Texting Amendment Proposed

The House Transportation Committee voted yesterday to send the texting bill to the amendment process. If the amendment goes through, it would eliminate the emergency responder exception to the proposed texting while driving bill. See last week’s blog.

Things That Make Us Smile

Indecent exposure $500

Malicious injury $500

Being placed under citizen’s arrest by an alert resident because you urinated on an IFPD patrol car that has a Watch Guard video system - "Priceless!"

IFPD Citizen's Academy Coming Soon

Want to get a taste of what police work is really like? Turn off the TV and come find out. We’re accepting applications for the 36^th session of the IFPD Citizen’s Academy. This free 10-week class gives residents an inside look into the workings of law enforcement.

Get hands-on experience with CSI, building searches, patrol tactics, SWAT, traffic stops, accident investigations, and K-9s, etc. You’ll get the opportunity to shoot guns and watch someone get tased. Depending on your IQ, you may even be one of those rare souls who volunteer to get tased.

Classes are held every Wednesday starting at 7 p.m. at the IFPD Training Annex, located at 750 Park Ave starting March 21. If you’re interested in signing up, go to our website or contact Joelyn at 612-8655 jhansen@idahofallsidaho.gov.

Hey, Watch That Geocoding

Did you know your smart phone can tell you when and where you take photos? This is a cool feature that can come in handy.

But it also has a scary side effect as illustrated by this YouTube story. The geocoding may stay with the photo, even after you post it online. A predator can download the photo and figure out exactly where your six-year-old daughter lives and plays, wherever the photo was taken, within a few meters.

Not good, but you have a couple options:

Turn off the geocoding, usually found under “location” in your phone settings.
You can strip off the data yourself using Opanda or Irfanview.

As of today, FaceBook and MySpace strip off the geocoding, but Twitter and Photobucket do not.

Police Exemption For Texting?

The texting bill being considered by the Idaho legislature had an exemption for police and fire, but what’s fair about that? You might be interested to know that in a recent vote by the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association; every single chief in Idaho agrees that officers don’t need to be texting while driving. This statement of support for removing the proposed exemption is currently being passed onto the legislators.

A handful of chiefs wrote that they don’t see the necessity of adding a texting law since Inattentive Driving already covers it and a few others wanted to make sure police officers could accept dispatched calls on their touch-screen laptops. But the bottom line is that police officers don’t need to text while driving so they don’t need a special exemption.

A texting bill has passed the senate. Stay tuned to see what happens in the house.

Domestic Violence

The Valentine card pictured above may seem funny to those not acquainted with domestic violence, but it’s a grim reality for those who are.

Domestic Violence can be some of the most challenging and dangerous calls we go on. With most crimes, we require the victim be willing to prosecute before we’ll make an arrest, but there are a few exceptions such as in-progress crimes, child abuse and domestic violence.

The IFPD takes a pro-arrest stance on domestic violence, meaning we’re not putting the victim in the position of having to “press charges” against their spouse. Not surprising to those of us that deal with it, the dynamics in relationships often leads DV victims seeking our help to reverse course during the prosecution stage or they may even suddenly turn on us during an arrest.

There are a number of reasons for victims of domestic violence to recant:

· Victims’ sense of loyalty towards their abusers

· Their belief they are responsible for their abuse

· Their belief that they can change their abusers’ behaviors

· Their economic dependence on their abusers

· The fear of escalating violence or fear for the safety of their children

Perpetrators often have their victims convinced they are powerful and beyond the law. In my experience, the victimizers are usually bullies (aka cowards), who will quickly back down when we show up. Also, by the time we arrive, the offender has already released his aggression and may now appear calm and reasonable.

On the other hand, the victim is still spun-up and with our arrival may feel safe in being more aggressive. But we don’t fall for the smooth-talking my-wife’s-a-psycho mantra. We’ll follow the evidence and make an arrest, as appropriate. Usually it’s the male that’s the primary aggressor, but sometimes we arrest the female or even both.

If there is a happy side, DV cases appear to be trending downward, though simple assaults rose last year. I give thanks to the men and women of the Idaho Falls Police Department for their excellent work and professionalism in dealing with these case and kudos to the volunteers at the Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Center.

Ban E-Cigarettes for Minors?

Last week, the Idaho House voted unanimously to outlaw electronic cigarettes for minors. For those of you who don't know, e-cigarettes provides the nicotine fix minus the smoke. It also replaces some harmful chemicals such as tar with other harmful chemicals such as diethylene glycol, the stuff in anti-freeze.

