Free Republic

When an Oglala Sioux Tribal police officer used her Taser several times on a man lying helpless on the ground in Manderson on Friday afternoon, she was trying to get the man "to wake up and stand up," Ron Duke, chief of the OST Department of Public Safety, said Monday. The man, Duke said, was "lying on the ground, probably passed out, clearly intoxicated." The incident was caught on camera by a passerby who taped the officer repeatedly zapping the man who appears to never resist, defend himself or make any threatening moves. An expert in Tasers said using the...

Once the cops have pinned a non-violent suspect to the ground, how many times are they allowed to punch him in the head? Is it fewer than 20? I would say so, but I'm not a Greenville County, South Carolina, deputy. Greenville officers approached a man at a Walmart parking lot on Saturday. The man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and didn't respond to police questions or instructions. Eventually, the officers followed the man inside the store, where they attempted to detain him. The deputies claim the man resisted, though video footage of the incident...

Police in Texas have admitted they were wrong to draw their guns on a mother of four when they pulled over the family car early this month, but they won't apologize. Kametra Barbour was told to exit her vehicle and she was handcuffed at gunpoint as her children watched from the backseat, dashcam footage shows. The police only lowered their weapons after her six-year-old son got out of the car with his hands up, asking the officers, "Are we going to jail?" A child is heard crying and screaming on the footage, as an officer tells her, "Stop crying. It's...

CASSELTON – A Cass County deputy responding to a motorist that had crashed into a cow off Interstate 94 Monday morning had to go to the hospital himself after the injured cow charged him at the scene. Cass County Sgt. Dean Haaland said the deputy was responding to the crash at about 3 a.m. at mile marker 332 west of Casselton when the cow, injured in the crash, charged him. The deputy was knocked to the ground and suffered some bruising, Haaland said. When he got up, the cow charged again, and the deputy fired upon the animal to keep...

Seconds after a state trooper handcuffed and arrested Brandon Ellingson for boating while intoxicated, the officer grabbed a life jacket on his patrol boat. Missouri Highway Patrol Trooper Anthony Piercy didn’t go for a Type I flotation device, with straps that wrap around the torso and allow for handcuffs. Instead, he pulled out a Type III life vest with arm holes — one that was impossible to secure on a man whose hands were already cuffed behind his back. In taped interviews conducted by Highway Patrol investigators and obtained by The Star, Ellingson’s friends said they watched from their boat...

BREAKING NEWS: President Obama orders a review of federal programs and funding that allow state and local law-enforcement agencies to buy military equipment, a senior administration official confirms to Fox News. The review will include whether the programs are appropriate; whether such police agencies are getting the necessary training and guidance to use the equipment and whether the federal government is sufficiently auditing the use of the equipment obtained through federal programs and funding.

TAVARES — A former Leesburg police officer acquitted Friday of sexually assaulting a woman in his custody had a terse message for the 24-year-old and her family after the verdict: "Move on." People in the courtroom broke into tears when the jury of four women and two men found Henri Bart Larue, 27, not guilty of armed sexual battery by a law-enforcement officer — a crime that could have landed him in prison for life.

MILLS, Wyo. A Wyoming police officer has pleaded not guilty to an animal-cruelty charge that alleges a police dog died after he left it in a hot patrol car for several hours. According to an investigator's statement filed in Natrona County Circuit Court, Mills police officer Zachary Miller left the dog, a 10-year-old female black lab named Nyx, in his patrol car for over six hours July 9. "It's a tragedy," Mills Mayor Marrolyce Wilson said. The car was running, but the air conditioning was off and outside temperatures reached 86 degrees, KCWY News 13 reported (http://bit.ly/1tAzzhs). Miller, a four-year...

State trooper AJ Huntsman was accused of lifting more than $8,000 in cash and jewelry from a dying man at a motorcycle crash site in 2012. He later lied to supervisors and the dead man's family about it, authorities said.A crooked Connecticut cop caught by his dash cam stealing more than $8,000 in cash and jewelry off a mangled motorcycle crash victim is facing prison after pleading guilty Wednesday. State trooper AJ Huntsman, 45, was facing 10 years for the theft, but was likely to get just 16 months in jail and five years' probation when he's sentenced on Oct....

