Even as rampant drug-related killings continue in Mexico, intensified U.S. efforts to prevent the violence from spilling across the border are succeeding, according to federal data and law enforcement officials. Murders in key U.S. border cities dropped in the first half of 2009, new FBI crime data show, and some law enforcement officials say that trend is continuing. Although 1,000 people ...

KANSAS CITY - Kansas City’s police board on Tuesday supported the police chief’s recommendations to seek a 15-year renewal of the public safety sales tax for new facilities, vehicles and equipment. The resolution ignored Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s recommendation to use sales tax proceeds to hire 100 police officers. Funkhouser, who sits on the five-member board, voted against the resolution. The resolution ...

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco police will soon deploy 32 officers to foot-beat patrols around transit stops in the Bayview and Visitacion Valley in the aftermath of attacks near Muni lines that have victimized Asian Americans, the police chief said Wednesday. Chief George Gascón said the added officers will be deployed starting this week and remain in the area for at ...

TORONTO - The Toronto Police Service says it has yet to hear any "specific allegations" of officer misconduct during the G20 protests despite lawsuit threats from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and increasing calls from other rights groups for a public inquiry. "Quite frankly, I haven't seen any specific formal allegation," Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire told the National Post ...

WASHINGTON — Jury selection has begun in the trial of a man charged in the death of Washington intern Chandra Levy, more than nine years after her disappearance generated headlines around the world. [photo:575998] Ingmar Guandique (wahn-DEE'-kay) is charged with murder, kidnapping and other counts. Authorities say he attacked Levy while she was jogging alone in Rock Creek Park in May ...

TORONTO - A breakaway group of violent protesters blazed a trail of destruction through downtown Toronto Saturday, leaving windows smashed, stores looted and left police cruisers in flames. In what seemed a carefully choreographed breakout, about 70 black-clad protesters ran amok through mostly deserted streets, largely eluding the $1-billion security operation centred on the Metro Convention Centre. The rampage was so ...

KANSAS CITY - Hundreds of Kansas City police officers packed the board room at police headquarters Thursday for a discussion about whether to merge their health insurance with the city’s plan. The officers — along with some police retirees and family members — showed up because they’re worried what a merger would mean for their health costs and benefits. City officials ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Shelby County Sheriff's deputy's attempt to stop a driver for a traffic offense started a chain of events that included the suspect ramming a police cruiser and heavily damaging a house. A news release from the department said Deputy Richard Henderson tried to stop a driver after seeing his car run a stop sign Tuesday morning. ...

An off-duty Philadelphia police officer shot and critically wounded a 23-year-old man in the city's East Frankford section Monday afternoon after, he said, he saw the man carrying a gun. The victim, whose name has not been released, was in critical condition Monday night at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus. The officer, whom police would not identify, told authorities he was helping a ...

Recipients of Carnegie Heroes Fund medals being awarded Thursday. Ages listed are how old each person was at the time of the event described: -Jeffrey R. Heimbach, 29, of Denville, N.J., pulled an 18-year-old man from a burning vehicle that crashed in Roxbury Township, N.J., on Sept. 23, 2008. -Garrett T. Townsend Jr., 58, of Detroit, drowned helping to save a ...

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday that the city is on pace to finish the year with fewer than 300 homicides, which would mark about a 75% decline in killings since the city’s peak in the early 1990s, reaching a low not seen in several decades. To date this year, 216 people have been killed at ...

Sheriff John Walsh is trying to iron out details on how he will handle the state's newly adopted 24/7 Sobriety Program. The new law puts the sheriffs in each county in charge of managing the program. The law requires people accused of more than one DUI offense to take a breath test for alcohol consumption twice a day while they are ...

PHOENIX (AP) - A judge is expected to rule Monday morning on whether Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has to attend a meeting to explain why his office hasn't handed over records that the Board of Supervisors had subpoenaed. Arpaio asked the judge to throw out the subpoena that supervisors issued in an attempt to see whether the sheriff had misused ...

WASHINGTON, DC - District crime-scene and U.S. Park Police officers testifying in the Chandra Levy case on Thursday defended how they handled and processed the slain woman's remains and other items found in Rock Creek Park a year after she disappeared. The testimony came a day after Dupont Circle cabinetmaker Phillip Palmer told the court that he found Levy's skull in ...

HAWK POINT, MO — A man police wanted to talk to regarding the kidnapping of four year old Alisa Maier shot himself when officers came to his door.. Paul S. Smith shot himself about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon on Highway D in Hawk Point, Missouri, west of O'Fallon. Police would not say if Smith, was the primary suspect in the case. In ...

NEW YORK - The glaring absence of federal authorities at this week's announcement of the arrests of two men accused of plotting to attack a New York City synagogue is raising questions about the strength of the case against them and how severe the threat was. The terrorism arrests were announced with fanfare in City Hall and a dramatic photo of ...

CHICAGO -- Chicago police have collected more than 4,000 weapons during a turn-in program that offered cash for guns. Police say they gathered 55 assault weapons, 660 replica weapons, more than 3,300 handguns -- and two hand grenades. Even Chicago police Superintendent Jody Weis was shocked by what the department took in. He wondered why anyone would need hand grenades in ...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican army troops were pulled off Ciudad Juarez's streets Thursday and replaced by thousands of federal police officers who will take over the fight against drug-related violence that claimed over 2,600 lives last year in this border city. With lights flashing and helicopters churning overhead, dozens of blue-and-white federal patrol cars, trucks and armored cars streamed onto ...

GRANT COUNTY, OR - An Oregon State Police Trooper rescued a 90-year-old man from the swift currents of the John Day River today, state police reported. Grant County emergency dispatchers received reports of a car submerged in the river about 1:55 p.m. in the Picture Gorge area of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, about five miles west of Dayville. ...

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CA - Local officials reacted positively Monday to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announcement that it had assigned nearly 5,000 DNA evidence kits from rape and sexual assault cases to outside labs for testing. The 4,763 kits from the Sheriff's Department and some smaller police departments that rely on the county still need to be tested and ...