Future of Policing Task Force releases initial report
Bloomington’s Future of Policing Task Force (FPTF) has released a report covering the first nine months of their work. This report covers the methodologies used for gathering data, challenges faced by the task force, as well as initial recommendations that were submitted to Mayor John Hamilton in late April.
The nine recommendations include ongoing intercultural/interpersonal communication and diversity training for police officers, increased social/personal interactions between officers and the public at large and increased coordination between Bloomington Police Department (BPD) social workers and other community care specialists. The report can be viewed at bloomington.in.gov/inclusion.
The task force invites community members to also participate in a Polco (online community engagement poling platform) survey about the future of policing in Bloomington. The survey will be available HERE beginning Wednesday, May 25th. The task force is, among other activities, continuing to gather community input through Polco and other surveys, researching innovative public safety measures in other cities, becoming further acquainted with the daily duties of policing in Bloomington, and examining BPD use of force data.
IU Ventures del;ivers milestone investment support for Bloomington-based Folia
Ravi Bhatt, an alumnus of IU Bloomington’s College of Arts and Sciences, is the co-founder and CEO of Folia, an innovative business annotation software platform that recently announced it raised $2 million in seed funding. Just over $1 million of that funding was generated through two of IU Ventures’ major investment programs, the IU Angel Network and the IU Philanthropic Venture Fund.
Folia’s co-founder and COO is Erik Coyne, a Bloomington native and retired U.S. Air Force colonel. Both he and Bhatt are attorneys. Under Bhatt’s and Coyne’s leadership, Folia will use the funding to expand its vision to improve productivity in the modern office while helping organizations further their sustainability practices by going paperless. One of its leading products is iAnnotate, an award-winning annotation product that allows users to read, mark up and share documents on a tablet. Folia currently serves more than 1 million people — from students and teachers to top Wall Street investors, lawyers and even Hollywood screenwriters.
Coyne is an Iraq War veteran who served in the Pentagon as a deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and special counsel to the Air Force’s senior military attorney. Additionally, he has twice served as general counsel on military installations in demanding locations. As such, he has a unique perspective on how Folia’s software platform is helping organizations streamline their processes.
Bhatt, who earned his IU degree in cognitive science, hatched the idea for Folia in Chicago, where it grew out of his previous startup. With the support of the IU Angel Network, which includes IU alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends across the world, Bhatt recently relocated Folia to Bloomington, where he hopes to significantly expand the company’s workforce. Folia currently has seven Bloomington-based employees, but Bhatt plans to increase the company’s local workforce to 40 employees with expertise in, among other fields, computer science, cognitive science, business and communications. (Folia also has 7 additional employees who work across three other cities.)
Last month, Bhatt was one of just 12 nominees for the “Rising Entrepreneur Award” at the 23rd annual Mira Awards, Indiana’s largest, best known and most prestigious technology awards hosted by TechPoint.
Lake Monroe Community Forums
The following dates represent forums on Monroe Lake sponsored by Friends of Lake Monroe, LWV-BMC, LWV-BC:
6:45-8:30pm
May 24, St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Bloomington
June 9, Brown County Public Library, Nashville
June 15 VIRTUAL www.friendsoflakemonroe.org/events
Teams from four states and Zambia graduate Indiana Conservation Officer K-9 school
Eight K-9 teams that completed the DNR Division of Law Enforcement’s nine-week K-9 Resource Protection program were recognized during a graduation ceremony held today on the south lawn of the Indiana Statehouse. Graduating teams came from the states of Indiana, Virginia, Kansas, and Washington, as well as from the African country of Zambia. The two participants from Africa are handlers for the Zambia Department of National Parks and Wildlife. Both handlers have countrywide wildlife authority in Zambia. The new teams will focus on detecting bush meat, elephant ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales, firearms, and ammunition.
Indiana’s K-9 program started in 1997 with a pilot program of two teams. Because of its effectiveness, the program grew to a team of 13 K-9 units throughout the state. At least one K-9 unit serves in each of the 10 Indiana DNR Law Enforcement districts. The Indiana K-9 program is both well respected in the Hoosier state and recognized as one of the nation’s best. In addition to the states represented in this year’s school, Indiana has also helped start and train teams from natural resource agencies in Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, and Oregon. The Indiana K-9 program trains teams that serve in Indiana in man-tracking, wildlife detection and article searches. All canines are trained to locate white-tailed deer, wild turkey, waterfowl, and ginseng. They may also be trained to locate other species, depending on where in Indiana the handler is stationed. Indiana teams excel in man-tracking and locating firearms.
K-9 teams provide the conservation officers in their districts another tool to help stop poaching. In the past 25 years, Indiana K-9 teams have been involved in thousands of such cases. K-9 teams have been used to find concealed game and guns, as well as to find shell casings in road hunting and spotlighting cases. K-9 teams are used to find lost hunters as well as poachers who have tried to hide from officers. Because of their unique abilities, K-9 units are often requested by other state and local law enforcement agencies for help in locating evidence, missing persons, or fleeing felons.
This Week in Hoosier History
1910 – Benjamin Sherman Crothers was born in Terre Haute. He adopted the nickname “Scatman” when he broke into show business. He succeeded as an all-around entertainer: actor, composer, singer, comedian, and guitarist. He became s regular guest on the NBC radio show hosted by fellow Hoosier Phil Harris. The two continued to collaborate on records and films for many years.
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