds than ever before.

“It’s about trying to get more qualified candidates into the process from the get go, as opposed to just testing willy-nilly and spending time screening people out,” said Kouyoumdjian.

Yet some in law enforcement remain concerned that changes such as these could potentially have dangerous results.

A 2016 article for policeone.com warns that a person with poor credit history may be susceptible to bribery, someone convicted of a previous crime may reoffend, or a person who can’t meet physical standards may jeopardize the lives of others.

And in Texas, ksat.com reports that the San Antonio Police Officers Association recently argued that changing the standards for department hires may lower the quality of men and women hired for the job rather than improve it.

Despite these concerns, Kouyoumdjian insists that changing the standards by no means equates to lowering them.

“Our responsibility is hiring officers who can deliver on all fronts.”

“We want officers who can, when circumstances call for it, perform the job of law enforcement, but (who will) also be able to recognize who needs protection and who needs accountability.”

However, although this kind of clear-sighted and optimistic approach may be necessary to finding today and tomorrow’s best police candidates, it might not be enough to tackle the many real hurdles the industry has to overcome.

While practices such as involving the community in hiring, diversifying applicants, decertifying lateral hires, restructuring division of labor, and updating and evolving hiring to suit the times represent some of the best efforts being made today to find the officers we need tomorrow, men like Peter Sarna still remain unconvinced.

Isidoro Rodriguez

“Are we fooling ourselves? Can we actually get people in large numbers, who can perform full spectrum policing? Or is it impossible?”

The answer to those questions may determine the future of 21st century policing in America.

Isidoro Rodriguez is a contributing writer to The Crime Report. He welcomes readers’ comments.

How to Find the Cops America Needs syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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webabybouquetwastelandfan · 5 years

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The first allocations from the Capital Gazette Families Fund will be disbursed in the coming weeks as recipients are notified of how much money they will receive, said Amy Francis, development director for the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County.

Donors around the world have contributed…

from Anne Arundel County – Baltimore Sun http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/ac-cn-cgfund-disbursements-20181118-story.html Read more here.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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cherineanderson · 6 years

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👏👏👏 Help me say a big #CONGRATS to a Mrs. Elizabeth Sheree Morris on becoming the FIRST BLACK WOMAN in the history of Anne Arundel County, Maryland to be appointed as a Circuit Court judge. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Morris was born and raised in Norristown, PA by her hardworking mother Candace Taylor who hails from Christiana in Manchester Jamaica. Her godfather and co-founder of the Jamaican based @reachonechild foundation, Patrick Lindsay, along with her husband Damon, her two children Simone and David, family and friends will all be there to support her as she is sworn in today. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ At only 41 years old, she has served as an Assistant Attorney General for eight years as well as an attorney with the National Security Agency. Morris understands the importance her race will play in her county's judiciary. In a recent interview with Phil Davis of the Capital Gazette, she states that “I think that, wherever you’re at, the bench should be representative of the community, because the importance is that it instills public confidence in the judiciary that matters will be heard fairly and impartially.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In our special feature #ClaimDem & #NameDem we shine a light on everyday people doing extraordinary things, making a difference in their community, shifting culture and being the change they want to see in the world. https://ift.tt/2yIkMvv

#IFTTT #Instagram

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louishendersonme · 5 years

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What Is Infrared Asphalt Repair?

Learn about infrared asphalt repair.

Asphalt driveways and parking lots are used almost daily by countless vehicles. It’s only natural that over time, your asphalt will require repairs and routine maintenance. Whether the freeze/thaw cycle has left your parking lot cracked, or wear-and-tear has left potholes throughout your pavement, asphalt repair will eventually be necessary. You may be wondering–what’s the best way to patch or repair my asphalt pavement? Though most of us are familiar with asphalt patching, infrared asphalt repair is a highly effective and durable method for repairing blacktop. Learn about why infrared asphalt repair is a good choice and how it can benefit you.

