A police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota apparently thought clocking out for the day meant the rules no longer applied. And thus, the confused gentleman earned himself a DWI today for crashing his personal car into a building last week and starting a fire while intoxicated. — Read the rest
The post Police officer in St. Paul earns himself a DWI after crashing into building, starting fire appeared first on Boing Boing.
A police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota apparently thought clocking out for the day meant the rules no longer applied. And thus, the confused gentleman earned himself a DWI today for crashing his personal car into a building last week and starting a fire while intoxicated. — Read the rest
Enlarge / You should not do this while you are driving. (credit: Getty Images)
Distracted driving isn't only a result of drivers using their phones when they should be paying attention. But it is a significant cause of the problem, accounting for at least 13 percent of distracted driving deaths and rising to 1 in 5 for young drivers. Now, a study conducted with customers of the Progressive insurance company has tested different strategies to get those drivers to put their ph
Enlarge/ You should not do this while you are driving. (credit: Getty Images)
Distracted driving isn't only a result of drivers using their phones when they should be paying attention. But it is a significant cause of the problem, accounting for at least 13 percent of distracted driving deaths and rising to 1 in 5 for young drivers. Now, a study conducted with customers of the Progressive insurance company has tested different strategies to get those drivers to put their phones down in the car, and it found two that significantly reduced handheld use, with the effect persisting after the end of the study.
The study recruited 1,653 customers already enrolled in its Progressive Snapshot program, which involves the use of a smartphone app that detects phone use while driving. Before the start of the trial, the participants all averaged more than 6.4 minutes per hour of handheld use while driving—Progressive says its safest customers have handheld usage of less than 1 minute per hour while driving.
Five test groups
The drivers were split into five different arms, each with increasing amounts of intervention. The first group just received education about the problem, such as statistics about state laws that ban phone use while driving, increased crash risks, and recommendations to use hands-free options like a phone mount or casting interface instead.
“Generative AI is reshaping industries and opening new opportunities for innovation and growth,” NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in an address ahead of this week’s COMPUTEX technology conference in Taipei.
“Today, we’re at the cusp of a major shift in computing,” Huang told the audience, clad in his trademark black leather jacket. “The intersection of AI and accelerated computing is set to redefine the future.”
Huang spoke ahead of one of the world’s premier technology conferences to an
“Generative AI is reshaping industries and opening new opportunities for innovation and growth,” NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in an address ahead of this week’s COMPUTEX technology conference in Taipei.
“Today, we’re at the cusp of a major shift in computing,” Huang told the audience, clad in his trademark black leather jacket. “The intersection of AI and accelerated computing is set to redefine the future.”
Huang spoke ahead of one of the world’s premier technology conferences to an audience of more than 6,500 industry leaders, press, entrepreneurs, gamers, creators and AI enthusiasts gathered at the glass-domed National Taiwan University Sports Center set in the verdant heart of Taipei.
The theme: NVIDIA accelerated platforms are in full production, whether through AI PCs and consumer devices featuring a host of NVIDIA RTX-powered capabilities or enterprises building and deploying AI factories with NVIDIA’s full-stack computing platform.
“The future of computing is accelerated,” Huang said. “With our innovations in AI and accelerated computing, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and driving the next wave of technological advancement.”
‘One-Year Rhythm’
More’s coming, with Huang revealing a roadmap for new semiconductors that will arrive on a one-year rhythm. Revealed for the first time, the Rubin platform will succeed the upcoming Blackwell platform, featuring new GPUs, a new Arm-based CPU — Vera — and advanced networking with NVLink 6, CX9 SuperNIC and the X1600 converged InfiniBand/Ethernet switch.
“Our company has a one-year rhythm. Our basic philosophy is very simple: build the entire data center scale, disaggregate and sell to you parts on a one-year rhythm, and push everything to technology limits,” Huang explained.
NVIDIA’s creative team used AI tools from members of the NVIDIA Inception startup program, built on NVIDIA NIM and NVIDIA’s accelerated computing, to create the COMPUTEX keynote. Packed with demos, this showcase highlighted these innovative tools and the transformative impact of NVIDIA’s technology.
