Free Republic

Outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered federal prosecutors not to seek the death penalty against three members of a Brooklyn drug crew charged with a killing in which the victim was tortured, the Daily News has learned. . . . John, 31, is accused of killing six people, and Johnson, 30, with four. Both also are members of the Bloods gang, court papers say. Jones, 31, is accused of one killing. Their trial is to start Oct. 22.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Springfield police are looking for a group of people who brutally beat a couple in downtown Springfield. Police have not made any arrests. They hope someone seeing the video will identify the attackers. One of the victims, Meredith Cole, says the attack started while her boyfriend, Alex, was working as a DJ at the Outland Ballroom. She said she was approached by a group of men outside the club, and they began to sexually assault her. Cole says she returned inside the club to alert her boyfriend, who then left the club to try to identify who her attackers are....

An elderly Florida woman is recovering after a brutal purse-snatching that left her unconscious. Charlotte Dunaway, 74, was knocked out when her purse was ripped from her hands inside a Publix grocery store in Ocoee. “I was knocked unconscious and have no memory of what happened,” Dunaway said.

"Police said they received a call about four to five men in the area armed with shotguns and wearing ski masks and they got reports of shots fired in the area. Police officers arrived and saw 'multiple subjects running,' said police spokesman Officer Brian Schellman. "An officer approached one of the men and he pulled a handgun on the officer who then fired, Schellman said."

The Twitter user above is pretty upset about the looting going on in Ferguson, Mo. Not so much because looting black neighborhoods is wrong, but because it’s “counter-productive.” If looters have to do their thing, they should seek out white neighborhoods to pillage.

ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SC — Orangeburg County Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a man in connection with a fatal shooting that happened Monday morning. Police say Marquis Diondre Stevenson, 20, has been charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Officers were flagged down by a woman around 11:30 a.m. Monday because she heard gunshots while traveling along Stilton Road, Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said. Officers discovered a shattered back window of a vehicle parked near a house and a man laying in the front yard at a Stilton Road address, Ravenell said. “Our investigation indicates 20-year-old Marquis Diondre...

(Language warning for the video.) On Saturday August 2, 2014, a national march for Gaza took place in front of the White House. A pro-Israeli counter-protester (U.S. Marine and Iraq War veteran Manny Vega) was standing on 16th and H Streets with Israeli and American flags. Vega was approached by an Arab who began engaging in a very productive conversation with him. However, as more pro-Palestinian protesters marched by them, some engaged in violent acts against him. (This is where the video begins recording.) He was punched, pulled, kicked, and even spat on. The mob was screaming “Allahu Akbar!” during...

More than half of the latest batch of air-traffic controller job offers nationwide went to people with no aviation experience as part of a program designed to expand hiring among the general public, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. About 22,500 people without an aviation background initially applied. Of those, 837 were offered jobs. The remainder of the roughly 1,600 new controller slots went to more traditional applicants, including military veterans with aviation experience and accredited aviation school graduates. The hiring breakdown marks a major shift in FAA recruitment strategy, which is now geared toward trying to keep ahead of...

Judge of the Millennium Wade McCree has a special place in the hearts of ATL’s writers. The former Wayne County circuit judge had a penchant for disrobing for shirtless selfies and sex in his chambers, and was consequently disrobed by the Michigan Supreme Court. On Monday, the Sixth Circuit correctly (if you mean “applying the law as it currently exists,” and “incorrectly” if you mean “adopting the better policy”) held that Judge McCree is immune from a civil suit brought by a man McCree slapped with a tether and high child support payments. The man’s complaint is that while Judge...

As many as 10 people were shot Tuesday morning, killing two according to Miami police. Five people were taken to the hospital and two people died in the shooting outside an apartment building, Miami police spokeswoman Frederica Burden said. One of the victims was a teenage girl, CBS4 reported.

At least 11 people were shot, four fatally, Saturday afternoon into early Sunday morning in Chicago. The most recent homicide occurred early Sunday morning on the Far South Side. At 7:43 a.m., police responded to a call of a "man down"’ in the 11100 block of South Lowe Avenue and found the victim with an apparent gunshot wound to the chest, according to Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan.

Following takeoff from Nashville Sunday afternoon, a United Airlines passenger warned a fellow flyer that, “I kill white people like you” when she wasasked to turn off her cell phone, investigators allege. The disruption on Flight 4205, which was bound for Houston, resulted in the Embraer 135’s return to Nashville’s airport, where Lashonda Lee Williams was arrested for assault. The 43-year-old Williams, seen at right, was asked by another female passenger to “turn off her cell phone due to the aircraft being in flight,” according to a court affidavit. In reply, Williams allegedly said, “I kill white people like you.” Investigators...

7 shot at South Side coin laundry print Email Pinterest 1 Chicago Police investigate shooting at a laundromat on 79th Street on Monday night. CAPTIONS Seven people have been shot tonight including a 14-year-old at a coin laundry in the South Chicago neighborhood, authorities said. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said an EMS Plan I, which automatically sends at least five ambulances to the scene, was called about 8:20 p.m. for a shooting in the 7900 block of South Marquette Avenue. Many of the victims were "laid out" on the floor of the coin laundry in the 2600 block...

Detectives say Jonas Charles ambushed teens who returned to lot after stealing keys.... Instead of waiting for authorities to arrive, Charles took the law into his own hands and ignored the 15-year-old's plea not to shoot him, detectives said. Charles then chased the wounded teen, yelling at him and firing another shot while on the phone with a BSO dispatcher, detectives said.

A man died Monday after being shot in the parking lot of a Greenacres Walmart, according to a Greenacres Department of Public Safety news release. The victim was found in the parking lot at about 12:30 a.m. at the Walmart at 6294 Forest Hill Blvd.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Myrtle Beach police say three people have been shot and killed and another person injured at a motel in the popular resort city. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Three people were killed and a fourth person was wounded in a shooting at an oceanfront motel in Myrtle Beach, one of South Carolina's most popular tourist destinations. The shootings took place around 11 p.m. Saturday in front of crowds of tourists at the Bermuda Sands Motel along the beach's new boardwalk, Myrtle Beach Police Capt. David Knipes said.

Rob Gray and his brother-in-law said they were walking down River Street enjoying the sites with their families when they were confronted by a man. Then, a mob attacked them. “I took a punch to my eye and cracked my orbital,” said Gray. “I was grabbed by the back of my head at a full run and he smashed my head into the car and I hit the ground,” said Jim Thomas. "This was a violent, malicious attack on a family of eight people." Thomas says the attackers went after his wife as well. "There was a man holding her...

At least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate punishment. A team of legal experts and statisticians from Michigan and Pennsylvania used the latest statistical techniques to produce a peer-reviewed estimate of the “dark figure” that lies behind the death penalty – how many of the more than 8,000 men and women who have been put on death row since the 1970s were falsely convicted. The team arrived at...

A crosscheck of voter rolls in Virginia and Maryland turned up 44,000 people registered in both states, a vote-integrity group reported Wednesday. And that’s just the beginning. “The Virginia Voters Alliance is investigating how to identify voters who are registered and vote in Virginia but live in the states that surround us,” Alliance President Reagan George told the State Board of Elections.

A contestant named Julian from Indiana University must be feeling pretty stupid right about now. And Hoosiers can't be feeling too proud. Julian had the chance to win $1 million Friday night, had the puzzle fully solved, and then lost because he pronounced Achilles like “A-chill-us.” Because of that mistake, the show decided not to give him the victory and instead, one of the other contestants who know the “mythological hero” got the chance to steal and did. (To win the full $1 million he would have had to overcome some other hurdles as well.) But alas, poor Julian' disastrous...