Authorities with the Oklahoma City Police Department confirmed that an officer is under investigation for lewd acts. Chief Bill Citty, with the Oklahoma City Police Department, called a news conference at 4 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. During the news conference, he announced that Officer Daniel Holtzclaw is under investigation for assaulting several women on the job. Citty says Holtzclaw would “require” women to expose themselves to him and perform lewd acts on him. …

All Eric McDonough wanted was for Homestead Police officer Alejandro Murguido to obey the same traffic laws he enforced in their neighborhood. Instead, the 36-year-old scientist ended up in jail on charges of aggravated stalking and threatening a public servant because he confronted Murguido with his cellphone’s voice recorder outside the cop’s home two years ago. Since then, McDonough says Homestead Police Department brass have refused to investigate Murguido for falsely accusing him even though he has an audio recording that contradicts the cop’s version of events. McDonough tells his story in this video, so this is not the usual...

Politicians like Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) who have supported the militarization of police but have found it politically unfeasible to do so now have been looking for a way to square their support with a little bit of politically-motivated outrage. Clay, whose district includes Ferguson, the town that helped catapult the issue of police militarization into the national news cycle, defended his vote, saying he only disapproved of the use of such police forces for crowd control in his district. But while their presence at protests may be the most prominent manifestation of militarized police, the problem is endemic. Perhaps...

"If you don't want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground," warns Officer Sunil Dutta of the Los Angeles Police Department, "just do what I tell you." The thing is, Officer Dutta (pictured) is also an Adjunct Professor of Homeland Security and Criminal Justice at Colorado Technical University. And he uttered those words not in the heat of the moment, but in an opinion piece in the Washington Post responding to widespread criticism of police attitudes and tactics currently on display in Ferguson, Missouri, but increasingly common nationwide. Dutta continues: Don't argue with...

As we watch the turmoil in Ferguson — where protests and police crackdowns raged for a week in the wake of a police shooting of an unarmed black teenager — many Americans have been forced to reassess their views on the duty and tactics of the police. But we conservatives — with our dueling affinity for law-and-order institutions like the police and our libertarian-inspired opposition to abuses of government power — are perhaps the most torn. Over at the Federalist, Hans Fiene notes, "For many conservatives, especially those of us living in nice, comfy suburbs, it's hard to apply the...

The U.S. Defense Department has been contributing to the militarization of local police forces since at least 2007, handing over heavy armaments, battle helicopters and armored vehicles for use in urban policing scenarios

Just watch...

The stinging humiliation of defeat at the one thing we can all agree cops do well- scarfing down donuts, may have proved too much to bear for Elizabeth City Police Department in North Carolina. The next day, he was arrested after a possibly traumatized Lt. Robeson saw it reported in a local newspaper. “When I came in that morning and read that article I was pissed because it’s like throwing it in our face,” Hardison was wanted for allegedly attempting to break into 2 buildings, nothing was stolen in either attempt. It is unknown if Lt. Robeson has obtained a...

SADDLE BROOK, NJ –Robert Lintner, 65, did not have a good day. It all began when his wife stabbed him in the neck during an argument in the morning. Things took a turn for the worse when police, summoned to Mr. Litner’s home, discovered the man’s firearm and ammunition collection. Mr. Litner owned almost 200 guns in five vaults, had tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition in the home, and around 300 pounds of black powder. Because he did not consent to the search, cops used a jaws-of-life from the local fire department to open the safes, which are...

The "narrative" of Ferguson, Missouri changed somewhat today. But, amid the confusion, the blundering stupidity of the city's police department remains consistent. This morning the Police Chief, Thomas Jackson, released security-camera shots of the late Michael Brown apparently stealing a five-dollar box of cigarillos from a convenience store. So the 18-year old shot dead by Chief Jackson's officer was no longer a "gentle giant" en route to college but just another crappy third-rate violent teen n'er-do-well. {SNIP} It's important, when something goes wrong, to be clear about what it is that's at issue. Talking up Michael Brown as this season's...

<p>WINCHESTER, Va. (AP) -- A Virginia deputy sheriff shot his 16-year-old daughter after mistaking her for an intruder, then crashed his car as he rushed her to the hospital, authorities said.</p> <p>The teenager was in stable condition at a Winchester hospital, according to media reports.</p>