New LET editorial board member
Editorial board member Lt. Ken Phillips has deployed to Iraq to work as a latent print examiner for the military.

Replacing Phillips on the "Law Enforcement Technology" editorial board is Sgt. Randy McPherron of the Alaska Bureau of Investigation. He currently serves as supervisor for the Anchorage Unit of the bureau.

He is a field training officer and member of the SWAT team. McPherron is also a certified police instructor for crime scene investigation, as well as interview and interrogation.

McPherron is a graduate of the National Forensic Academy, and a member of the International Homicide Investigators Association (IHIA) and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts (IABPA).

He spent three years in active duty as a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division and served six years with the Alaska Army National Guard. He hails from northern Indiana, is married and the father of three children.

2005 preliminary annual crime report
The FBI released the "Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report" for 2005 which shows a mixed direction in crime nationwide. The number of violent crime offenses rose 2.5 percent, but the number of property crime offenses decreased 1.6 percent when compared with data from 2004. The FBI collected these preliminary statistics from 12,485 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 months of offense data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program in both 2004 and 2005. Final crime statistics for 2005 will be available in "Crime in the United States," which will be published this fall on the FBI's Internet site. The complete "Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report" is available at www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.

Citizen complaint statistics
Large state and local law enforcement agencies with 59 percent of the nation's sworn officers received 26,556 citizen complaints about the police use of force during 2002, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reports. The rate was 6.6 complaints per 100 full-time sworn officers. Eighty-four percent of these complaints were made against large municipal departments, the BJS says.

About 8 percent of the complaints were officially sustained, that is, there was sufficient evidence to justify disciplinary action against the officer or officers; 34 percent were not sustained; 25 percent were unfounded, meaning the complaint was not supported by facts or the alleged incident did not occur; 23 percent ended in exonerations because the police actions were lawful and proper; and 9 percent ended in other dispositions, such as complaint withdrawal, etc.

The report, "Citizen Complaints About Police Use of Force" (NCJ-210296), was written by BJS statistician Matthew Hickman. Following publication, the report can be found at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ccpuf.htm.

False alarms drive verified responses
A staggering 94 to 98 percent of all alarm activations that police respond to are false, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. A new study explores how police departments are combatting this problem by only responding to burglar alarms which have first been verified electronically or by eyewitness. The study shows police were able to reduce their dispatch rate by an average of 72 percent.

The independent study is titled "Verified Response: Lessons Learned - A Survey of 20 Police Departments across North America with Verified Response Policies." The survey is available at www.sonitrol.com/vr.