6A
NATION
THE UNIVERSITY BARRY KANSAS
LAW ENFORCEMENT
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
Officials look over the scene in Sparta, Ill., in 2004, where 58-year-old Janice Cole died when a police SUV driven by Sparta Police Officer Misty McPherson slammed into Cole's car during a chase.
Many recruits not immediately trained
BY HOLBROOK MOHR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A rookie officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death.
Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the country. At least 30 states let some newly hired law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.
These states allow a certain grace period six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi
and Wisconsin — before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen.
The risks,some say,are high.
"You wouldn't want a brain surgeon who isn't properly trained. Someone shouldn't be out there carving a badge and a gain unless they are qualified to be out there," said Jeremy Spratt, program manager of the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Program.
No one seems to know how many untrained recruits are on the streets. But the practice appears to be most common among small town police forces and sheriff's departments.
Many police chiefs interviewed for this story said that for years, they
have used less than fully-trained officers without problems, and they strongly defended the practice for reasons of money and manpower.
It allows departments to put new hires on the streets right away, without waiting for them to go through police academy training, which is usually a full-time, weeks- or months-long exercise during which the officer is not on duty but still on the payroll. In some places, there are waiting lists to get into the academy.
Also, some police forces see the grace period as a tryout, during which the department can decide whether the officer is going to work out before it invests thousands of dollars in police academy training. (In several states, if a recruit graduates from the academy, the police force is reimbursed by the state, but
not if the officer fails to finish,)
"It lets the officer work for the department for an amount of time to make sure that's what they want to do and make sure that's the right person for the job" said Batesville, Miss. Police Chief Gerald Legge. "We get some people that work a few weeks and say, 'This isn't what it was like on TV and this is not for me.'
Some states — Arizona,
California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Utah, Vermont and
Wyoming — require training
before officers are put on the
force. Elsewhere, the rules are
different.
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>> COUNTRY MUSIC
Nominees were introduced by Kenny Chesney — the reigning ACM entertainer of the year — and the duo Sugarland. The announcement was made at the Country Music Hall of Fame and aired live on CBS "The Early Show"
Strait nominated for eight awards
Carrie Underwood received five nominations and Big & Rich got four.
BY JOHN GEROME ASSOCIATED PRESS
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — George Strait led the nominees announced Monday for the Academy of Country Music Awards with eight nominations, including entertainer of the year and top male vocalist.
Strait, who has previously won 15 ACM awards, also was nominated as artist and producer for the album "It Just Comes Natural" and the single "Give it Away", which also was nominated for song of the year.
"Whenever you get nominated, it's a reflection of a lot of people's hard work," said Cheesney, who is nominated again for entertainer of the year as well as male vocalist.
"I feel like I'm still in a dream," said Underwood, the former "American idol" champ whose debut album, "Some Hearts," has sold 5 million
Vocal duo Brooks & Dunn got seven nominations and Rascal Flatts earned six.
Brooks & Dunn were honored in the entertainer of the year and the top vocal duo categories, and their "Hillbilly Deluxe" was nominated for album of the year.
"The longer that I survive in this business the more I appreciate the fans, and the people within the business that make it possible for me to do what I love to do" said Ronnie Dunn, who also picked up a solo nomination for vocal event of the year for "I Don't Want to" with Ashley Monroe.
Rascal Flatts' nominations include entertainer of the year, top vocal group, best album and best single for "What Hurts the Most."
copies. "My life has been such a whirlwind in the past two years, so please don't wake me up"
The 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will be presented May 15 in Las Vegas.
Study tries to measure size of worldwide digital content
》 EXABYTES
BY BRIAN BERGSTEIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON — A new study that estimates how much digital information the world is generating (hint: a lot) finds that for the first time, there's not enough storage space to hold it all. Good thing we delete some stuff.
The report, assembled by the technology research firm IDC, sought to account for all the ones and zeros that make up photos, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content zipping around. The researchers also assumed that on average, each digital file gets replicated three times.
Add it all up and IDC determined
that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes — 161 exabytes — of digital information last year.
Oh, the equivalents! That's like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the sun. Or you might think of it as 3 million times the information in all the books ever written, according to IDC. You'd need more than 2 billion of the most capacious iPods on the market to get 161 iabytes.
The previous best estimate came from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who totaled the globes information production at 5 exabytes in 2003.
Still, even the 2003 figure of 5 exabytes is enormous — 37,000 Libraries of Congress.
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