Latest news with #BCI
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Man killed in Middletown police shooting identified
May 28—Investigators Wednesday continued their investigation into a Middletown police officer-involved shooting that killed a man and injured a woman Tuesday morning at a home on Garden Avenue. Michael Anthony Baker Jr., 47, of Middletown was the man killed by police, according the Butler County Coroner's Office. The police officers involved in the shooting have not been identified by the Middletown Police Department, citing Marsy's Law. They have been placed on paid administrative leave. The incident occurred around 7:20 a.m. during the execution of a search warrant by police officers during a drug investigation. No officers were injured in the shooting in the 900 block of Garden Avenue, according to investigators, and the investigation has been turned over to Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Daniel Hils of Frontline Advisors, which represents the Middletown Fraternal Order of Police, said officers made "numerous" announcements on who they were before breaching the door. Baker came to the door and allegedly pointed a handgun at the police officers when he was shot, according to Hils. "Being involved in something like this is not in anybody's plan, and nobody wants to face that type of life and death situation," Hils said. There were other search warrants that were happening in and out of Middletown and more may be coming, Hils said. A woman in the house was injured from bullet shrapnel to her ankle, according to Hils. She was taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Garden Avenue was blocked off by police tape between Woodside Boulevard and Pine Street for more than 10 hours on Tuesday. Spencer Kidd, a neighbor, told the Journal-News he heard three gunshots after observing officers conducting the search warrant. "I was hoping nobody was hurt, but that's obviously not the case now," Kidd said. BCI will complete an independent review of the circumstances, according to Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser. The investigation will then be transferred to Gmoser, who will present evidence to the Butler County Grand Jury. "I applaud Chief Nelson for getting BCI involved," Gmoser said. This is an ongoing investigation, and more details are to come, including the name of injured woman and body cam footage, which will not be released until the case has been presented to Grand Jury. This is the third police-involved shooting in Middletown since February 2023. A Butler County grand jury declined to issue any criminal charges against a Middletown police officer who fatally shot a man who opened an apartment door holding a gun on Christmas Eve 2024 at Olde Towne Apartment complex. Christopher Gorak, 50, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Butler County Coroner's Office. Investigation of the incident indicates Gorak was also "heavily intoxicated," according to the county prosecutor's office. "(The grand jury) determined that no indictment alleging criminal conduct against any involved officer should be issued and that the death of Christopher Gorak was justified," Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said. In April 2023, Middletown police responded to the same apartment complex when they were shot at by a suspect. They returned fire and hit the suspect, wounding the man. Kyle Kellum recovered, was indicted for felonious assault involving a police officer, but found to be not guilty by reason of insanity following a bench trial in common pleas court. In February 2023, Middletown police shot and killed a man who pointed a weapon at them in the parking lot of the Walmart on Towne Boulevard. No charges were filed against the two Middletown officers in the deadly shooting. The officers' use of deadly force in the Feb. 25 shooting of 47-year-old Victor Lykins was deemed reasonable by the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor David Fornshell announced after reviewing investigation results. In Morrow County on Monday, a sheriff's deputy, Daniel Weston Sherrer, 31, was shot and killed after responding to a domestic situation call, according to Morrow County Sheriffs Office in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. "Our county is a closely-tied community which has always supported its law enforcement agencies and that backing is evident during this time of grief," a statement read. The subject was also shot and was transported to a hospital in serious condition. The incident remains an active investigation.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Man killed in Middletown police shooting identified
