Free Republic

ATLANTA — After a 92-year-old grandmother was cut down in a hail of police bullets during a botched raid three years ago, her community seemed to trust officers about as much as the drug dealers who roam the blighted streets. . . . The community is still shaken over the death of Johnston, who was killed on Nov. 21, 2006, after plainclothes narcotics officers burst into her home using a special "no-knock" warrant to search for drugs. She fired a single bullet at the invaders, and they responded with 39 bullets through her wooden door. Investigators originally said they had...

The 13-year-old son of John and Tara Farrell and a 12-year-old friend were walking in Brooklyn Park one August night when a Cadillac Escalade sped up and the driver ordered them inside. The man drove to his nearby house, sat the frightened boys on a curb and slapped handcuffs on them. Only then did they learn that they had been placed under citizen's arrest by off-duty Minneapolis police officer Tony Adams, whose doorbell had been rung earlier by someone who fled and who had heard from neighbors that teens might be breaking into vehicles in the area. The Farrells, who...

LAS VEGAS (CN) - North Las Vegas police blew up a family's door in a raid on the wrong house, then failed to fix the door as they promised, causing the home to be burglarized repeatedly, the family says in Federal Court. Jose Cruz says he, his wife and three young children - 8, 5 and 3 years old - were "scared to death" when a North Las Vegas SWAT team raided their home. The botched raid came in the early morning hours of Feb. 4, 2008. The police apparently were searching for three armed-robbery suspects - all of them...

Of all the sinister intrustions and usurpations of Government over the past few decades, the War On Food must rank as among the most bizarre. Included are updates for the Stowers Family Saga which began almost exactly a year ago and some other background and explanatory links.

Terrifying? Inevitable? Harbinger? In any case, it’s a first: Police in Long Island, New York, have arrested a man for not using Twitter. Someone named Justin Bieber, who apparently is a teenage singer, was supposed to appear at the Roosevelt Field mall on Friday, but stayed away because the crowd had become too unruly. Police asked a record label executive to help disperse the horde using the messaging service, and claim he didn’t cooperate.

For those who missed his appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Willows High School junior Gary Tudesko, with his mother, Susan Parisio at his side, seemed like a normal kid who might live across the street in any American neighborhood, and you would be glad to have him there. This Northern California teen has now been branded by an expulsion by the Willows Unified School District board for having had unloaded shotguns locked in his pickup truck off-campus (!) on Oct. 26. They were discovered by “scent-sniffing dogs.” They belonged to Gary and one of his pals who -...

Police beat ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Two gunmen rob Razorback Pizza Two men armed with handguns robbed Razorback Pizza in southwest Little Rock late Sunday, forcing people to the floor before taking money from the register, safe, employees and customers and firing shots randomly as they ran away. No one was injured. The men walked into the restaurant at 10900 Stagecoach Road not long after 9:30 p.m. showing their weapons, police said. They ordered customers and employees to put their personal belongings — wallets, cell phones and other items — into bags. The gunmen then forced the customers from the bar into...

IRON CITY, Tenn. -- A police chief in Lawrence County is off the job after the Channel 4 I-Team raised questions about his past. Jesse Barnett had previously been fired from one police department and forced to resign from another because of inappropriate behavior. Even after these previous incidents, Channel 4 learned that the town of Iron City hired Barnett as their police chief without doing a background check. For the last seven months, Barnett was essentially the law in Iron City, but he's developed a reputation around town. "We all want to get rid of him, most of us,"...

by JASON WHITELY / WFAA-TV Posted on November 20, 2009 at 12:56 AM WYLIE - A canister of pepper spray is now at the center of a Wylie dispute after a North Texas man found out what most people don't know, anyone who carries it can face a felony. Jason Simpkins admitted he looked suspicious when a Wylie officer stopped him while he was driving his truck with a jet ski inside his lawn mowing trailer. It happened early on the morning of August 22. "I didn't have a problem with it at first," Simpkins said. "I gave him my...

Called to a home to help control an "unruly child," an Ozark, Arkansas police officer was given permission by the girl's mother to a taser to subdue the child. According to 40/29 News the girl's father is outraged that the police would use a taser on such a young child. "I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here," the girl's father, Anthony Medlock, told 40/29 News. "Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God's green earth can they get away with this." According...

OZARK, Ark. -- Ozark police said they were called to a home where a mother asked for help with her unruly child, but the 10-year-old's father said he's outraged at the force police used against his daughter. "I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here. Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God's green earth can they get away with this," said the girl's father, Anthony Medlock. Medlock said his daughter was at her mother's house when Ozark police Officer Dustin Bradshaw shocked...

