Free Republic

Jazz already wrote the definitive take on the grisly execution-style shooting of two New York City police officers and the role that irresponsible commentary from elected leaders – particularly Mayor Bill de Blasio – might have played in that attack. Jazz is right to question the part that the mayor’s self-indulgent and unhelpful rhetoric might have played in this incident. Hours after a Staten Island grand jury’s decision to issue no-bill for the death of Eric Garner, de Blasio went on an ill-advised tear in which he impeached the NYPD based solely on his prejudices. “That should never have to...

The death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy fatally shot by police in November has been formally ruled a homicide, according to a county autopsy report released on Friday that found he was struck once in the abdomen. Tamir Rice, who was black, was shot on Nov. 22 by a white police officer responding to a call of a suspect waving a handgun around in a Cleveland park. The weapon turned out to be a replica that typically fires plastic pellets. The sixth-grader died the next day. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's autopsy report said Rice sustained a single wound to...

The Staten Island man who took the cellphone video seen around the world of a cop killing Eric Garner with a chokehold said Thursday the grand jury was rigged. “I think they already had their minds made up,” Ramsey Orta told the Daily News a day after the panel voted not to charge Officer Daniel Pantaleo with a crime.

If you watch television and the movies, you might get the impression that a punch to the head is no big deal.  That is not true.  A punch to the head is a very serious attack.  It can disable.   It can maim.  It can kill.  The head is a vulnerable target, which is why an attacker aims for it.  I first became aware of  the deadly potential of one punch to the head in the 1970's, from a long forgotten news story.   Later, the son of a close friend killed a man with one punch.  He was eventually found...

A 10-year-old boy has been charged with criminal homicide after he brutally beat 90-year-old Helen Novak to death. Tristen Kurilla, apparently angry because the 90-year-old woman shouted at him, hooked a cane around Novak's neck and then held her down and beat her to death while she was in bed, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said today that they have charged the child as an adult for the murder of Helen Novak, a woman who was under the care of the child's grandfather. The Associated Press reported that the incident occurred on Saturday when the boy was visiting his grandfather's house...

I am getting tired of this "they killing us" screed from African Americans. While I do not know the facts of what happened in Ferguson and I think the police are coming off as shady the fact of the matter isit isn't quite like what the left wants you to believe. First off although blacks make up 12.6% of the US population. Whites make up 72.4%. Which means there are 5.75 times more Whites in the US. Why is this important? Well black leadership and columnists are claiming they are disproportionately the victims of racial violence. Well the cold hard...

Homicide detectives were investigating Sunday the death of a 65-year-old man who was beaten by two unidentified women at a Willowbrook Metro train station. L.A. resident John Whitmore was waiting for a train at the Metro-Blue Line near Imperial Highway and South Wilmington Avenue (map) on Friday, June 13 when two black women kicked Whitmore and hit him with their hands until he collapsed, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department news release.

It seems there is something in the news every day about gun violence. The recent mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, a movie theater riddled with bullets in Colorado, children and teachers gunned down at school in Connecticut, and the list goes on. While you may be seeing more and more shooting, the fact is, overall gun homicide rates have dropped dramatically over the past two decades, according to a recent study.

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On the floor of the House Wednesday, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs featured a dialogue between Chairman Jeff Miller and Dr. Thomas Lynch, assistant deputy undersecretary for health for clinical operations at the Veterans Health Administration. Another shocking piece of information about VA hospitals was revealed during that exchange. Miller revealed he had received an email from an employee at the Los Angeles VA Medical Center in which the employee raised concerns over the status of patient wait times and the possible manipulation of records. The director of the facility responded to colleagues via email and said that the...

Veterans Affairs (VA) Department officials testified about the alleged destruction of an unofficial patient waiting list associated with the Phoenix VA health care system.

