December 2012
Quote of the Month
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"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."
(Source: RealPolice.net)
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Police
Movie Picks Die Hard, Home Alone, Mall Cop
With Bruce Willis, Macauley Culkin and Kevin James
When it comes to holiday movies, we're not the warm and fuzzy type. You can have your Wonderful Life - give us crime, capers and good guys outwitting bad guys. So in the spirit of the holidays, here's a triple feature of crime-fighter films that will jingle your bells as you wait for dear old Santa. Start with Die Hard, the best Christmas action movie ever made. Bruce Willis is yippee-ki-wonderful as rogue cop John McClane, who does battle with terrorist heist man Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman at his creepiest), while trying to win back his wife on Christmas Eve. Loaded with funny lines, this movie has enough slam and bam to fill all 12 days of Christmas. In Home Alone, Macauley Culkin is young and not yet creepy as he plays a kind of toy-story ninja to foil a bungling burglar duo played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. With nothing but toys and stuff found round the house, he creates a hilarious obstacle course that leaves his adversaries both bruised and embarrassed. If you ever wanted to know how to defend yourself with Matchbox cars, this is the movie for you. For our third choice, we're going to change the tempo and pick Mall Cop, a police-wannabe saga starring Kevin James of the TV show King of Queens. He plays hapless Paul Blart, who's too chubby to earn a spot at the Police Academy. But he sure can ride that Segway, and when thieves take hostages at his mall during the holiday shopping season, he speeds to the rescue, improvising as he goes. And oh yeah, he wins the girl as well.
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About Metro
Metro Technology Services, Inc. develops specialized software solutions to meet the specific needs of law enforcement agencies. Metro has one of the largest customer bases in the country, with over 400 agencies and growing. With its unique ability to include all state-mandated reporting capabilities, Metro tailors products to individual markets, incorporating the exact procedures and forms required in each area. Metro's Visual Alert® software suite enables users to quickly and easily respond to service calls, prepare reports, manage records and control the flow of information - from anywhere, anytime.
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Lots for us to cheer this holiday season
To our friends in law enforcement,
As 2012 comes to a close, we at Metro Technology Services have a lot to cheer.
New clients: This year has added 20 new law enforcement agencies to the roster of clients now using our powerful records management system, Visual Alert®.
New solutions: We launched two industry-leading Advanced Information Sharing solutions, one for individual departments and one for collaborating groups in a county or region.
New colleagues: We congratulated retiring sales rep Frank Way and welcomed to our team Bob Falcinelli and former Police Chief Russ McKibben.
Our 20 new clients come from all over Pennsylvania. We welcome: Armagh Township PD (Milroy), Ashley Borough PD, Butler Township (Schuylkill County) PD, Courtdale Borough PD, Curwensville Borough PD, Delaware Valley School District PD, East Norriton Township PD, Edwardsville PD , Ephrata PD, Greenville Borough PD, Hanover Township PD, Meshoppen PD, Montoursville PD, Newport Borough PD, North Middleton Township PD, Penn State - Hazleton Campus PD, Rice Township PD, Rochester Township PD, Slippery Rock Borough PD, and West Pike Run Township PD (Daisytown).
On behalf of the Metro team, best wishes to you for a peaceful holiday season and a happy, safe and healthy New Year.
Sincerely,
Anthony Iannacone, President
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Police Book Pick
Paradise City
By Archer Mayor
Archer Mayor has won a wide following for his Joe Gunther novels and the way they portray police procedure and crime fighting. In this new novel - Mayor's 23rd Gunther book - the Vermont investigator is trying to crack a string of burglaries across the state. But these aren't just small town crooks heisting flat screens, or even meth-makers or dope users looking for cash. As he digs into the details, Gunther discovers that all the burglaries include art and jewelry, and the art objects seem to be finding their way to nearby Northampton across the border in Massachusetts. Stings, surveillance and interrogations all play a part in the effort to unravel this crime operation, and eventually it leads to some very powerful people in Northampton, the "Paradise City" of the title. Mayor's books have great characters and dry humor, but it's their authenticity that makes them memorable to crime fans. And Mayor is as authentic as it comes. In a varied career he's done stints as both a journalist and a local police officer, and for much of the last decade he's been a death investigator for Vermont's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and a detective for the sheriff's office in the state's Windham County. In Paradise City, Mayor has once again put all that experience to good use.
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Police Hero Pick
When they go above and beyond ...
Police officers hear a lot about the importance of staying cool under fire. That advice can cover a lot of situations, from dealing with domestic disturbances to confronting street protesters. And sometimes it can involve REAL fire. Last spring, California Highway Patrol Officer David "Ryan" Bunting was stopped in his vehicle on Highway 178 near Bakersfield. As he observed the scene, a dark colored SUV passed him headed westbound, executed a U-turn and came back, driving the wrong way up the one-way road. When Bunting flashed the car with a spotlight, a gunman in the back seat on the driver's side opened fire with a fully automatic MAC-10 type handgun. Bunting was struck twice - once in the hand and once in his body armor - but still returned fire on his assailants as they sped away. He attempted to pursue the SUV but because his car was disabled, he was forced to stop. He radioed for backup. And then, in an act that has been shared with officers around the country, he did something that truly made him a hero. He radioed to his colleagues: "Tell units to slow down. ... One of the shots went into my vest, one into my hand. Neither are life threatening." With that one transmission, said Doug Wyllie of the PoliceOne website, "there is no way of knowing the lives he may have saved." In recognition of his heroism under fire, Bunting was awarded the Medal of Valor by the Kern County Law Enforcement Foundation, and his actions have sparked discussions about safety and procedure around the country. "This is a very good training piece for dispatch and communication centers," one law enforcement expert wrote Wyllie. "It is an outstanding training piece for patrol, mindset, professional bearing and tactics." Others noted Bunting's controlled breathing, which "may have given him the wherewithal to speak clearly," and the simple but crucial fact he was wearing his vest. As one officer wrote: "It may have saved his life."
To hear the radio communication between Bunting and the dispatcher, and see photos of the scene, click here.
(Source: www.policeone.com)
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Police Perp Pick
When they make our job easy ...
 Today's smart phones can do almost anything - except, apparently, make you smart. A burglar in England found that out last month after he tried to use the flashlight on his phone while breaking into a house and instead filmed the burglary in action. Police were delighted to find that footage when they arrested 23-year-old Emmanuel Jerome after he tried to break into three other properties. When they checked his iPhone, they discovered video clips of a house in a nearby community that had been targeted by burglars while the owners were on vacation. In court, Jerome insisted he had nothing to do with that robbery, in which thousands of dollars worth of property was taken. The judge, however, wasn't buying it. "It is significant, in my view, that camera footage of the invasion of that property was captured on your mobile phone. You, in my judgment, were an important member of the team that attacked that property." Jerome was sentenced to 44 weeks in prison.
(Source: clumsycrooks.com and the London Daily Mail newspaper)
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Police Photo Pick
When it is worth 1,000 words ...
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Look for Blue Lines every other month
Metro Technology Services publishes Blue Lines to inform and entertain the company's many friends in the law enforcement community.
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