OZARK, Ark. — Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle says one of his officers used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl who was combative when the officer tried to get the girl into a patrol car to be taken to a youth shelter. Noggle said Tuesday that officer Dustin Bradshaw went to the girl's home after her mother called police woman called police. According to a report filed by Bradshaw on Thursday, the officer found the girl on the floor of the house screaming and crying. She refused to follow her mother's instructions and the mother told Bradshaw to use his...

By ADAM McNAUGHTON Pocono Record Writer November 14, 2009 12:00 AM A state police trooper's split-second decision last month to shoot a pet dog in Middle Smithfield Township has sparked an internal investigation into the incident and led the dog's owner to consider civil action. A state police internal investigation has been opened to determine the facts surrounding the Oct. 27 incident that ended with a dog dead after it ran toward a trooper. A trooper from the Swiftwater barracks went to the home of Roger D. Hauser around 6:30 p.m. to investigate a non-criminal matter. According to Hauser, his...

PORTSMOUTH — A Kensington man was found guilty of criminal threatening for holding an open pocket knife at his side while asking two people who were walking behind him at midnight, "Why are you following me?" The pair walking behind Dustin Almon, 28, of 27 Wild Rose Lane, were state Liquor Enforcement cops, both in plain clothes without any indicators that they were members of law enforcement, according to testimony during a Thursday Portsmouth District Court trial. Both were also carrying concealed handguns and Tasers, they testified. One of them, Officer Anthony Cattabriga, said he was walking behind Almon on...

Police in Cambridge, Mass., gave state Sen. Anthony Galluccio a ride home because acquaintances told them he was too drunk to drive about 13 hours before he was involved in a hit-and-run accident. Police were called to a gas station in Cambridge about 4:40 a.m. Oct. 4 after receiving a call about an intoxicated man. The station attendant told police he believed Galluccio was too drunk to drive. Police said another man told them he was trying to drive Galluccio home but couldn't find his house. Police said they drove Galluccio home in their cruiser. About 13 hours later, a...

A Swedish man who saved a woman from assault has been sentenced to prison rather than being applauded for performing a civic duty. In a case which has provoked outrage across the country, Per-Anders Pettersson was found guilty of aggravated assault despite the would-be Samaritan’s claims he was acting in self-defence on behalf of 66-year-old Gard Forsgren who was being attacked in her car. Forsgren, now 69, was assailed in 2006 while inside her vehicle near Nas in the central Swedish county of Dalarna when Pettersson intervened. He dragged the woman’s attacker from the car and hit him two times...

EUGENE, Ore. -- Tim Crossan has some serious battle wounds from a brutal attack. His legs are covered in bruises and bite marks. "The teeth went in all the way to the back of the calf on this one, on both sides, " said Crossan. The wounds are from both an intruder and a Eugene Police K9 Unit. Crossan said he was asleep Tuesday night. He awoke to police cars in his cul de sac, reportedly searching for a man accused of trying to break into his neighbor's house. Crossan heard something and said it was then that he found...

A Baltimore police dog was shot Sunday evening by a police officer during a foot pursuit of a motorist who drove through a speed checkpoint in South Baltimore, said a Police Department spokesman. About 6 p.m., police were manning the checkpoint in the 2600 block of Wegworth Lane near Hollins Ferry Road, near Wegworth Park, when a male motorist failed to stop when ordered and drove through the stop, said Anthony Guglielmi, chief spokesman for the Police Department. Guglielmi said the motorist got out of the car a few moments later and was fleeing on foot when officers at the...

SNIP Ed Jagels, renowned as one of California's toughest district attorneys, built his career on the Kern County child molestation cases of the 1980s, putting more than two dozen men and women behind bars to serve decades-long sentences for abusing children. Appellate judges now say most of those crimes never happened. SNIP "They basically coached me through my whole testimony, and told me that I had to say that my parents had sexually abused me," said Smith, whose parents Scott and Brenda Kniffen served 12 years on molestation convictions before they were reversed by an appeals court. "We've all put...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Lansing police officials say an officer whose Tasering of a handcuffed man was caught on dashboard video has been suspended for two weeks without pay for violating department policy.

Leon Houston walked out of court and headed home a free man today after a Roane County jury found him not guilty on all charges in the May 2006 deaths of a Roane County deputy and his ride-along friend. “It’s a heavy burden that’s off my shoulders,” he said. “God answers prayers. I just thank him for bringing me through this. It don’t seem real.” Family and friends lined up to greet him with hugs and congratulations. The jury began deliberations about 8:40 a.m. today and announced its decision about 4:35 p.m. The verdict came after two trials in the...

