In this issue: Around The Nation: A coast-to-coast roundup of police news. Begging to differ: Police groups split on immigration role. The Godsquad: Taking back Sin City’s streets. Not just red flags: Benefits to early-intervention. Stunning move: Cincy police to get Tasers. A year later: Bratton’s L.A. honeymoon goes on. Desk jockeys to hit the streets in Chicago. People & Places: A new era; the knock on Norris; Hart failure; Milwaukee black out; a career of firsts; on the road. Short Takes: Easy-to-digest news capsules. Let it bleed: DNA sampling gets appellate review. Fair warning: Signs of potential domestic homicide. Time Capsules: 25 years ago in LEN. Ratings game: Tying raises to evaluations. None nice, all naughty: A cop’s petty-criminal target list. Criminal Justice Library: Rethinking middle management. Return engagement: Recidivism and the sex offender. Forum: With information-sharing projects, ownership is everything. Days are numbered for Milwaukee IAD. Closer look: “Embedded” reporters in Miami. --top--

People & Places New era in Omaha      Ultimately, only one of the three finalists for chief of the Omaha Police Department could be chosen, so in an unusual, almost Solomon-like move, Mayor Mike Fahey appointed Thomas Warren to the top job, then promoted his two rivals to deputy chief, ushering in what he called a “new millennium” at the agency.      The 42-year-old Warren, whose appointment was announced in November, is the first African American to serve as Omaha’s police chief. His two new deputy chiefs, Don Thorson and Eric Buske, will join Deputy Chief Brenda Smith in the upper echelon of the 764-officer force... --top-- The knock on Norris      Pleading not guilty in December to charges that he misused police funds on liquor and extramarital affairs while serving as Baltimore’s police commissioner, former Maryland State Police superintendent Edward Norris said he looked forward to having his day in court.      Norris was indicted along with his one-time chief of staff in Baltimore, John Stendrini, under a statute that allows federal prosecutors to pursue corruption cases when local agencies receive federal grants of $10,000 or more. The two are accused of misusing more than $20,000 from an account created from three charity funds set up to benefit police officers... --top-- Hart failure      Although his long law enforcement career ended in shame and imprisonment, Detroit’s first black police chief, William Hart, is remembered by those who worked under him as a man of compassion and dignity. Hart, 79, died of heart failure on Nov. 24.      Hart joined the department in 1952 after working in the Pennsylvania coal mines. Known earlier in his police career as the “man of a thousand faces” for his uncanny ability to infiltrate any criminal organization, he was named Detroit’s chief in 1976... --top-- Black out, woman in      After a contentious seven-year term, Arthur Jones, Milwaukee’s first black police chief, was succeeded in November by the city’s first female chief, Nannette H. Hegerty.      The 57-year-old Jones had pressed to have his contract renewed. His non-reappointment was retaliation, he said, for a racial discrimination suit he filed in June 2002 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing the city’s Fire and Police Commission and Mayor John Norquist of bias... --top-- A career of firsts      From department secretary to chief, Winston-Salem, N.C., Police Chief Linda Davis has done it all. Now she is saying goodbye after 34 years with the department.      Davis, 56, will leave at the end of the month. She was the agency’s first female patrol officer, as well as its first sergeant, lieutenant, captain, assistant police chief and chief. Retiring in 1998, Davis was lured back as interim chief the following year when Chief George Sweat left to head the state Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Davis’s appointment was soon made permanent... --top-- Hitting the road      Under pressure from the city’s mayor, Hartford, Conn., Police Chief Bruce P. Marquis will be leaving soon to take command of the Norfolk, Va., Police Department.      Marquis, 51, said he is “bittersweet” about leaving Hartford, where he has served for the past three years, but said tension between Mayor Eddie A. Perez and himself had become intolerable... --top--