Easy Repair

The traditional method of repairing asphalt involves excavating and repaving holes and deteriorated areas. This can be time-consuming and requires extensive cutting and chiseling. Infrared asphalt repair, on the other hand, heats up the existing asphalt. This allows pavement professionals to simply add hot asphalt mix to the heated pavement and rejuvenate asphalt without leaving behind bumps or seams. This allows for a quick repair and a smoother surface. Since you don’t need to cut and clean up the edges of the pothole, it eliminates several steps from the repair process, making maintenance of your driveway or parking lot quicker and easier. Bonus: this makes infrared asphalt repair extremely cost-effective!

Increased Durability

Infrared asphalt repair isn’t just easy and cost-effective. It’s also a far more durable option than traditional asphalt repair. Since you heat the asphalt up during the process and eliminate seams or joints in the pavement, the asphalt is stronger overall than it would be with traditional patching. With no seam or joint, there is no weak spot for the freeze/thaw cycle, weathering, or pressure over time to wear out. This means that repairs done using infrared asphalt repair will last longer and reduce the amount of maintenance required to keep your pavement looking and working like new!

Extended Repair Season

Typically, you need to wait for warmer weather to repair asphalt holes and cracks using traditional methods. But since infrared repair entails heating the surrounding asphalt to temperatures of over 300*F, you can use this method in cooler temperatures than you would normally be able to repair asphalt. This means that your repair season is longer, allowing you a lot more flexibility to plan high-quality repair with a reputable pavement professional. As long as you have a strong foundation for your asphalt, you can repair pavement using infrared asphalt repair in minutes as if you were laying new hot asphalt!

Maintenance You Can Trust from PTG Enterprises

The post What Is Infrared Asphalt Repair? appeared first on MYpavementGUY.com.

This post What Is Infrared Asphalt Repair? was first published from http://mypavementguy.com/blog

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investmart007 · 6 years

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | The Latest: Hundreds attend vigil for slain paper staffers

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/u8SVRd

ANNAPOLIS, Md. | The Latest: Hundreds attend vigil for slain paper staffers

ANNAPOLIS, Md.— The Latest on the shootings targeting Maryland’s Capital Gazette newspaper (all times local):

8:15 p.m.

Hundreds of people have gathered in the shadow of the Maryland State House for a candlelight march in memory of five slain newspaper employees.

The mood was somber Friday as Capital Gazette reporter Phil Davis read aloud the names of his five slain co-workers before those gathers began marching through downtown Annapolis.

Some in the crowd carried signs and banners that said “#AnnapolisStrong.”

Melissa Wilson and her husband, Benjamin Wilson, brought their children to the vigil. Melissa Wilson’s employer has offices in the same building as the newspaper and has co-workers who were there when the gunman opened fire. She said many Annapolis residents have a “one degree of separation” connection with at least one of the five paper employees who were fatally shot Thursday.

“It’s not something you can ignore when it’s in your backyard,” she said.

___

7:15 p.m.

The former editor of the Maryland newspaper where five staffers were shot to death says he became increasingly alarmed five years ago when the suspect in the slayings began targeting him and others at the newspaper with angry messages on social media.

Tom Marquardt said he called police about Jarrod Ramos in 2013, but they said the messages were not clear-cut threats. Marquardt said he talked with the newspaper’s lawyers about seeking a restraining order against Ramos, but decided against it because he and others thought it could provoke Ramos to do something worse.

“We decided to take the course of laying low,” he said.

For more than two years, Ramos “went silent,” Marquardt said.

“This led us to believe that he had moved on, but for whatever reason, he decided to resurrect his issue with The Capital yesterday,” Marquardt said. “We don’t know why.”

___

6:35 p.m.

Dozens of mourners have gathered at a Maryland church to grieve and pay tribute to five slain newspaper employees, including a member of the church’s congregation.