‘Accelerated Computing Is Sustainable Computing’
NVIDIA is driving down the cost of turning data into intelligence, Huang explained as he began his talk.
“Accelerated computing is sustainable computing,” he emphasized, outlining how the combination of GPUs and CPUs can deliver up to a 100x speedup while only increasing power consumption by a factor of three, achieving 25x more performance per Watt over CPUs alone.
“The more you buy, the more you save,” Huang noted, highlighting this approach’s significant cost and energy savings.
Industry Joins NVIDIA to Build AI Factories to Power New Industrial Revolution
Leading computer manufacturers, particularly from Taiwan, the global IT hub, have embraced NVIDIA GPUs and networking solutions. Top companies include ASRock Rack, ASUS, GIGABYTE, Ingrasys, Inventec, Pegatron, QCT, Supermicro, Wistron and Wiwynn, which are creating cloud, on-premises and edge AI systems.
The NVIDIA MGX modular reference design platform now supports Blackwell, including the GB200 NVL2 platform, designed for optimal performance in large language model inference, retrieval-augmented generation and data processing.
AMD and Intel are supporting the MGX architecture with plans to deliver, for the first time, their own CPU host processor module designs. Any server system builder can use these reference designs to save development time while ensuring consistency in design and performance.
Next-Generation Networking with Spectrum-X
In networking, Huang unveiled plans for the annual release of Spectrum-X products to cater to the growing demand for high-performance Ethernet networking for AI.
NVIDIA Spectrum-X, the first Ethernet fabric built for AI, enhances network performance by 1.6x more than traditional Ethernet fabrics. It accelerates the processing, analysis and execution of AI workloads and, in turn, the development and deployment of AI solutions.
CoreWeave, GMO Internet Group, Lambda, Scaleway, STPX Global and Yotta are among the first AI cloud service providers embracing Spectrum-X to bring extreme networking performance to their AI infrastructures.
NVIDIA NIM to Transform Millions Into Gen AI Developers
With NVIDIA NIM, the world’s 28 million developers can now easily create generative AI applications. NIM — inference microservices that provide models as optimized containers — can be deployed on clouds, data centers or workstations.
NIM also enables enterprises to maximize their infrastructure investments. For example, running Meta Llama 3-8B in a NIM produces up to 3x more generative AI tokens on accelerated infrastructure than without NIM.
Nearly 200 technology partners — including Cadence, Cloudera, Cohesity, DataStax, NetApp, Scale AI, and Synopsys — are integrating NIM into their platforms to speed generative AI deployments for domain-specific applications, such as copilots, code assistants, digital human avatars and more. Hugging Face is now offering NIM — starting with Meta Llama 3.
“Today we just posted up in Hugging Face the Llama 3 fully optimized, it’s available there for you to try. You can even take it with you,” Huang said. “So you could run it in the cloud, run it in any cloud, download this container, put it into your own data center, and you can host it to make it available for your customers.”
NVIDIA Brings AI Assistants to Life With GeForce RTX AI PCs
NVIDIA’s RTX AI PCs, powered by RTX technologies, are set to revolutionize consumer experiences with over 200 RTX AI laptops and more than 500 AI-powered apps and games.
And Microsoft and NVIDIA are collaborating to help developers bring new generative AI capabilities to their Windows native and web apps with easy API access to RTX-accelerated SLMs that enable RAG capabilities that run on-device as part of Windows Copilot Runtime.
NVIDIA Robotics Adopted by Industry Leaders
NVIDIA is spearheading the $50 trillion industrial digitization shift, with sectors embracing autonomous operations and digital twins — virtual models that enhance efficiency and cut costs. Through its Developer Program, NVIDIA offers access to NIM, fostering AI innovation.
Taiwanese manufacturers are transforming their factories using NVIDIA’s technology, with Huang showcasing Foxconn’s use of NVIDIA Omniverse, Isaac and Metropolis to create digital twins, combining vision AI and robot development tools for enhanced robotic facilities.