LEE COUNTY: Federal Bureau of Investigation agents showed up at the house of 61-year-old Dan Ross to find out why he tried to send flowers to the alleged Fort Hood shooter, who Ross calls a 'hero.' Ross is a former Vietnam War soldier and Christian. He says his faith led him to order roses for Major Nidal Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood. Ross calls Hasan a hero. "The FBI were the ones who actually killed those 13 people, because they were well informed that this guy was against the United States of America," said...

A former inmate of the Wilson County Jail is alleging his civil rights were violated when he was denied medical attention during at stay in the facility in 2008. According to a lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court, Gregory Sells says he was denied proper medical care by the Wilson County Sheriff's Department when he came down with a serious staph infection at the jail. As the events are laid out in the filing, Sells was incarcerated in September 2008 for child support violations and was “otherwise healthy and suffering from no known illnesses.” While housed in the...

A Salt Lake City man who was shot in the arm by a police officer investigating a reported disturbance at his home has settled an excessive force lawsuit for $480,000. In making the payment to Daymian Hughes, the Salt Lake City Police Department denied any wrongdoing and said the settlement was intended to avoid further litigation. The amount includes Hughes' attorneys' fees. Senior City Attorney J. Wesley Robinson stressed that the settlement was a business decision and said police officers had "ample reason" to enter Hughes' house. But he added, "The facts were tough. This is a man who was...

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Investigators were trying to determine Thursday how a man got into a woman's apartment and killed her while police stood watch outside, Los Angeles police said. Police at the scene shot the attacker but not before he fatally stabbed the woman, the Los Angeles Times reported. The woman, whose identity had not been disclosed late Thursday, had gone to a police station to file a domestic abuse complaint Wednesday night. Officers who specialize in domestic abuse cases talked with her and brought her back to her home, the newspaper said. The officers saw the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Ebodio Castillo spent his final night gasping for breath, crying in pain and begging for help but was ignored in the jail where he was serving a five-day sentence for a driver's license violation, more than two dozen fellow inmates say. The experience so rattled other inmates at the Warren County Jail that 14 took the unusual step of signing a letter to a local newspaper, and others wrote separate letters and gave interviews to The Associated Press. An autopsy concluded Castillo, 51, died of complications from bronchopneumonia the day before he was to be released. His...

instead of fewer accidents, the number of traffic accidents has gone up at most of the Los Angeles intersections where red-light cameras have been installed.

Whoops, sorry -- this isn't backlash against the poor, innocent Muslims being terrorized and victimized by the thousands after the Fort Hood Nothing-To-Do-With-Islam attack. This is just the familiar Muslim backlash against non-Muslims, which will increasingly be a feature of American life in the coming years. Nothing to see here. Move along. "Man arrested for 'anti-Christian' mall disturbance: Kiosk employee allegedly tore a crucifix from someone's neck," by Emily West for the Danville Express, November 10 (thanks to Bob): Police arrested 22-year-old Abdul Walid Hamid of Hayward on the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 4, after he reportedly tore a crucifix...

WASHINGTON - The man at the center of the investigation for the sniper shootings says he won't be at John Allen Muhammad's execution Tuesday night. "I don't think I will be personally interested. I have seen a lot of death and destruction and I don't think I am interested anymore," former Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose tells Channel 5. Moose was the face of law enforcement during those three terrifying weeks in October 2002. Muhammad is scheduled to be executed at 9 p.m. for the killing of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station. Meyers is one of...

EDISON -- A veteran Edison police officer was placed on probation for one year today for shoplifting about $42 in merchandise from a local supermarket where he was working as a security guard.  David Yanvary, 55, who served more than 27 years on the township police force, must also forfeit his employment and is permanently barred from holding a public job or law enforcement position in New Jersey.   Yanvary was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Frederick De Vesa in New Brunswick who told him "it is a very unfortunate thing that brings us here."  "Our courts expect a police officer...

"You put that camera away! You put that camera away!" What started out as a peaceful protest in front of a church in Newark ends with an officer taking a news crew down.