The Rev. Fred Muir’s voice cracked when he described the mounting dread he had felt as it became clear Wendi Winters didn’t survive Thursday’s shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis.

The 65-year-old Winters was a special publications editor and a mother of four.

Muir described her as a beloved “pillar of her community.”

Some of those attending the vigil at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis on Friday gasped when the Rev. John Crestwell noted that Winters had participated in a training session at the church three weeks ago on how to respond to an active shooter.

Crestwell said he was sure that Winters “did not cower in fear.” He said she “died a hero and probably saved more lives.”

___

6:25 p.m.

A police detective who several years ago investigated the man accused of fatally shooting five people this week at a Maryland newspaper said at the time that he did not think the man posed a threat to the paper’s employees.

Anne Arundel County Police said Friday that the detective had been assigned to investigate threatening comments Jarrod W. Ramos made online in 2013.

A police report from 2013 that authorities released Friday describes a conference call between the detective, an attorney for the publishing company, a former correspondent and the paper’s editor.

The detective said he told the other participants he didn’t think Ramos was a threat, based partly on the fact that he had not tried to enter the newspaper building and hadn’t sent “direct threatening correspondence.” The report also says Ramos’ contact with employees had been limited to Twitter and civil court filings.

The report says the newspaper had decided not to pursue any charges because doing so would be like “putting a stick in a beehive.”

___

6:10 p.m.

The Chicago-based publishing company for The Capital Gazette says it has established a fund to provide “relief and long-term recovery support” to the staff and families of victims at a Maryland newspaper where a shooting left five people dead.

Tronc Inc. said in a statement Friday that it had set up The Capital Gazette Families Fund for funeral expenses, trauma counseling, medical expenses not covered by insurance and other services.

The statement notes the Michael and Jacky Ferro Family Foundation will match up to $1 million in donations.

Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn also said in the statement that while Thursday’s attack appeared to specifically target the Capital Gazette, the company would be “enhancing security for all employees across the organization.”

Tronc Inc. publishes the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers and digital news sites in various markets.

Prosecutors say 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos opened fire Thursday in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland.

He’s charged with five counts of first-degree murder.

(this item has been edited to correct the name of the publishing company, Tronc Inc.)

____

3:30 p.m.

The suspect in the shooting that left five people dead at a Maryland newspaper has been put on suicide watch.

A judge was told about the watch during a bond hearing Friday for 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos.

Judge Thomas Pryal also was given details about the suspect. The 5-foot-10 Ramos is single, with no children. He has lived in Maryland most of his life, including for the past 17 years in an apartment in Laurel, Maryland.

Pryal determined Ramos was still a danger and ordered him to remain in jail.

___

1 p.m.

President Donald Trump has offered a statement of support for journalists after a gunman fatally shot five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.

He said Friday at the White House that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”

Trump routinely calls the reporters who cover him “fake news” and “liars” and labels them “enemies of the people.”

A gunman shot his way into the newsroom of the Capital Gazette on Thursday, leaving five people dead.

Authorities and court records show the suspect had a well-documented history of harassing the paper’s journalists.

Trump said he is thinking of the survivors and the families of the “horrific, horrible” murders.

____

12:10 p.m.

A prosecutor says the shooter who opened fire at a Maryland newspaper had an escape plan he never implemented.

The suspect was captured by police while hiding under a desk at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.

Prosecutor Wes Adams did not give any details about the escape plan. He said Friday that there were two entrances to the newspaper’s office. He says 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos entered through the front door on Thursday and “worked his way through the office.” He says Ramos barricaded the exit door so employees couldn’t escape, and that one of the five people who were killed was shot while trying to escape out that exit.

A judge ordered Ramos to remain detained during a court hearing Friday. Judge Thomas Pryal said found a likelihood that Ramos is a danger.

Ramos appeared at the hearing via video feed. He appeared to watch attentively during the hearing but never spoke. He was represented by public defender William Davis.