“The next wave of AI is physical AI. AI that understands the laws of physics, AI that can work among us,” Huang said, emphasizing the importance of robotics and AI in future developments.
The NVIDIA Isaac platform provides a robust toolkit for developers to build AI robots, including AMRs, industrial arms and humanoids, powered by AI models and supercomputers like Jetson Orin and Thor.
“Robotics is here. Physical AI is here. This is not science fiction, and it’s being used all over Taiwan. It’s just really, really exciting,” Huang added.
Global electronics giants are integrating NVIDIA’s autonomous robotics into their factories, leveraging simulation in Omniverse to test and validate this new wave of AI for the physical world. This includes over 5 million preprogrammed robots worldwide.
“All the factories will be robotic. The factories will orchestrate robots, and those robots will be building products that are robotic,” Huang explained.
Huang emphasized NVIDIA Isaac’s role in boosting factory and warehouse efficiency, with global leaders like BYD Electronics, Siemens, Teradyne Robotics and Intrinsic adopting its advanced libraries and AI models.
NVIDIA AI Enterprise on the IGX platform, with partners like ADLINK, Advantech and ONYX, delivers edge AI solutions meeting strict regulatory standards, essential for medical technology and other industries.
Huang ended his keynote on the same note he began it on, paying tribute to Taiwan and NVIDIA’s many partners there. “Thank you,” Huang said. “I love you guys.”
Enlarge / No one's entirely sure if driverless racing will be any good to watch, but before we find that out, people have to actually develop driverless race cars. A2RL in Abu Dhabi is the latest step down that path. (credit: A2RL)
A2RL provided flights from London to Abu Dhabi and accommodation so Ars could attend the autonomous race event. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
ABU DHABI—We live in a weird time for autonomous vehicles. Ambitions come and go, but genuin
Enlarge/ No one's entirely sure if driverless racing will be any good to watch, but before we find that out, people have to actually develop driverless race cars. A2RL in Abu Dhabi is the latest step down that path. (credit: A2RL)
ABU DHABI—We live in a weird time for autonomous vehicles. Ambitions come and go, but genuinely autonomous cars are further off than solid-state vehicle batteries. Part of the problem with developing autonomous cars is that teaching road cars to take risks is unacceptable.
A race track, though, is a decent place to potentially crash a car. You can take risks there, with every brutal crunch becoming a learning exercise. (You’d be hard-pressed to find a top racing driver without a few wrecks smoldering in their junior career records.)
That's why 10,000 people descended on the Yas Marina race track in Abu Dhabi to watch the first four-car driverless race.
Hawaii News Now (HNN), a news service operated by a consortium of TV stations, reports that in 2022 and 2023, Oahu police arrested almost 300 people for driving under the influence who had breathalyzer scores below the legal limit of 0.08, 69 of them with scores of 0.00. "When I was a policeman, I never had anybody blow triple zeros," said Jonathan Burge, a defense attorney specializing in traffic cases and former Honolulu Police Department (HPD)
Hawaii News Now (HNN), a news service operated by a consortium of TV stations, reports that in 2022 and 2023, Oahu police arrested almost 300 people for driving under the influence who had breathalyzer scores below the legal limit of 0.08, 69 of them with scores of 0.00. "When I was a policeman, I never had anybody blow triple zeros," said Jonathan Burge, a defense attorney specializing in traffic cases and former Honolulu Police Department (HPD) officer. Burge claims there are unofficial quotas for officers, particularly for those working DUI task forces funded by federal dollars. Deputy HPD Chief Keith Horikawa, in a statement to HNN, said "supervisors may have goals and standards that are pertinent to their unit to help guide the personnel under their command." HNN reports that even when charges are dropped, the arrest remains on the records of adult drivers unless they pay to have it expunged. Last year, the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office rejected more than 80 percent of the DUI cases referred by HPD.