Everett Officer Troy Meade Charged After Shooting Drunk Driver Seven Times By Caleb Hannan in Chalk OutlinesTuesday, Oct. 27 2009 @ 10:59PM ​UPDATE: Meade's lawyer says he had no choice but to shoot Meservey seven times. Details after the jump... 41-year-old Everett cop Troy Meade is now the holder of a particularly dubious record: The first Snohomish County police officer to be charged for a shooting in the line of duty. On the night of June 10th, Niles Meservey, 51, of Stanwood was drinking at the Chuckwagon Inn. Others in the bar tried to stop him from driving home drunk....

Daughter begged cops to let her dad go (pulled quadriplegic out of his wheelchair and handcuffed him).... Domestic call...got into an argument with his daughter after he took her cell phone away.... Blocked site: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091106/NEWS01/911070324/Daughter+begged+cops+to+let+her+dad+go

Here we go again. How many stories like this are we going to get? Stories of senseless tennis violence. And what do you get when this happens? Ray Moore and George Morell know. Moore was wrestled to the ground by a cop, a knee in his back while he was cuffed, apparently bleeding. Both were arrested, and spent the bulk of the day in jail. "There were five cop cars there,'' said Donna Morell, George's wife. "Five. My husband and Ray were in different cells all day, in solitary.'' Surely, they deserved it. "They're in their 80s, you know,'' she...

A Lehigh Acres man was arrested in Collier County Monday on charges of Indecent Exposure in Public after he allegedly exposed himself to two women in a Walmart parking lot. The incident occurred at 5420 Juliet Blvd. in Naples. According to a Collier County Sheriff’s Office report: David Todd Napodano, 42, told investigators he was found naked in his van because he had “explosive diarrhea” and was using his underwear to clean himself. The victims told investigators they were looking for their vehicle in the parking lot when they saw Napodano naked in his van and exposing himself to them.

November 01, 2009 03:37 pm Sheriff detectives searching for a wanted man shot and killed a dog early Friday that belonged to a department volunteer. Bull, a 9-year-old black labrador mix, was shot in the eye by Detective Robbe Newsom, said the dog's owner, Rick Pendleton. Also known as Bo, the dog was mild-tempered and well liked in the neighborhood, Pendleton said, who is a volunteer member of the sheriff department's search and rescue team. Charlene Graham, chief of the department's law enforcement bureau, said Newsom and members of the civil fugitive unit went to Pendleton's home seeking information about...

DUDLEY, Mass., Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts town outlawed owning three cats without a kennel license after a man complained his neighbor's felines were hurting his lawn. Voters at a Dudley town meeting Tuesday night approved the addition of the new language to a town bylaw, which will impose a $100 per day fine for violations, after a local man complained that some of the 15 cats owned by Mary Ellen Richards had destroyed his grass, the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette reported Wednesday. Richards said at the town meeting that she now plans to put her house up...

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in two cases involving claims that the criminal justice system had gone badly awry. In one, Iowa prosecutors are accused of fabricating evidence that sent two innocent men to life imprisonment for murder. In the other, an Alabama prisoner attributed his death sentence to an appointed defense lawyer's failure to present evidence at the sentencing phase of his trial.... In the Iowa case, Curtis W. McGhee Jr. and Terry J. Harrington, having spent 25 years in prison, were freed after the Iowa Supreme Court's determination in 2003 that the main witness against them was...

(Memphis 10/22/09) A woman who rescues dogs wants answers from the Memphis Police Department after officers shot at least one of her pets and the other ran away frightened and possibly injured. Anna Bolton calls 7 year-old Violet the timid one, and 3 year-old Bing the playful one. That's why she can't understand why anyone would be scared enough to shoot Bing, let alone trained officers with the Memphis Police Department. Worse yet, when she got the call and rushed home to a swarm of squad cars, "Nobody had told me my animal had been shot... It's shocking and horrifying...

One of two women accused of scrapping with an anti-abortion protester in front of Flagstaff City Hall has decided to accept six months of unsupervised probation to make the charges go away. Denise Redsteer, 48, accepted a "deferred prosecution" Friday in Flagstaff Municipal Court, said City Prosecutor Lisa Stankovich. Deferred prosecution does not admit guilt, and if Redsteer successfully completes the terms of her probation, the charges against her will be dismissed. Stankovich said that Redsteer has also agreed to pay a $150 prosecution fee and not commit any criminal offenses during the probationary period. Flagstaff attorney, Mik Jordhal, who...

A judge in Milan convicted 23 Americans today of the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003, culminating a landmark trial that gave a look into the secret world of CIA renditions of terror suspects. Judge Oscar Magi acquitted three Americans, including the former CIA station chief in Italy, because they had diplomatic immunity when a secret team abducted militant cleric Abu Omar in Milan and flew him to Egypt, where he underwent months of torture and abuse. The Americans were tried in absentia, and given that the U.S. government has long declined to cooperate with the prosecution, it seemed...

