Category: Utah
Utah police report claims officer shape-shifted into a frog
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why, on paper, a local Utah police officer allegedly turned into a frog.
The claim comes from the Heber City Police Department in Heber City, Utah, where officers are reportedly looking to save time on their paperwork, as writing police reports typically takes personnel between one and two hours per day.
‘I’m not the most tech-savvy person, so it’s very user-friendly.’
In order to save on man-hours, Heber City PD began testing new software that can take bodycam footage and generate a police report based on the audio and video.
The new artificial intelligence program did not take long to malfunction though, as just a few weeks into its trial in December, a police report stated that one of the local officers had shape-shifted into a frog during an investigation. It turns out the software picked up on audio that was playing on a TV screen present during the incident.
“The bodycam software and the AI report-writing software picked up on the movie that was playing in the background, which happened to be ‘The Princess and the Frog,'” Sergeant Rick Keel told FOX 13 News, referring to the 2009 animated Disney film.
Keel then stressed, “That’s when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports.”
Photo by Michael Kovac/FilmMagic
The department reportedly began testing two AI programs in early December, named Draft One and Code Four.
Draft One comes from company Axon, founded by American Rick Smith. On its website, Axon promises to “revolutionize real-time operations,” but is responsible for generating the Disney-themed police report. The program reportedly works for both English and Spanish languages — and apparently for princesses too.
Blaze News reached out to Axon for comment.
Sgt. Keel told reporters that he has saved about six to eight hours per week since employing AI to do his paperwork.
“I’m not the most tech-savvy person, so it’s very user-friendly,” he said.
Code Four, however, was created by two MIT dropouts who are just 19 years old: George Cheng and Dylan Nguyen. That program also claims it can transform “bodycam to reports in seconds.”
Code Four reportedly costs $30 per officer, per month.
Photo by Scott Brinegar/Disney Parks via Getty Images
According to Dexerto, AI policing programs have already caused issues elsewhere in the United States. For example, the outlet reported last October that armed police officers swarmed a 16-year-old student outside of a high school in Baltimore after an AI gun-detection system falsely claimed the boy had a firearm.
It turned out after police arrived on scene that the teen was actually holding a bag of Doritos.
Blaze News reported on the increased use of AI monitoring software in schools in early 2024, when an Arkansas district announced it would use over 1,500 cameras at its schools.
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Brother Of Trans Woman Who Murdered Parents Blames ‘Reckless’ Prescription Of Sex Change Hormones
‘This has nothing to do with identity’
Utah Republicans just let Democrats steal a seat they could never win
A Utah judge just turned a safe Republican congressional seat into a near-guaranteed Democrat seat — and she did it in a state controlled top to bottom by Republicans. How does that happen? A generation of weak Republicans in the elected branches handed liberals control of the judicial branch and gave them the ballot initiative system they needed to take over the state piece by piece.
Democrats can’t win statewide office in half the country, so they’ve turned ballot initiatives into their weapon of choice. Pollsters craft soothing messaging, activists gather signatures, and voters — thinking they’re supporting neutrality — unknowingly approve measures that shift power to Democrats.
Supermajority states serve as a control group. The problem isn’t power; the problem is the GOP’s refusal to wield it.
The “nonpartisan redistricting commission” scam remains their most effective tool. These commissions always promise fairness, and they always produce more Democratic seats.
Utah proved the point in 2018, when 66% of voters approved Proposition 4, even though most Utahns don’t want Democrats running the state. The same tactic produced Medicaid expansion and marijuana legalization. None of these measures would have survived the legislature — but they passed once voters encountered them in isolation.
James Madison warned against pure democracy for this exact reason. A republic draws authority from the “great body of the society,” not from a small faction or self-appointed elite. Ballot-initiative commissions flip that logic on its head. They let unelected actors redraw power for themselves.
Here comes the judge
After the 2020 census, Utah’s legislature drew a fourth Republican congressional seat, as the state constitution requires. Democrats and their allies at the League of Women Voters sued to nullify the map and force a Salt Lake-centered Democrat seat.
In August, Third District Judge Dianna Gibson obliged. She declared the legislature’s map unconstitutional because, in her view, it ignored Prop. 4 — even though the constitution explicitly vests redistricting power in the legislature. She ordered a new process for 2026 and told both sides to submit maps.