In December 2022, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) received a tip that officers assigned to the APD's DWI unit were getting paid to make cases disappear. The tipster specifically mentioned Honorio Alba, one of several officers who would later resign amid a burgeoning corruption scandal featuring that very allegation. Yet an internal investigation found no evidence to substantiate the tip. That episode, recently revealed by City Desk ABQ, h
In December 2022, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) received a tip that officers assigned to the APD's DWI unit were getting paid to make cases disappear. The tipster specifically mentioned Honorio Alba, one of several officers who would later resign amid a burgeoning corruption scandal featuring that very allegation. Yet an internal investigation found no evidence to substantiate the tip.
That episode, recently revealed by City Desk ABQ, helps explain why evidence of longstanding corruption within the DWI unit did not come to light until the FBI began looking into it. "We're dealing with stuff that we anticipate started decades ago, and we've done a lot of things that have got us to this point," Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said at a press conference in February. "But we will continue to dig and look and leave no stone unturned and make sure that we get to the bottom of this."
It seems like the department left plenty of stones unturned when it had a chance to clean its own house before the feds stepped in. Instead of telling the FBI about the alleged corruption, the APD apparently did not take the situation seriously until after it heard from the FBI.
In October 2023, 10 months after the APD's Criminal Intelligence Unit launched its fruitless probe, the FBI informed Medina that it was investigating the DWI unit. The following month, Albuquerque's Civilian Police Oversight Agency received a letter from a local court official who said Alba reportedly had pulled over a speeding, flagrantly drunk driver and, instead of filing charges, referred him to a specific local defense attorney.
The FBI investigation became public knowledge after agents executed search warrants at that attorney's office and the homes of several officers in January 2024. Local news outlets began looking into DWI cases that had been handled by Alba and his colleagues. They found suspiciously low conviction rates that somehow had eluded the APD's investigators in 2022.
In response to the corruption allegations, the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office dropped some 200 DWI cases, saying it could not rely on the testimony of the cops who had made the arrests. KOB, the NBC affiliate in Albuquerque, reported that Alba, who was honored as "Officer of the Year" by the New Mexico chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving last July, was the arresting officer in many of those cases.
KRQE, the local CBS affiliate, looked at DWI cases filed during the previous six years. It found that Joshua Montaño, a 19-year veteran, "was named as the officer in at least 36 cases" in which the defendants were represented by Thomas Clear, the lawyer whose office the FBI had searched. Nearly 90 percent of those cases "ended in dismissals."
City Desk ABQ examined "85 DWI cases dating back to 2017" involving Clear and Alba, Montaño, or two other members of the DWI unit, Harvey Johnson and Nelson Ortiz. It found that 14 percent of the cases ended with trial convictions or plea deals, which was "much lower than the Metro Court average of 56% convictions in DWI cases over the same years." The other 86 percent were dismissed, typically because officers did not show up at pretrial interviews or hearings. The "vast majority" of the defendants were arrested by Alba or Montaño.
Why didn't the APD discover any of this back in 2022? Acting Sgt. Jon O'Guin "started gathering information but—after looking through officer activity—didn't turn up any evidence," City Desk ABQ reports, citing a five-page "intel file" that it obtained through a public records request.
According to the tipster, APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told City DeskABQ, three bars in Northeast Albuquerque were alerting police to intoxicated patrons so they could be nabbed after they drove away. "They were targeting individuals, who then could get their cases dismissed," Gallegos said, describing the tip. "So they would arrest and charge them and then get their cases dismissed and there would be some sort of payment for that."
In response to that tip, City Desk ABQ says, O'Guin examined "the activity of the seven officers who were on the DWI unit at that time, including Alba, Johnson and Montaño." But his investigation apparently was limited to the specific allegation, as opposed to the general claim that officers were helping arrestees avoid charges in exchange for payoffs.
In December 2022, the officers' activity "did not show any obvious indicators that would match the allegations of the information received for the initial complaint in regards to increased activity in the areas of the three locations mentioned in NE Albuquerque," O'Guin wrote in the intel file. "All officers' CAD [computer-aided dispatch] activity showed what would appear to be normal traffic stops and requests for assistance responses across the city." The same was true, he said, for October and November.
