Free Republic

Her toddler balanced on her hip, Ashlee Lucero approached the Mountain View municipal courthouse earlier this month to ask the presiding judge for community service. She was still unable to pay off a traffic ticket she received last September. “I was in jail for a whole day,” said Lucero, a 23-year-old single mother from Thornton. “A misunderstanding happens and they take me to court for it and I am still trying to pay for this ticket.” Mountain View, population 518, is small geographically, stretching just six blocks east to west, Sheridan Boulevard to Fenton Street, between Denver and Wheat Ridge,...

Seattle has a brilliant solution to their many police problems — refuse to release police dash-cam footage, then sue the person requesting said footage.

US Court of Appeals rules a police officer cannot enter a home over a minor traffic violation. A police officer has no right to pursue a minor traffic stop into a home, according to a ruling handed down Wednesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. A three-judge panel considered what happened after police in Sulphur, Oklahoma saw a suspect allegedly driving with faulty taillights on July 23, 2007. Murray County Deputy Sheriff Craig A. Billings signaled seventeen-year-old Joshua Burchett, who was driving the car, to pull over. Burchett continued on for two blocks, parked in the...

A onetime Itasca County sheriff's investigator will serve 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to six felony counts of criminal sexual conduct involving a teenager. Gregory Alan Snyder, 44, was originally charged with 33 counts of criminal sexual contact with the victim, who was 13 at the time of the first incident. According to the charges, the sexual assaults began when the victim was in seventh grade and continued about five years, up until about a year ago. Snyder had been an investigator for the Itasca County Sheriff's Office for 20 years.

AN DIEGO - A rookie San Diego police officer, arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public this past weekend after she supposedly pulled out her gun at a Carlsbad nightspot, is on administrative leave. Christine M. Thurston, 23, pulled out her gun while off-duty at Hennessey's Tavern on Friday evening, prompting a manager to call 911, Carlsbad police spokeswoman Lynn Diamond said. Before officers arrived at the Roosevelt Street bar, someone had taken Thurston's gun away, and bouncers had put her outside, Diamond said. Thurston was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness, a misdemeanor. Diamond said there was no...

A judge has ordered that concealed weapons charges be dismissed against four off-duty Washington police officers who were charged in connection with a shooting during the Sturgis rally. Circuit Judge Warren Johnson ruled Friday that Scott Lazalde, Dennis McCoy, James Rector and Ron Smith are exempt from prosecution under South Dakota state law because of the federal Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act. However, Johnson ruled that a concealed weapons charge against Erik Pingel, 35, of Aurora, Colo., can proceed.

Firing 77 bullets, cops wounded an ex-con early yesterday after he shot at another man and turned his weapon on police outside a Manhattan housing project, authorities and witnesses said.[...] Six officers from Manhattan's 23rd and 28th Precincts and an NYPD housing unit fired at least 77 rounds at Rooks in two bursts of gunfire, said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.[...]

Friday, February 25, 2005 · Last updated 2:32 a.m. PT Man accepts ride from sheriff's deputy, goes to jail for drugs THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YELM, Wash. -- An offer of a ride from a Thurston County sheriff's deputy wound up being a trip to jail for a man who apparently forgot what he had in his pocket, deputies said. A deputy saw Jamie D. Dawley, 25, of Onalaska, walking near Washington 507 near Yelm Tuesday afternoon, asked where he was going and offered him a ride to his destination near the Pierce County line if he would submit to a...