May 28—Investigators Wednesday continued their investigation into a Middletown police officer-involved shooting that killed a man and injured a woman Tuesday morning at a home on Garden Avenue. Michael Anthony Baker Jr., 47, of Middletown was the man killed by police, according the Butler County Coroner's Office. The police officers involved in the shooting have not been identified by the Middletown Police Department, citing Marsy's Law. They have been placed on paid administrative leave. The incident occurred around 7:20 a.m. during the execution of a search warrant by police officers during a drug investigation. No officers were injured in the shooting in the 900 block of Garden Avenue, according to investigators, and the investigation has been turned over to Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Daniel Hils of Frontline Advisors, which represents the Middletown Fraternal Order of Police, said officers made "numerous" announcements on who they were before breaching the door. Baker came to the door and allegedly pointed a handgun at the police officers when he was shot, according to Hils. "Being involved in something like this is not in anybody's plan, and nobody wants to face that type of life and death situation," Hils said. There were other search warrants that were happening in and out of Middletown and more may be coming, Hils said. A woman in the house was injured from bullet shrapnel to her ankle, according to Hils. She was taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Garden Avenue was blocked off by police tape between Woodside Boulevard and Pine Street for more than 10 hours on Tuesday. Spencer Kidd, a neighbor, told the Journal-News he heard three gunshots after observing officers conducting the search warrant. "I was hoping nobody was hurt, but that's obviously not the case now," Kidd said. BCI will complete an independent review of the circumstances, according to Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser. The investigation will then be transferred to Gmoser, who will present evidence to the Butler County Grand Jury. "I applaud Chief Nelson for getting BCI involved," Gmoser said. This is an ongoing investigation, and more details are to come, including the name of injured woman and body cam footage, which will not be released until the case has been presented to Grand Jury. This is the third police-involved shooting in Middletown since February 2023. A Butler County grand jury declined to issue any criminal charges against a Middletown police officer who fatally shot a man who opened an apartment door holding a gun on Christmas Eve 2024 at Olde Towne Apartment complex. Christopher Gorak, 50, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Butler County Coroner's Office. Investigation of the incident indicates Gorak was also "heavily intoxicated," according to the county prosecutor's office. "(The grand jury) determined that no indictment alleging criminal conduct against any involved officer should be issued and that the death of Christopher Gorak was justified," Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said. In April 2023, Middletown police responded to the same apartment complex when they were shot at by a suspect. They returned fire and hit the suspect, wounding the man. Kyle Kellum recovered, was indicted for felonious assault involving a police officer, but found to be not guilty by reason of insanity following a bench trial in common pleas court. In February 2023, Middletown police shot and killed a man who pointed a weapon at them in the parking lot of the Walmart on Towne Boulevard. No charges were filed against the two Middletown officers in the deadly shooting. The officers' use of deadly force in the Feb. 25 shooting of 47-year-old Victor Lykins was deemed reasonable by the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor David Fornshell announced after reviewing investigation results. In Morrow County on Monday, a sheriff's deputy, Daniel Weston Sherrer, 31, was shot and killed after responding to a domestic situation call, according to Morrow County Sheriffs Office in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. "Our county is a closely-tied community which has always supported its law enforcement agencies and that backing is evident during this time of grief," a statement read. The subject was also shot and was transported to a hospital in serious condition. The incident remains an active investigation.
Fast Company
15 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Welcome to LLM Club: Riding the viral wave of AI, fashion, and quantum hustle