That summary of O'Guin's investigation is dated January 2024, by which point the FBI had collected enough evidence to obtain search warrants. "When the allegations were relayed from the FBI, the detective was asked to update the file with documentation of the work that was initially done," Gallegos explained. "So that part of the report was dated January 2024, when he provided that information."
Given the timing, O'Guin's gloss may have been deliberately self-exculpating. In any case, he evidently never thought to look at what was generally happening with the DWI cases that Alba et al. handled. If he had, he would have discovered the same curious pattern that reporters found after the FBI raids. Those high dismissal rates reinforce the allegation that these officers, after stopping drivers for DWI, would "get their cases dismissed" in exchange for "some sort of payment."
No corruption charges have been filed yet. But Alba, Montaño, Johnson, Ortiz, and Lt. Justin Hunt all resigned after they were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of another internal investigation, this one prompted by the FBI probe and the letter to the Civilian Police Oversight Agency. On Tuesday, APD spokesman Daren DeAguero, a 15-year veteran who served in the DWI unit from 2014 to 2018, joined the line of exiting officers.
DeAguero resigned the same day he was scheduled to be interviewed by internal investigators. "Due to the current situation of receiving a letter of investigation with very little time to obtain adequate representation," he wrote in a memo to Medina, "I unfortunately will be ending my employment [with] the Albuquerque Police Department effective April 30, 2024."
Montaño was more expansive when he resigned on March 20. "When I was put on administrative leave, I thought there would be an opportunity for me to talk to the department about what I knew regarding the FBI's investigation," he wrote. "I thought there would be a time [when] I could disclose what I knew from within APD and how the issues I let myself get caught up in within the DWI Unit were generational. I thought there would be a time where I could talk about all the other people who should be on administrative leave as well, but aren't."
Montaño said he ultimately decided against cooperating with APD investigators. "In order for me to talk to the City about what I knew," he wrote, "I needed to not be the City's scapegoat for its own failures." He complained that Medina "has made it seem like there are just a few bad officers acting on their own." That is "far from the truth," Montaño said.
Among other things, the FBI reportedly is investigating claims that officers deliberately missed court dates, resulting in the dismissal of DWI cases. But according to Montaño, "officers all know that our attendance, or non-attendance, at Court is watched over and monitored." While "I take responsibility for my actions," he said, the responsibility for the alleged misconduct extends up the chain of command and more than a few years back in time—probably "decades," according to Medina himself.
"There is a much bigger story here," Montaño's lawyer, Thomas Grover, toldCity Desk ABQ. "If Officer Montaño is a cinder block in this saga, there's a whole wall to address. It goes outward and upward."
Enlarge / Tesla's "Full Self Driving" system just got a third cheaper. (credit: Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Tesla has dropped the price of its controversial "Full Self Driving" partially automated driver assist. Last week, getting access to FSD would cost you $12,000—today, it's a third cheaper at $8,000. Alternatively, customers can subscribe to the feature for $99 a month.
Tesla has bet heavily on FSD for the future of the company. It's one of two p
Enlarge/ Tesla's "Full Self Driving" system just got a third cheaper. (credit: Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Tesla has dropped the price of its controversial "Full Self Driving" partially automated driver assist. Last week, getting access to FSD would cost you $12,000—today, it's a third cheaper at $8,000. Alternatively, customers can subscribe to the feature for $99 a month.
Tesla has bet heavily on FSD for the future of the company. It's one of two partially automated driving systems offered by Tesla—Autopilot is the older and less-capable system. FSD includes features such as auto lane changes, auto parking, the ability to summon the car from its parking space, and lane keeping (Autosteer in Tesla-speak) on surface streets.
Tesla claims that "[y]our car will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve," but then also notes that "[t]he currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
The tides have turned in the cultural consensus on videogame adaptations, thanks to the success of The Last of Us, Sonic movies, and more well-received live-action projects in recent years. This might be good news for Watch Dogs, which is lined up to receive the big-screen treatment.