He is charged with five counts of first-degree murder.

___

11:45 a.m.

Authorities say the Maryland newspaper targeted in a shooting attack that left five people dead didn’t want to press charges in an earlier case.

Police Chief Timothy Altomare said at a news conference Friday that the Capital Gazette didn’t press charges over social media threats the shooting suspect had made against the newspaper in 2013.

Authorities have charged Jarrod W. Ramos with five counts of first-degree murder in the killings inside Maryland’s Capital Gazette office on Thursday.

Altomare said the shooter intended to “kill as many people as he could kill.”

___

11:30 a.m.

Authorities say the suspect in the deadly shooting at a Maryland newspaper used a pump-action shotgun in the attack at the Capital Gazette newspaper that left five people dead.

Police Chief Timothy Altomare also said at a news conference Friday that it is “absolutely untrue” that suspect Jarrod W. Ramos mutilated his fingertips.

Altomare also said that employees Rachel Pacella and Janet Cooley had been treated at a hospital and released after being injured during Thursday’s attack.

___

10 a.m.

The city of Annapolis is planning a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper.

The city announced on social media Friday that the vigil would begin at 8 p.m. at a public square near the Capitol, followed by a march to a dock for a service by the water.

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland announced that the city’s houses of worship had planned a prayer vigil at 7 p.m. Friday at a mall across the street from the shooting site. All are welcome.

On Saturday, the 5:30 p.m. Eucharist at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in downtown will be offered for the victims.

___

9:30 a.m.

A Maryland newspaper attacked by a gunman has kept its promise to put out the next day’s paper, despite the shooting deaths of five people in its newsroom.

Hours after a gunman blasted his way inside The Capital Gazette on Thursday, the surviving staff tweeted out their defiance: “Tomorrow, this Capital page will return to its steady purpose of offering readers informed opinion about the world around them. But today, we are speechless.”

Friday morning’s edition featured in-depth coverage of the shooting and obituaries of the five people killed. Each victim’s photo appeared below the masthead.

And below the main shooting story were the staples of a community newspaper: a glance at the day’s weather and a teaser to a national story inside: “Trump, Putin: The two leaders will meet in Finland in July.”

9 a.m.

Court documents say a gunman who fatally shot five people at a Maryland newspaper tried to hide under a desk after the attack until police arrived.

A statement of probable cause obtained Friday by The Associated Press says surveillance video captured Thursday’s events at the Capital Gazette. It says Jarrod Ramos entered the newspaper’s office around 2:30 p.m.

The statement says Ramos used a “long gun firearm” and shot out the business doors, then shot people he encountered inside, killing five.

The statement says Ramos then “attempted to conceal himself under a desk” until police arrived and located him.

Ramos was in custody Friday and scheduled for a bond hearing at 10:30 a.m.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Public Defender said the Anne Arundel office would be representing Ramos. She declined comment.

___

5:50 a.m.

Court records filed Friday show Jarrod W. Ramos has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the killings inside Maryland’s Capital Gazette office.

The online records do not list an attorney for Ramos, who is scheduled for a bail hearing 10:30 a.m. Friday in Annapolis.

Authorities say Ramos opened fire inside the newspaper office Thursday, killing five and injuring two others. He had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists.

___

12: 30 a.m.

Police say a man firing a shotgun killed four journalists and a staffer at Maryland’s capital newspaper before officers quickly arrived and took him into custody.

Police say they are a questioning the suspect, a white man in his late 30s, following Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis.

Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County says it was a targeted attack in which the gunman “looked for his victims.”

Journalists described how they scrambled under desks and sought to hide during a few minutes of terror. They recounted hearing the gunman’s footsteps as he moved about the newsroom, firing his weapon.

The attack came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down.

By Associated Press

___

#AnnapolisStrong #annapolis #Hundreds attend vigil #Maryland Capital Gazette newspaper #slain paper staffers #TodayNews

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