The GOP-controlled legislature complied, proposing a compromise map and passing SB 1011 to impose “partisan fairness” tests on future redistricting so the commission couldn’t hand Democrats a permanent advantage.
Gibson ignored all of it. On Nov. 10, she tossed the legislative map, sidelined SB 1011, and adopted the map drawn by the very activist groups suing the state — the same groups that engineered Prop. 4.
Plainly unconstitutional
Nothing in Utah’s constitution supports what Gibson did. Article IX, Section 1 states that the legislature “shall divide the state” into congressional districts. A commission cannot do it. A judge cannot do it. Activists certainly cannot do it.
Yet Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson signed off on Gibson’s map, even though state law required her to certify only lawful maps. That decision reflects a deeper problem: Too many Utah Republicans treat constitutional violations as minor inconveniences and concede ground to Democrats who never reciprocate.
Democrats defend Gibson’s ruling by citing Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015), when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reinterpreted the word “legislature” to include ballot initiatives. Even if you grant that tortured reading of the U.S. Constitution, Utah’s constitution is far more explicit. Only the legislature draws maps.
RELATED: Democrats crown judges while crying about kings
Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Make impeachment great again
At the federal level, impeachment has become an empty threat. Senate math makes convictions nearly impossible. But red states with Republican supermajorities don’t face that obstacle.
Utah’s legislature holds a 61-14 majority in the House and a 22-6 majority in the Senate. Rep. Trevor Lee (R-Utah) on my show last week called for the impeachment of both Judge Gibson and Lt. Gov. Henderson for violating the state constitution. Republicans have the votes to do it — and the constitutional duty to rein in judicial usurpation.
Other states have shown it can be done. In 2018, West Virginia impeached all five members of its Supreme Court for corruption and removed them. Red states such as Oklahoma, Montana, Missouri, and South Carolina face the same problem Utah now faces: liberal judges empowered by timid Republicans.
A perilous path
Utah proves a point conservatives hate to admit. Republicans in Washington often claim they can’t implement the party’s agenda because they lack power. But in Utah, Republicans hold all the power — and still refuse to use it. They allow commissions to override them, courts to embarrass them, and Democrats to seize ground they could never win through elections.
Supermajority states serve as a control group. The problem isn’t power; the problem is the GOP’s refusal to wield it.
Unless Republicans act with conviction, Utah will follow Colorado’s path. Democrats chipped away at Colorado one institution at a time while Republicans shrugged. Now Colorado is a Democratic Party fortress.
Utah is heading down the same trail — unless Republicans use the constitutional tools they still possess.
‘Clear example of judicial activism’: Judge gives Democrats a boost with congressional map in red state
As Republicans attempt to redraw districts to gain a cushion in their razor-thin majority in Congress ahead of the midterms next year, an unexpected setback in a reliably red state raises the stakes.
A redistricting case in Utah has potentially thrown a wrench in the nationwide redistricting battle.
‘Turns out, she was orchestrating it from the start.’
The AP reported that Judge Dianna Gibson has ordered the Utah congressional districts to be redrawn in conformity with a 2018 ballot initiative known as Proposition 4, which in effect could grant Democrats a seat in the House.
Proposition 4’s map was drawn by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, the plaintiffs of the redistricting case. That map largely keeps Salt Lake City intact in one district rather than breaking it apart, creating a reliably blue voter base that could flip one of the state’s four congressional seats to the Democrats.
Gibson rejected S.B. 200, a congressional map that was enacted by Republican lawmakers and that maintained four seats, on the grounds that it did not meet the rules against gerrymandering.
RELATED: Gov. Gavin Newsom threatens to redistrict California after Texas GOP drops new district map proposal
Photo by Matt Archer/Getty Images
Gibson’s decision was reportedly handed down just a few minutes before the clock struck midnight on Monday.
Republican Utah state Rep. Candice Pierucci called the redrawn map a “clear example of judicial activism.”
Pierucci added, “The Judge drove the entire process, set aggressive deadlines and refused an extension for map drawing by the legislature. We moved 104 lawmakers under those deadlines and she herself couldn’t be bothered to issue the decision before a quarter to midnight. We followed her direction every step of the way — turns out, she was orchestrating it from the start.”
All four Utah congressional seats are currently occupied by Republicans, and Republicans currently have a slim majority in the U.S. House, holding 219 seats to Democrats’ 213. Three seats are vacant following two deaths and one resignation.
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