While the Obama administration has largely been able to fend off criticism from many of its looming controversies, it won’t be able to do the same with the mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs given the wide scope and various reports and anecdotes of the problem, Charles Krauthammer said on Friday’s Special Report. In the past, the White House used the “stonewall playbook” of refraining from commenting on scandals by pointing to an ongoing investigations, in which there was largely no other source of outside information and allowed the administration to more feasibly control the narrative. In regards to...

An unknown number of U.S. military veterans are dead within 30 days of contracting Legionnaires' disease in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh. Aside from their family members, few people seem to be outraged. If that doesn't grab your attention, perhaps this will: VA officials in charge when those men were dying from a preventable illness received more than $100,000 in performance bonuses. The same bureaucrats who were paid handsomely for negligence and incompetence also refuse to answer reporters' questions about whether they've removed the deadly Legionella bacteria from hospitals that were built to heal, protect and serve those who...

Editor's note: This story is the second of two parts. A high-ranking official with Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System wanted the agency to keep quiet about a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak rather than warn the public, internal emails indicate. ... The email is among nearly 7,000 pages of internal VA emails and documents the Tribune-Review obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

DOTSERO, Colo. - A state trooper was rushed to the hospital after he was shot while helping a driver who was stopped on the side of Interstate 70 near Dotsero. The Colorado State Patrol identified the trooper as Eugene Hofacker, a 6-year veteran, who is listed in critical but stable condition at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. Hofacker is assigned to the Vail Troop Office. Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said the trooper was shot as he approached the driver-side window of the suspect's car. A second trooper returned fire and killed the suspect. ... the dead man is...

John Winkler, 30, rushed out of an apartment behind another victim who was bleeding profusely from the neck and covered in blood, when deputies fired on both men, according to a sheriff’s news release. The deputy-involved shooting occurred after a report of a “assault with a deadly weapon, man with a knife” at an apartment complex in the 900 block of Palm Avenue, a call that came in about 9:30 p.m. Monday, the news release stated. When deputies got to the apartment, Winkler came running out, “lunging at the back” of another man also fleeing, the release said. “Both ran...

Body parts discovered stuffed inside garbage bags and left on the side of roads in Michigan Thursday are believed to be those of an adult white male. The bagged body parts may have been tossed from a grayish-white, mid-1990s SUV, according to a witness and NBC News on Friday, Jan. 31. The human remains were found in China Township and St. Clair Township when the St. Clair County Sheriff's Office was tipped off yesterday afternoon about a "suspicious incident". Police were called around 4 p.m. Thursday by a woman reporting a "heavy-set middle aged white female" dumping garbage bags along...

Video of a police standoff contradicts the initial Pinal County Sheriff's Office description of the chain of events that led to the shooting death of a suspected car thief. The man had led police and sheriff's deputies on a chase through Casa Grande and Eloy for nearly an hour, before deputies immobilized the car he was driving. A witness shot the video on a cell phone. It shows the final moments of the standoff, when deputies were ordering Manuel Longoria to surrender. The deputies had their weapons drawn and fired five bean bag rounds at the suspect, in addition to...

‘I feel my whole body burning,’ says Oklahoma death row inmate during execution Published January 10, 2014 Associated Press A man has been executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary almost 20 years after orchestrating the brutal assault and robbery of his co-worker at a Tulsa convenience store. Michael Lee Wilson, 38, was convicted in the killing of Richard Yost, 30, who aspired to one day manage the Quiktrip store. Wilson, who was convicted of first-degree murder, was the third person executed for the February 25, 1995, crime; the fourth defendant is serving a life term.

HAMILTON COUNTY, Ind. (December 9, 2013) – A 16-year-old Noblesville girl who was shot in the chest Sunday evening died from her injuries. Noblesville Police and Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene in the 8200 block of River Run Place at 11:20 p.m. They found four people inside the residence and the victim unresponsive. She was transported by ambulance to St. Vincent Hospital (Indianapolis) where she later died. The victim, Aubrey Peters, was a Noblesville High School student. FOX59 viewers may remember her for rescuing two children from a pond in March 2010, a heroic act that earned...