Here’s a link to the bill.

Extra Credit for Stopping Twice?

[At least two out of three got it right]

If there is a cross walk at a stop sign, be prepared to stop twice. The law requires drivers to stop before a clearly marked stop line and/or crosswalk and yield to pedestrians. But you may not be able to see oncoming traffic until you drive forward, which may require a second stop.

Here’s how the code reads:

79-807 (2) Except when directed to proceed by a peace officer or traffic-control signal, every driver of a vehicle approaching a stop sign shall stop:

(a) at a clearly marked stop line, or

(b) before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or

(c) at the point nearest the intersecting highway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting highway before entering it.

It doesn’t matter whether the crosswalk is occupied any more than it matters if cars are coming. A stop sign isn’t a yield sign.

So do you get extra credit for stopping twice? No, but you may save yourself a ticket. I remember my driver’s education instructor being caught by my fellow students for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. He responded with a joking smile, “I’ll stop twice next time.”

Try that excuse next time and see how it works out for you.

Setting the Record Straight

Saturday, the Post Register ran a story headlined “Idaho Falls man has five misdemeanors dismissed.” So far, so good. But the first paragraph ends that the judge ruled “the man was wrongfully stopped by an Idaho Falls police officer.”

This is not correct. The visiting judge denied a continuance requested by the prosecution which continuances are customarily accepted by our local judges. He also denied two other continuances. No where did the judge make a statement saying the police wrongfully stopped the man.

Communication isn’t always easy. In the Post Register's defense, they weren't at the hearing and they had some inaccurate information coming their way from official sources. I’m not blaming them or anyone else. I’m just setting the record straight.

Officer Lasher got it right and I applaud him for his alert action.

Preparing for Disaster

By Joelyn Hansen

My boyfriend jokingly asked me last night if I was going to play “Dungeons and Dragons” for a third day at work. I laughed and said yes.

Now, I’m not really playing “Dungeons and Dragons”, but what he’s referring to is my latest participation in the disaster response table top exercise.

For the last three days, I, along with other government and emergency response representatives, have been training with the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security in a role-play scenario to determine our weaknesses and our strengths when it comes to responding to a disaster. In case you’re wondering, we have more strengths then weaknesses.

In this scenario fortunately we aren’t slaying purple dragons or goblins, but instead we’ve been determining how to best handle a sizable earthquake in eastern Idaho.

Each of the individuals involved in the exercise have roles as policy makers, emergency responders, public information officers in determining how to handle overall response, evacuations, mass care and dissemination of information.

As a public information officer my focus was on how I, along with the other PIOs, would work with the emergency responders in getting accurate and timely information out to the public.

Though, by the third day, I’ll admit I’m a bit tired of working over the same scenario, however, it’s important we have a good handle on disaster response. If anything, the problems that occurred after Hurricane Katrina have taught the masses the need to be organized and prepared.

The exercise has also taught me that not only responders need to be ready, but the general public does too. So, I’ll end this post with this question – How prepared are you for disaster?

Idaho Considers Texting Law - Again

They are making another run at it. The Idaho senate is considering a texting bill and a cell phone bill. The cell phone bill might be a bit of an over-reach, but it is hard to argue against a ban on texting while driving.

As a cop, I find nanny laws that protect us from our own stupidity offensive. But I draw the line when someone’s reckless behavior endangers others, especially when there is a strong and direct correlation such as drunk driving or texting while driving. We shouldn’t have to wait until a texter creams a six-year-old in a school zone any more than we should have to wait to get shot in the head by a convenience-store-robbing-meth-head before returning fire.

On the other hand, enforcing a texting law isn’t a simple matter and we already have an inattentive driving law on the books. I wrote about that last summer.

The dilemma is enforcement. The texting bill might feel intuitively like a good idea, but how are we to know if a person is dialing, talking, answering, or texting. The proposed cell phone law would cover all that, but does it go too far?

If a texting law is going to be dealt with, it should be done on a state level. If you'd like to weigh in, here's the contact information for the Idaho Legislators.

By the way, if you must text and drive, please follow this important safety tip: Place your knees firmly against the steering wheel while grasping the phone with both hands freeing the thumbs to... Rachael, it’s a joke. Don’t even think about it or you’ll be grounded for a year.

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