Free Republic

Family wants Justice for Eric YUCAIPA, CA - The man who killed Eric Haydu, 22 never spent one (1) day in jail. Illegal alien, Pablo Duaarte Rodreiguez, who had multiple citations for driving without a license now wants the judge to terminate his probation, and release him from the "unsupervised probation;" for kiling Eric. Read Rodriguez made an illegal left turn in front of Eric on August 11, 2012, who was on his motorcycle along with his passenger. Eric never regained consciousness and died on September 8, 2011. For taking Eric's life, Rodriguez was given a mere three (3) years...

In the wake of the killing of an unarmed teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., concerned citizens of the St Louis suburb will be donning cameras in a bid to prevent future abuses of power. A California-based group called “We Copwatch” has raised more than $6,000 to buy video equipment for people in the Canfield Green Apartments, which are near the spot where Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in August, KDSK reports. In addition to handing out the cameras, We Copwatch is partnering with community group the Canfield Watchman to teach classes about observers’...

Marie A. Berry, 35, was arrested on Wednesday in Vancouver. She was also charged with possession of a stolen vehicle and two counts of theft in the second degree. Court documents said Berry had robbed seven businesses, including one bank and one credit union, since April. The suspect description was similar in all seven robberies. Berry used a stolen SMART car as a getaway car when she robbed a Vancouver Columbia Bank branch in June, investigators said. Surveillance video showed Berry casing other banks and credit unions within 30 minutes of the Columbia Bank robbery, the probable cause document said.

Two teens were shot to death and at least 13 other people, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded in shootings between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. The most recent shooting was a homicide that happened about 4:10 a.m. Saturday in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, and the boy killed was the seventh person shot in that area in the West Garfield Park and Lawndale neighborhoods on the West Side.

Two armed “polygamist women” dressed like “ninjas” were subdued by a sword-wielding man during a home invasion, according to police in suburban Utah. Police said the two women, aged 18 and 22, were attacking the home of a witness and victim in a criminal child sex assault case against a man the women called their “husband”. The women “violently attacked one of the adult males in the house who came to see who was coming,” Ian Adams of the West Jordan police department told the Guardian. “Another adult male joined the fray in defense of the first male victim. He...

Hunkered down in her south St. Louis County apartment with a mug of coffee and a thick novel, Carol Ray, 54, tries to enjoy a sunny morning off from work. But that’s hard when you’re a fugitive from justice who could be taken away in handcuffs at any moment. On her kitchen table sit unpaid traffic tickets from the cities of Beverly Hills and Town and Country: $199 total. Somebody with money could hire a lawyer with contacts in the court, exchange a few emails and pay extra to keep points off their license. With no more sacrifice than a...

AUSTIN — The special prosecutor who secured two felony abuse of power indictments against Gov. Rick Perry is facing his own legal problems after a decision by Texas’ highest criminal court to renew a contempt of court case against him. Prosecutors filed a contempt of court motion against San Antonio-based attorney Michael McCrum in January, after a separate case the previous fall. In it, one of McCrum’s clients was convicted of manslaughter for driving his car the wrong-way down an interstate with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, and sparking a head-on crash that killed two men.

Windsor police responded in force Thursday afternoon to a residential neighborhood on Alden Lane after a prank 911 call reported a shooting in a home there. Officers swarmed the quiet residential block just before 6 p.m., when elementary school-aged kids and parents were attending an evening program at the nearby Mary Agatha Furth Center. Police showed up at the home where a retired man and his wife live with one of their daughters and her child, after receiving a 911 call that appeared to come from the their address. The caller said a grandfather at the home had shot someone...

SALT LAKE CITY — Five Utah men have been slapped with federal charges for taking part in an ATV protest ride in southwestern Utah earlier this year that the group said was to call attention to the federal government’s overreaching control of public lands. Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday they have charged the five southern Utah men with misdemeanor conspiracy and illegal use of all-terrain vehicles Wednesday in connection with a ride organized to show displeasure with the federal government. Prosecutors say the May ride through southwestern Utah’s Recapture Canyon was an illegal protest. “We respect the fact that the citizens...

On April 12, a triumphant Cliven Bundy and his supporters chased away federal authorities and set the rancher’s impounded cattle free once more to roam public land in northeast Clark County. Two days later, a car collided with one of Bundy’s cows on Interstate 15, about 10 miles from his Bunkerville ranch, killing the animal and sending the vehicle careening down an embankment. Now a Las Vegas woman injured in the crash is suing Bundy for negligence. The lawsuit filed Sunday in Clark County District Court alleges Bundy “recklessly, carelessly and negligently allowed his cows to enter onto Interstate 15...

