Police, Crime | featured news

A Detroit suburb that was forced to lay off half its police department has seen a spike in violent crime, MyFoxDetroit.com reports. Since July, when the police force was cut in half, there have been 10 murders in Inkster, a Detroit suburb with a population of about 25,000. There have been 12 murders so far this year.

The number of violent crimes reported to police decreased 3.8 percent last year to 1.2 million, the fifth straight year of declines, the FBI announced Monday. Meanwhile, the total number of property crimes reported to law enforcement agencies went down by 0.5 percent to 9 million, the ninth consecutive year that figure has fallen. Property crimes resulted in estimated losses of $156.6 billion.

Authorities on Friday identified the body of a man who was found entombed in concrete in the backyard of a northeast Georgia home. The man has been identified as Sean Dugas, 30, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner's office. The body was found Monday encased in a plastic storage container filled with concrete.

Police say Escalona was so mad that her daughter soiled her pants that, as punishment, she super glued the girl’s hands to the wall then beat her in front of her other siblings... Escalona’s kids told investigators their mother kicked the girl in the stomach and repeatedly hit her.

A passing motorist found a body in the trunk of a car parked in a ditch in northeast Houston, Texas, The Houston Chronicle reported.

Tapping into hundreds of privately owned cameras, the system synchronizes law enforcement data with real-time video feeds from parks, beaches and business corridors. Long Beach police now have eyes everywhere.

Nearly half of recently retired officers in a survey said they had “personal knowledge” of crime-report manipulation, but the Police Department questioned the study’s methodology.

The 20-year-old "Barefoot Bandit" was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to dozens of charges. Colton Harris-Moore gained international notoriety while evading police across America in stolen planes, boats and cars during a two-year crime spree.

Four malnourished mentally disabled adults were found chained to a boiler in a locked basement room that was too small for an adult to stand up straight and also reeked of waste from the buckets they used to relieve themselves, police said Sunday. Three people were arrested.

Federal investigators say the disappearance of a 3-year-old West Virginia girl is now considered a crime, the Charleston Daily Mail reports.