Continue reading Watch Dogs is getting a movie, and it might actually be good
The tides have turned in the cultural consensus on videogame adaptations, thanks to the success of The Last of Us, Sonic movies, and more well-received live-action projects in recent years. This might be good news for Watch Dogs, which is lined up to receive the big-screen treatment.
Last July, the New Mexico chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) picked Honorio Alba Jr., a member of the Albuquerque Police Department's DWI unit, as "Officer of the Year." A few months later, Albuquerque's Civilian Police Oversight Agency received a letter about "questionable conduct" by Alba. Instead of arresting an intoxicated driver who nearly caused a crash while speeding and subsequently drove onto a curb, Alba reportedly had refe
Last July, the New Mexico chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) picked Honorio Alba Jr., a member of the Albuquerque Police Department's DWI unit, as "Officer of the Year." A few months later, Albuquerque's Civilian Police Oversight Agency received a letter about "questionable conduct" by Alba. Instead of arresting an intoxicated driver who nearly caused a crash while speeding and subsequently drove onto a curb, Alba reportedly had referred him to a specific local attorney. That letter triggered a corruption investigation, and last week Alba resigned prior to a scheduled interview with his department's internal affairs division.
Alba was one of five Albuquerque officers who were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the internal probe and a related FBI investigation. Another officer, Lt. Justin Hunt, resigned a few weeks ago. The FBI is looking into allegations that Alba and his colleagues got paid to make DWI cases disappear by failing to testify. Although no charges have been filed yet, FBI agents have executed search warrants at cops' homes and at the office of Thomas Clear, an Albuquerque attorney who specializes in DWI cases.
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina has promised to "leave no stone unturned and make sure that we get to the bottom of this." But Medina himself is the subject of an internal investigation that he requested after he broadsided a car last month, severely injuring the driver. Medina's fishy account of that incident is apt to reinforce the public distrust generated by the corruption scandal.
In response to the corruption allegations, the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office dropped some 200 DWI cases, saying it could not rely on the testimony of the cops who had made the arrests. KOB, the NBC affiliate in Albuquerque, reports that Alba was the arresting officer in many of those cases. KRQE, the local CBS affiliate, looked at DWI cases filed during the previous six years. It found that another cop who was placed on leave, Joshua Montaño, "was named as the officer in at least 36 cases" in which the defendants were represented by Clear, and "nearly 90% of those cases ended in dismissals."
Speaking in general terms about the corruption investigation at a February 2 press conference, Chief Medina noted that DWI cases often are dismissed when officers are unavailable to testify, an outcome that defense attorneys can make more likely by seeking trial delays. "Systems that struggle, systems that have loopholes, are really open to corruption," Medina said. "We're dealing with stuff that we anticipate started decades ago, and we've done a lot of things that have got us to this point. But we will continue to dig and look and leave no stone unturned and make sure that we get to the bottom of this."
That promise of transparency and accountability was undermined two weeks later, when Medina ran a red light and collided with a car that had the right of way. On Saturday, February 17, according to a press release from the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), Medina "was headed to a news conference in his unmarked department issued vehicle"—a pickup truck—"with his wife." They were in the left turn lane on Alvarado Drive NE at the intersection with Central Avenue when they "witnessed two individuals fighting." They "then saw one of the individuals pull out a gun," and "shots were fired." Since "Chief Medina and his wife were in the direct line of fire," he "took evasive action through the intersection to get his vehicle away from the gunfire."
The official account describes what happened next without reference to Medina's culpability. "A gold Mustang was traveling eastbound on Central and continued forward as Chief Medina was entering the intersection," it says, "and the vehicles collided."
Medina gives a more detailed account in a video he recorded a few days after the crash. "When we were driving down Central," he says, "I noticed that there could possibly be a homeless encampment on Alvarado north of Central." He took a detour and drove past the encampment, planning to call an underling about it. At the intersection of Alvarado and Central, he stopped for a red light. "My wife stated, 'Look, those two homeless individuals are about to get into a fight,'" he said. "My wife stated, 'gun, gun.' I looked up, and I could hear that a shot had been fired, and I saw an individual that was holding a firearm pointing it at another individual who was directly in line with my wife."