Two people are in custody for the fatal shooting of a man during what Sandy Springs police said was the attempted theft of a video gaming system the victim was trying to sell on Craigslist. The alleged shooter in the Friday night incident is a 16-year-old girl whose 16-month-old baby was only feet away at the time of the robbery and shooting, according to Sandy Springs police Sgt. Ron Momon. Daniel John Zeitz, 28, of Roswell, had listed a PS4 gaming system for sale on Craigslist, and about 9:30 p.m., went to the parking lot of an apartment on Treelodge...

LOGGERHEAD KEY, Fla. – Twenty-nine Cuban migrants have been rescued after reaching land in the Florida Keys. .... Under the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, most Cuban migrants who reach U.S. shores are allowed to stay. more here

A Mississippi coroner who advised residents to arm themselves and shoot home intruders said today that he had been angered about a recent spate of burglaries and wasn’t trying to drum up business. David Scott Gregory, 40, the coroner of largely rural Winston County in eastern Mississippi, went on social media during the weekend to urge residents to buy guns and be willing to use them on burglars. “I say shoot the idiots and call the Coroner!” Gregory wrote on Facebook. “I’d hate for any innocent people to get hurt, but at the same time, my stuff is my stuff;...

A Santa Rosa man convicted for a second time in a series of gang rapes was again sentenced Tuesday to 75 years to life in prison. Rogelio Carlos-Zaragoza, 29, was convicted of abducting women in Santa Rosa in 2006 and 2009 and driving two of them to a remote Windsor vineyard, where he raped them with up to three other men. He was caught with his older brother, Leonel Carlos-Zaragoza, after grabbing an 18-year-old victim at knifepoint along Dutton Avenue and getting in a chase with CHP officers on Highway 101. Both men were convicted in 2010. The brother is...

A 6-month-old boy remains in critical condition today after being hit on the head with a gun during a robbery in South Toledo. The infant, and his parents, were taken to Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center. The parents, Phillip Darrington and Cheyenne Peters, were treated and released. The name of the child was not provided.

On ESPN’s “SportsCenter” earlier this week, espnW columnist Kate Fagan argued that the big picture in the controversy surrounding former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s domestic violence allegations. According Fagan, the problem needs to be tackled at the so-called grassroots level when men are in their formative years. “Well, I think right now we're talking so much about firing Goodell or punishments. You know, should it be a three game, a two game, a six game, a full year ban? But I think that's a little reactive and not proactive. Domestic violence is something that happens in anger, in...

I think this is a classic example of what happens when a law enforcement agency isn't trained or prepared for an unexpected or exceptionally large event. Ferguson is a city of 21,000 people. Its police department has 52 sworn officers. Only three are black, when about 68% of the city's population is black. This imbalance affects the current situation tangentially, but I doubt that it's a problem that the City of Ferguson is unaware of or that they haven't tried to fix it. Anytime a white police officer kills or seriously injures a minority citizen in a predominately minority community,...

In the 1990s, when I lived in New York, a friend I’ll call Adam and I drove out to his house in Montauk, Long Island. A few miles into town, we noticed a police cruiser behind us. Adam, a stockbroker in his 30s, began to panic. “Crap, crap, crap!” Apparently, his car tag had expired — maybe his driver’s license and insurance, too. The cruiser turned on its lights and siren, and Adam pulled over. “Listen,” he said, “I may need you to bail me out.” I sat there, stunned and scared. The officer sauntered up to Adam’s window. “License...

Off-the-field violence by professional football players is coming under new focus this week after the release of a video involving the star Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, followed by a bungled response by the National Football League. But what do the numbers show about N.F.L. players’ tangles with the law more broadly? Are some teams’ players more likely to get into legal trouble? Are arrests rising or falling? What are the most common offenses? USA Today maintains a database of arrests, charges, and citations of N.F.L. players for anything more serious than a traffic citation. Maintained by Brent Schrotenboer,...

FERGUSON, Mo. — There were lots of jitters at the Ferguson police clerk’s window this week, as steady streams of drivers with unpaid traffic tickets and pending arrest warrants turned themselves in as part of a new city initiative to repair its frayed relationship with black residents. They looked around skeptically. “I don’t know if they are going to lock me up,” said Katrina Clemons, who owes almost $800 in fines and penalties from a $250 traffic ticket. “I do not like coming here.” The drivers came with their citations, thousand-dollar invoices, and tales of racial profiling and exorbitant fees....