Radical police shake-up outlined for UK

Plans for a massive shake-up in policing in England and Wales have been outlined by the home secretary. A new national crime-fighting agency, to replace the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), and establishing police reservists are among the proposals. People will also be able to vote in two years' time for locally-elected officials to oversee each police force. Shadow home secretary Alan Johnson said police did not back the plans as they would "make their job harder".

The Home Office consultation paper - Policing in the 21st century - was described by Home Secretary Theresa May as the "most radical reform of policing for 50 years". She told the Commons on Monday that the police had "become too bureaucratic, too much accountable to Whitehall, rather than to the people they're serving".

Key changes include:

• the abolition of Soca in favour of a new National Crime Agency, which will include organised crime, border policing, and the child exploitation and online protection centre (Ceop)
• the scrapping of Police Authorities. Instead, elected police and crime commissioners will have the power to hire and fire chief constables from May 2012
• the proposed introduction of police reservists - a pool of volunteers to undertake police duties
• "community crime fighters" - ordinary people could take part in joint patrols with officers. There will also be a push for more to become special constables or join Neighbourhood Watch schemes
• phasing out of watchdog the National Policing Improvement Agency

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Armed gangs battle police on Kingston's streets

Jamaican authorities say they are putting Kingston and surrounding areas under a state of emergency as police fight armed gangs trying to stop the arrest of a reputed gang leader sought for possible extradition to the United States. Christopher "Dudus" Coke is wanted by US authorities on drug and arms trafficking charges.

A police officer and a civilian were wounded by gunfire in street clashes and three police stations came under attack in the city, police said on Sunday. One police station was set on fire after police abandoned it having run out of bullets, they added.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding held an emergency meeting with his cabinet on Sunday and issued a State of Emergency for Kingston and St. Andrew, set to take effect at 6pm (0900 AEST om Monday) in the Caribbean nation of about 2.8 million. The government said the state of emergency will last for at least a month.

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CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones

Police in the UK plan to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance. The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police. Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

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4 Police Officers Killed In Washington Ambush

One of four police officers killed in an ambush at a coffeehouse Sunday fought with the gunman and may have wounded him before the officer died just outside the doorway, a sheriff's spokesman said. Pierce County, Wash., sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that investigators were asking area medical providers to report any people wounded by gunshots.

Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were shot dead while sitting in the shop, and a third was killed after standing up. The fourth apparently struggled with the gunman out the doorway and "gave up a good fight," getting off a few shots before he was either shot there or succumbed to earlier wounds.

"We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight ... that he fought the guy all the way out the door," Troyer said. "We hope that he hit him."

The gunman burst into the coffeehouse Sunday morning and opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops, killing the three men and one woman in what Troyer described as a targeted ambush.

Troyer said officers were looking for one male suspect who fled the scene and haven't ruled out an accomplice, possibly a getaway driver. Troyer said investigators determined that a hoax call from a person in nearby Tacoma led officers to believe the gunman was on foot and still near the coffee shop. A number of officers spent part of the afternoon carefully searching buildings close by.

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Police helicopter downed in Brazil by drug gang

Two Brazilian policemen have been killed after their helicopter came under fire from gang members in a slum below them and crashed. The pilot struggled to put the helicopter down safely after being shot in the leg by suspected drug-traffickers while flying over a Rio slum on Saturday, a police official said.

"The helicopter was hit by criminals and the pilot made a forced landing on a football pitch," Major Oderlei Santos of the military police said. The aircraft exploded shortly after touching down, leaving two officers stuck inside the burning wreckage.

The helicopter had been carrying six police officers as part of an operation in Morro dos Macacos, one of Rio's hundreds of slums, which is dominated by heavily armed drug gangs, police said.

• "Brazil 2009 Crime and Safety Report: Rio de Janeiro", Overseas Security Advisory council, 8/21/09.
• "To Rid Slums of Drug Gangs, Police in Rio Try War Tactics", Washington Post, 1/6/09.
• "Brazil's Powerful Prison Gang", Council on Foreign Relations, 9/6/06.

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Hardline Nigerian official pledges to arrest internet scammers

In a world-first move, a top Nigerian official has pledged to do more to jail the perpetrators of Nigerian internet scams that police say are costing Australians at least $40 million a year.

But Sunday Olu Agbi, the hardline Nigerian high commissioner who is based in Canberra, stands by his comments from last year that most victims of the scams are just as guilty as the fraudsters and should be jailed as well.

The Nigerian Government has teamed up with Queensland Police to create an "online reporting system" on the Queensland Police website where any Australians who believe they have been targeted by a scam can report it directly to Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Police say this will greatly speed up investigations and solve the problem of victims not reporting scams to police because they are embarrassed or feel foolish. Professor Olu Agbi said the portal would lead to the arrest and prosecution of Nigerian scammers.

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Police arrest Jakarta blasts suspect

Indonesian police said they have arrested an Indonesian who is suspected of obtaining overseas funding for last month's bomb attack on two hotels in Jakarta, which killed nine people, including Australians. Mohamad Jibril "was suspected of having a role in the overseas funding", police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told reporters. "From who and how, we are still investigating." Security expert Sidney Jones told Reuters Jibril had studied in Pakistan and was a member of a group previously linked to Al Qaeda. He ran the radical magazine Jihadmagz in Indonesia.

Malaysian-born militant Noordin Mohammad Top, who heads a more violent splinter group of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, is widely thought to have been behind the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. Since the bombings, police have arrested at least six people, including Jibril, and three others died during raids. But initial reports they had killed Top during a raid in Central Java proved to be incorrect.

Police are trying to pin down whether the attackers received overseas funding from Al Qaeda. Last week, police said they had arrested a Saudi national suspected of involvement in the fundings of the recent attacks. Media reports quoting police sources said authorities believed couriers may have brought funds for last month's hotel into Indonesia from the Middle East.

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