10 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: AUGUST 2017 NATIONWIDE What’s up in law enforcement across the U.S.A. THETOPTEN Robots listening An Amazon Echo smart speaker called 911 af- ter a guy apparently threatened his girlfriend. Eduardo Barros was house sitting with his girlfriend and her daughter in Tijeras, New Mexico when an argument between the two broke out and became physical, according to a Bernalillo County Sheriff Department spokesperson, Deputy Felicia Romero. Barros allegedly had a firearm and threatened to kill his girlfriend before asking her “Did you call the sheriffs?” That prompt resulted in the smart speaker calling emergency dispatchers. The police arrived on the scene and took the woman and her daughter from the residence and Barros was arrested. “This amazing technology definitely helped save a mother and her child from a very violent situation,” Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a statement to ABC News. Expired About 1400 law enforcement officers with the U.S. Marshals Service are wearing expired body armor, according to reports. This is after months of in- ternal warnings, according to documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee. A senior employee of the U.S. Marshals recently provided documents to the Judiciary Committee showing that a lot of the agency’s 3900 operational employees have body armor with expiration dates in 2016 and 2017. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), is now pressing Director David Harlow to explain why so many of his employees have outdated body armor, and why he had previously testified to Congress that he didn’t know anything about the issue. Good kid Patriots fans are excited to see new tight end Matt Lengel play this year. The 6-foot-7 Lengel has a special place in his heart for law enforcement officers. He’s been using his status as an up-and-coming NFL star to highlight his support for law enforcement. Lengel has been using his Twitter account to honor police officers that have been killed in the line of duty. Lengel’s father, Brian, is a retired cop. “I’ve always looked at my dad as my hero, still to this day. It’s not until you get older that you realize just how dangerous it is what they do,” Lengel said last week. “I think it takes a very special person to do what police officers do. I don’t think police officers choose to do what they do. I think it chooses them.” State Patrol Commander fired Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts fired the head of the Nebraska State Patrol for possibly interfering in internal investigations, an unprecedented move that could leave a federal investigation lingering over the agency. The governor terminated Col. Brad Rice after a preliminary personnel review found “interferences in internal investigations and violations of internal policy at the highest levels of the Nebraska State Patrol.” IstheKuKluxKlanresurgent?AmemberoftheKlanshoutsatcounter-protestersduringa rallycallingfortheprotectionofSouthernConfederatemonuments inCharlottesville,Virginia. The afternoon rally in this quiet university town was authorized by officials in Virginia and stirred heated debate. (Photo credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/ Getty Images) 1. You bought wine from Amazon. (Yeah – that’s right, Amazon is making its own wine.) 2. You actually paid money for a movie on DVD starring a 400-lb. Steven Seagal, Rob Schneider and 50 Cent. 3. A kid on the crew you hired to paint the house is trying to figure out why the roller doesn’t fit in the paint bucket. 4. You spend about $250 a month for premium cable and have more than 700 channels but you’re reading a new book because “there’s never anything good on.” 5. Your wife bought two sets of Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness stickers that restore “balance” and “hydrate the soul.” 6. Your kids’ cell phone bill. 7. A “mixologist” (as opposed to a bartender) spent 12 minutes making a drink that contains elderberry pollen, muddled bumble bee dander, pomegranate nectar and a tiny bit of vodka and it cost eighteen dollars. 8. No one seems all that impressed with your degree from Trump University. 9. The guy at the auto dealership is charging you a finder’s fee for a car that’s on the lot. (Seinfeld) 10. You’re a taxpaying American citizen. signs you’re getting ripped off In Colorado, dozens of pending driving-under- the-influence cases, as well as prior DUI convictions, could be tossed in Summit County after Judge Edward Casias deferred to a new statewide precedent that prohibits the use of BAC testing machine results as evidence. It turns out that some of these tests are bogus. Not only that, state officials ap- parently knowingly signed off on documents attest- ing to the accuracy of the tests. Gilpin County Judge David Taylor lambasted state regulators for know- ingly producing falsified certificates attesting to the accuracy of breathalyzer machines in court. During the case in ques- tion, counsel for the de- fense described the bogus BAC tests as “the biggest scandal in the history of alcohol testing.” The revelations about the tests came on the heels of three days and 20 hours of testimony in the case of Robert Friedlander. He was arrested for a DUI but insists he wasn’t over the limit. Legal observers say that Taylor’s decision is likely to serve as statewide prec- edent unless prosecutors successfully appeal the or- der, Friedlander’s attorney Danny Luneau told the Denver Post. DUI convictions might get tossed