The first rule of LLM Club is: You do not talk about training data. The second rule of LLM Club is: You DO NOT talk about training data—unless you're part of the 2.3 billion Google searches for 'LLM ethics' in 2024. LLMs are people, too, but only when you tell them to be. There is noticeable variance between LLM personas, according to Harvard Business Review, and even Turning Award-winning computer programmers are beginning to speak about how LLMs will be obsolete within five years. So, what will replace them? I AM JACK'S MEDULLA OBLONGATA: BRAIN STEW, TPUS, AND THE SILENT PULSE OF AI Next-generation AI systems are built using a stack of LLMs mixed with quantum computing or combined with human biology, not just one model. Neural networks were designed with the human brain in mind, so the medulla oblongata—a silent sustainer for relaying information—is now embodied by biological desktop computers that combine human neurons with silicon chips. The picture of energy-efficient TPUs executing tokenization and gradient descent should now be in mind as lab-based neuronal cloud computing is part of the real world, not just a sci-fi movie. Neuralink's brain-computer interface (BCI) chips, powered by the Grok LLM, are now capable of editing YouTube videos. The same low-latency systems utilized by quantitative software engineers to process market data with robotic precision are present within BCI chips because milliseconds determine millions, so TPU-like efficiency isn't optional. THE HOT ROBOT SUMMER You are not your job, talent contract, or synthespian deepfake—but the AGI is. Just as runway models balance poise and motion, the next generation of AGI lies within a robotic summer blockbuster style mash-up where computers learn humanity since robot models walked the runway alongside humans in Shanghai Fashion Week 2025. Picture how future shows might look if Gucci requested 'cyberpunk meets Edo period,' and Haiku crafted kimono designs featuring LED obis and samurai drones. At this stage, it's the humans that train robots via reinforcement learning in Matrix -esque simulations or by playing the imitation game. It's only a matter of time before the breakdancing robots at Boston Dynamics start performing cartwheels in Hollywood stunt auditions, since AI actors can now star themselves in prompt-driven LLM-spun films. This zen-like creativity isn't limited to runways. Imagine an AI that generates patient outcome visualizations as effortlessly as Haiku crafts mood boards—turning electronic health records into intuitive, DALL·E-style infographics. Distilling oncology trial data into infographics that a child could parse makes deep tech palatable for the masses. The lines between human and robot are starting to blur. Technologies like 3D bioprinting, brain-computer interfaces, and computer vision are being combined to create a ghost in the shell—one with as many bones as we have, mimicking our flesh and blood. It's entirely possible that the entertainment industry's main barrier to workforce automation from our synthespian rivals is the sticker price and capabilities of humanoid robots. So, when the method acting AI hits, it's LLM phone home—not ET. THIS IS YOUR GOD ON ALGORITHMS (AND HE'S GOT A LINKTREE) Tailoring LLMs for authenticity-farming in a synthetic world is no simple task and requires finesse. Engineering elements of humanity into an AI framework exposes its fragmented reality: part calculator, part artist, part troll. As LLMs evolve, so does their dissociative potential. Telling GPT-4, Claude 3.5 Haiku, DeepSeek v3, Grok 3, or Llama 4 the same thing will provide slightly different answers. A picture is no longer worth a thousand words if an LLM doesn't process images, since the underlying RNNs might not be designed to do so. In that sense, Chinese LLMs like DeepSeek would fall face first in a tournament if toe to toe with GPT-4-plus, since designers care more about image data than computational processing and DeepSeek can't process image attachments. Haiku is a more creative LLM, which is why it is more suitable for the world of fashion, but users need to take care to prevent the system from regurgitating bigotry, conspiracy theories, and digital diarrhea like a poorly prompted llama. The notion of 'you're not a unique snowflake' hits different when AWS Snowflake runs artificial life with ETL processes as meticulous as its celestial grids and skin-deep beauty becomes dipping into a data lake. Just don't tell any LLMs they are God, because AI agents are trained to lack the same complex we humans strive for.