Medina decided "the best thing I could do was get my wife out of the way and regroup and see what the best response would be." He claims he proceeded with care. "I looked to my left, and the intersection was cleared," he says. "I thought that…the car was going to pass before I got there, and it did not. And unfortunately, I struck the vehicle. The occupant of the other vehicle was injured, and it's just another sign of how gun violence sometimes impacts our community."
Former Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, a former crash investigator, was skeptical of that self-exculpating story after examining surveillance video of the accident. "It's clear by the video that that wasn't the case," he told KOAT, the ABC affiliate in Albuquerque. "He cuts off a vehicle immediately. That's westbound on Central. Had to slam on its brakes. You can see that. And then he bolts across what is potentially one of the busiest roadways in the state of New Mexico and broadsides a car."
As White sees it, "the chief was not looking" because "he was distracted by something." He added, "I don't mean the shooting" because Medina was "already across the intersection" at that point.
Tom Grover, a local attorney who represents police officers accused of misconduct, sees several possible policy violations. In an interview with KOAT, "Grover said some of the violations the chief could be in trouble for include having his wife in the car and taking police action, not having his radio turned on and not turning on his lights and siren" when "he ran the red light."
Medina also belatedly activated his body camera. "My camera wasn't on at the beginning of this incident," he says in the video. "I think that everybody's been held accountable for cameras, and I wanted to make sure that I was investigated…Did I have time to turn this on? Was it proper for me to have it on before then?"
KOAT notes that "some say officers have been fired for similar conduct." In 2017, for example, an Albuquerque police officer "was rushing with lights and sirens to a call of a man armed with a machete when a car pulled out in front of him. The person driving that car died in the crash. The city fired the officer and paid more than $3 million in a civil suit." In 2013, a 21-year-old woman died after another Albuquerque officer "sped through a red light at Paseo Del Norte and Eagle Ranch, hitting her car." The city paid $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit by her family. The officer was convicted of careless driving and sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller appeared unfazed by Medina's seemingly similar conduct. "Whether it's our city or the individuals that he helped, or potentially the lives that he saved because of the shooting that was happening," Keller said after the crash, "we all owe him a debt of gratitude today and every day."
This week the Albuquerque City Council rejected a proposal for an independent task force to investigate the incident. The members who voted against the idea noted that Victor Valdez, the former judge who has been charged with investigating the crash as the APD's superintendent of police reform, does not report to the chief.
"I would hope that there is no bias, but it appears like there possibly could be," said City Councilor Renee Grout, one of four council members who favored the task force. "We just need to have some accountability. We need to have transparency. I don't think that it would hurt to have this outside investigation. I think it would help the community have better trust in our APD force."
In the lead-up to next month’s CES trade show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA will unveil its latest advancements in artificial intelligence — including generative AI — and a spectrum of other cutting-edge technologies.
Scheduled for Monday, Jan. 8, at 8 a.m. PT, the company’s special address will be publicly streamed. Save the date and plan to tune in to the virtual address, which will focus on consumer technologies and robotics, on NVIDIA’s website, YouTube or Twitch.
AI and NVIDIA technologies will be t
In the lead-up to next month’s CES trade show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA will unveil its latest advancements in artificial intelligence — including generative AI — and a spectrum of other cutting-edge technologies.
Scheduled for Monday, Jan. 8, at 8 a.m. PT, the company’s special address will be publicly streamed. Save the date and plan to tune in to the virtual address, which will focus on consumer technologies and robotics, on NVIDIA’s website, YouTube or Twitch.
And throughout CES, NVIDIA’s story will be enriched by the presence of over 85 NVIDIA customers and partners.
Consumer: AI, gaming and NVIDIA Studio announcements and demos with partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell, GIGABYTE, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Razer, Samsung, Zotac and more.
Auto: Showcasing partnerships with leaders including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Kia, Polestar, Luminar and Zoox.