ORLANDO, Florida (NBC) -- A woman who said she had her pants pulled down before being spanked more than one dozen times by an Ocoee Police Department sergeant plans to attend an upcoming court hearing and hopes to speak to a judge. The 29-year-old victim said she is outraged that her accused attacker, former Ocoee police Sgt. Tom Maroney, is seeking leniency in court. Maroney made a deal in court nine months ago that reduced the charge to battery, gave up his police license and was sentenced to one year of probation. Maroney is now asking a judge to remove...

HOUSTON -- The Houston Police Department launched a new creative campaign to crack down on dangerous and aggressive drivers, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday. The plan calls for putting plainclothes officers in different locations around the city to spot drivers who are speeding, not wearing seat belts, or changing lanes erratically. In one tactic, senior Houston Police Officer William Dodson will dress in street clothes and stand at a street corner with a sign in his hand. Some people could mistake him for a vagrant, but on closer inspection, they will see that the sign is reminding people to wear...

Richard Mack, former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, is not afraid to ruffle some feathers in order to halt what he considers violations of the U.S. Constitution.In 1993, Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (commonly referred to as the Brady Bill), which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and went into effect on February 28, 1994. A provision of the Brady Bill compelled state and local law-enforcement officials to perform mandatory background checks. Mack, then a Graham County sheriff, was outraged. In response, Mack gained distinction by being the first sheriff in the nation to file...

SAN FRANCISCO-CA --- In 2007, the last reporting period. the California Highway Patrol (CHP) reported 28 pedestrians fatalities, 440 cyclists injured, a total of 52 people killed in traffic accidents in San Francisco. Now, it's reported today that the city will no longer enforce the law for first time offenders of driving without a license. Worse, the new police chief endorses the proposal. San Francisco Police Chief Gascon is quoted as saying that the city is "trying to be sensitive to all of the communities we serve..."We recognize that this is a problem within the Hispanic community, where people working...

You’re standing in your kitchen making coffee. You are naked, but no one else is home. It’s early in the morning and you are in the privacy of your own home. All right, so maybe you’re a little bit odd, and maybe not everyone makes coffee naked. But your house, your rules, right? That’s probably what Virginia resident Eric Williamson was thinking last Monday morning as he made himself coffee while dressed in nothing but his birthday suit. Unfortunately for Williamson, he wasn’t quite as alone as he thought. Walking through his yard were a woman and her seven-year-old son,...

A friend just got a ticket for talking on his cell phone while in his parked car in a Starbucks parking lot. He got his coffee and, with the car parked, started the engine and made a call to his next appointment to say he was on his way. A cop pulled up, walked over and wrote him up for talking on his cell phone while “driving” (even though the car wasn’t on the road or moving). The cop said that the new law is interpreted the same way as drunk driving--if you are behind the wheel of a car,...

Speaking through his attorney, the officer who was captured on a cell phone video last month hitting an unarmed college student with a baton insisted Monday that the student was "responsible" for the violent confrontation because he combatively resisted the officer's orders. Attorney Terry Bowman, offering the officers' side of events for the first time, said veteran officer Kenneth Siegel had done nothing inappropriate when he and a fellow officer, Steven Payne Jr., took Phuong Ho, 20, into custody. Ho's roommate recorded the arrest, which was made public by the Mercury News this weekend. "Mr. Ho is responsible for his...

Video Clicky Here The LAPD has just released a new Orwellian commercial for iWatch, a program that encourages residents to spy on each other and report any “suspicious behavior” (whatever that means) to the authorities, who we’re assured will sort everything out. Unsurprisingly, many people are reacting negatively to the ad. Huffington Post commenters call the ad “scary,” “hysterical,” and one individual muses about how long it’s going to take Apple to sue the LAPD for copyright infringement. NBC Los Angeles declares that the LAPD is “creeping out America.” This isn’t the first time a creepy spying ad has...

A caretaker has been charged with the murder of a priest whose body was found in the rectory of his US church. Jose Feliciano, 64, stabbed and slashed Rev Ed Hinds 32 times with a kitchen knife after the pair had an argument, according to prosecutors. The 61-year-old pastor had been in his clerical robes when he was killed and Feliciano was one of two people who said they found the body, it is claimed. The body was discovered at about 8am on Friday after Rev Hinds failed to attend Mass at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Chatham, New...