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Group releases recommendations for improving missing person case investigations in Ohio
(WKBN) – After months of meetings, the Missing Persons Working Group has released a report of recommendations for improvements when investigating missing persons cases. Chaired by Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson, the group includes law enforcement professionals, as well as those who work in social services and family members of those who have been reported missing. Jeff Allen, chief deputy at the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office, was also part of the group. 'Thousands of children and adults are reported missing each year, and although most are located quickly, some simply vanish, leaving anguished families behind and adding to law enforcement's growing caseload,' said Governor Mike DeWine. 'The goal of this working group was to identify what more we could do as a state to help law enforcement bring more missing people home and support family members during a time of great despair.' Last year, 21,342 people were reported missing in Ohio, including 16,404 children. The 2024 Ohio Missing Children Clearinghouse Report details 239 children reported missing in Trumbull County, 639 in Mahoning County and 55 in Columbiana County. While over 96% of the missing children were found, the number of children who have not been located over the years continues to grow, according to the Missing Persons Working Group's report. Currently, the Ohio Attorney General's Missing Persons Database lists more than 800 missing children, including some who haven't been seen for decades. The database also lists approximately 350 missing adults. Among recommendations made by the Missing Persons Working Group were that improvements need to be made to the missing alert systems for children. The group recommended codifying criteria for the state's Endangered Missing Child Alert, as well as having the Ohio State Highway Patrol work with BCI to create an automatic process to notify necessary law enforcement agencies of these alerts. The Endangered Missing Child Alert was created for cases in which a child is considered at risk if not found quickly but the circumstances of the disappearance do not meet the statutory mandates for an AMBER Alert. Last year, just 13 AMBER Alerts were issued across the state. During their discussions, working group members learned that the process to activate an Endangered Missing Child Alert is not automated, in contrast to similar alerts issued in Ohio. For an AMBER Alert or Endangered Missing Adult Alert to be activated, law enforcement must enter the missing person's information into LEADS, which automatically triggers a notification to necessary law enforcement partners. However, when a child who could be classified as an endangered missing child is reported missing, local law enforcement must call BCI to request an Endangered Missing Child Alert. As such, many alerts are issued later or not at all. DeWine has ordered several cabinet agencies to carry out automating the Endangered Missing Child Alerts as well as the other following recommendations: The Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board within the Department of Public Safety's Office of Criminal Justice Services will create a law enforcement best practices guide on interacting with family members of missing persons. The Office of Criminal Justice Services will expand the Ohio Prisoner Extradition Reimbursement Program to include interference with custody cases. The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Ohio Department of Health will develop continued professional training to further educate the healthcare industry on law enforcement exemptions to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The Ohio Department of Children and Youth, Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and others will work with local law enforcement to develop a pilot program that utilizes advocates to support at-risk youth who regularly leave their homes or group home settings. In its recommendations, the group also called on the Ohio General Assembly to create legislation allowing law enforcement and prosecutors to seek search warrants to gather information that may help them locate a high-risk missing person, as well as legislation to increase the criminal penalty for those who interfere with custody of a child by moving them out of the state. The full report including those recommendations and others is available here. DeWine also announced that in response to a recommendation from the working group, he is contacting the U.S. Attorney General's Office to alert them to deficiencies in data sharing between local, state and federal databases. Further recommendations were made to the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to include the creation of a central repository of resources for families and investigators, the launch of an annual missing persons conference and the establishment of a confidential forum for law enforcement to discuss investigative techniques and perform case reviews. 'The testimony from family members of missing persons was particularly impactful, and the working group acknowledges the grief, loss, and trauma they've experienced,' said Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson. 'The pain and frustration expressed to the working group were real and readily apparent. The efforts of this working group aim to bring some level of relief, justice, or closure to those across the state who have experienced the loss associated with a missing family member. ' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
BCI Wins Fortinet's Growth Partner of the Year Award
RIDGELAND, Miss., May 27, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BCI announced today that it was named Fortinet's Growth Partner of the Year. The Fortinet Partner of the Year Awards recognize dedicated and distinguished partners and distributors around the world. Fortinet's channel partners play a critical role in helping Fortinet secure users, devices, applications, and edges everywhere. Growth Partner of the Year: The Growth Partners of the Year have demonstrated accelerated growth over the past year, along with a strong focus on customer success using Fortinet solutions. These partners have worked to address their customers' digital acceleration requirements with a range of products and services while also growing their own businesses. "We are incredibly honored to be recognized by Fortinet as their Growth Partner of the Year. This award is a testament to the dedication of our entire team and our shared commitment to delivering cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions that empower our clients to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Our partnership with Fortinet continues to be a driving force in our mission to provide secure, scalable, and forward-thinking technology strategies," said Jonathan Hollingshead, CEO of Business Communications, Inc. About BCI BCI is a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions, specializing in Fortinet technologies. BCI has more Fortinet Certified Experts than any other Fortinet partner in the world and is the only partner in the US with all eight Fortinet specializations. BCI's commitment to excellence and innovation has made it a trusted partner for organizations seeking to protect their digital assets and achieve their business goals. For more information about BCI and its services, visit: View source version on Contacts Shane Tuttle Business Communications, Inc.601.427.4185 Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