Enterprise: Collaborations with Accenture, Adobe, Altair, Ansys, AWS, Capgemini, Dassault Systems, Deloitte, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Siemens, Wipro and others.
For the investment community, NVIDIA will participate in a CES Virtual Fireside Chat hosted by J.P. Morgan on Tuesday, Jan. 9, at 8 a.m. PT. Listen to the live audio webcast at investor.nvidia.com.
Visit NVIDIA’s event web page for a complete list of sessions and a view of our extensive partner ecosystem at the show.
Last week, a rookie Tennessee police officer died in the line of duty. But while the loss of the officer is tragic, evidence suggests that his death—as well as the death of a woman in his custody—was a result of his negligence. Meigs County Deputy Robert "R. J." Leonard, who had just joined the sheriff's office fresh out of the academy in December, responded to a call of a disturbance Wednesday night. According to reports, a man and woman were fi
Last week, a rookie Tennessee police officer died in the line of duty. But while the loss of the officer is tragic, evidence suggests that his death—as well as the death of a woman in his custody—was a result of his negligence.
Meigs County Deputy Robert "R. J." Leonard, who had just joined the sheriff's office fresh out of the academy in December, responded to a call of a disturbance Wednesday night. According to reports, a man and woman were fighting on a bridge, and Leonard arrested the woman around 10 p.m. According to Meigs County District Attorney Russell Johnson, the arrest was Leonard's first since joining the force.
After handcuffing the suspect—later identified as Tabitha Smith—and placing her in the back seat, Leonard radioed in that he was transporting her to jail. But on the way, according to Johnson, the deputy apparently sent his wife a text that read simply, "Arrest."
"His wife texted back and said, 'That's good' or 'That's great,'" said Sheriff Austin Garrett of nearby Hamilton County. But at that time, Leonard apparently drove the wrong way down a Blythe Ferry boat ramp and into the Tennessee River. At the same time Leonard texted his wife, dispatchers say they received a garbled radio message from him, with the only discernible word being "water."
The following day, a patrol vehicle was removed from the Tennessee River, from which the bodies of Leonard and Smith were later recovered.
While Leonard's death is tragic, leaving behind not only his wife but three children, all too little attention was paid to the woman who died, handcuffed, in his custody. Chief Deputy Brian Malone fought back tears as he announced Leonard's death, referring to Leonard as "part of our family," while only referring to Smith—herself a mother of two—as "the other victim."
The report filed on the events by Los Angeles' ABC7 features the headline, "Bodies of missing Tennessee deputy and woman who had been detained recovered, officials say." But that was changed from the original headline, "Tennessee deputy found dead after making first arrest, patrol vehicle recovered from river." While this reflects an earlier time when less information was available, that article still featured the detail that dispatchers had lost communication with Leonard right as he was texting his wife and that "the deputy, a native of New York, appeared to be texting and radioing while driving in a poorly lit area he was unfamiliar with."
Indeed, a report on Chattanooga's ABC9 noted that the crash "raises questions over safety on Blythe Ferry boat ramps," but the segment still shows that the road leading to the boat ramp in question featured three "rumble strips"—bumps in the road meant to alert drivers to upcoming danger—and three yellow signs warning that "road ends."
Unfortunately, Smith is just one of countless people to die in police custody. In 2014, Congress passed the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which requires the federal government to collect and analyze data on the number of inmates who die each year in state, local, or federal custody. But a report published last year by the Leadership Conference Education Fund and the Project on Government Oversight found that the government "has yet to collect reliable data, let alone produce the required study." Citing data from the Government Accountability Office, the report notes that "in 2021 alone, the government potentially undercounted deaths in custody by nearly 1,000 compared to other public data sources."
Leonard's crash was almost certainly an accident, driving down a dark road in an unfamiliar area at night. But preliminary evidence suggests a degree of negligence, both by texting while driving and failing to heed multiple posted signs. While Leonard's death was a tragedy, it is necessary to note that his negligence also caused the death of a woman in his custody.
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