Law Enforcement

In Durham County, the sheriff’s office has 125 open positions. About 100 of them are at the county jail. WUNC's Will Michaels spoke with Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead about why the vacancies persist.

The autism awareness training for emergency responders is part of a statewide effort.

Police say they did not find a bomb in the vehicle but possible bomb-making materials were collected from it. Authorities are trying to learn what led the man, identified by law enforcement officials as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina, to drive onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress and make bomb threats to officers.

Estella Patterson will take over at the Raleigh Police Department on August 1. She has been with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for 25 years and is currently a deputy chief there.

A judge in Statesville last week barred Mooresville police from doing something that's increasingly common among local police departments in North Carolina: turning over cash seized from suspects to the federal government. In 2019 alone, police departments in the state got back more than $12 million through what's known as the Equitable Sharing Program.

Across North Carolina, police seize millions of dollars in cash and other assets from citizens on the mere suspicion it came from criminal activity. Experts say the state actually has strong laws to protect citizens. But a gaping loophole allows law enforcement across the state to circumvent those state laws.

The North Carolina House and Senate each passed bills that would require centralized reporting of Giglio letters, creating a database that law enforcement agencies could consult when hiring new officers. The letters say which law enforcement officers are deemed too untrustworthy to testify in court.

Across the state, police traffic stops have dropped, but for white drivers they've declined twice as fast as for Black drivers.That's according to a trend…

The price of local law enforcement is coming under increased scrutiny amidst nationwide calls to defund or abolish the police. Smoky Mountain News took a…

The price of local law enforcement is coming under increased scrutiny amidst nationwide calls to defund or abolish the police. Smoky Mountain News took a…