Free Republic

A bill allowing municipal police across Pennsylvania to use radar guns for speed enforcement details passed the state Senate Tuesday on a 49-1 vote. Pennsylvania is currently the only state in the nation that limits the use of radar exclusively to its state police. That’s a sore spot for many municipal officials and police chiefs, who feel they are handicapped in monitoring speeding in residential zones and local roads where speeders can really raise the risk of an accident. But it’s also been a treasured, 60-year-old safeguard for some motorists. Critics have worried that those same municipal officers would take...

A federal grand jury just indicted the other three officers present at George Floyd’s arrest. Why is the Justice Department involving itself in this local police matter?Last month, when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of second- and third-degree murder, most Americans believed his sentencing would end a year-long national ordeal. Footage of Chauvin restraining George Floyd as he died was widely publicized last summer, with a predictable—and memorable—result. Although Chauvin was convicted by a jury, that decision was pre-empted by the constant menace of burning cities, gruesome threats of violence, massive corporate marketing campaigns, public statements by members...

An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has filed a federal lawsuit accusing two Columbus police officers of using excessive force against him while he was working in his official capacity. Agent James Burk, a 16-year veteran of the ATF, said in the lawsuit he was working a "routine" assignment on July 7. That afternoon, he went to a home on the 3300 block of Edgebrook Drive near Dublin to retrieve a shotgun from someone who was not permitted to have a firearm.

Upon hearing the news Goodyear deems "Blue Lives Matter" messaging unacceptable, police officers have this to say: "Stop buying Goodyear tires." Goodyear Tires has long been held up as the ideal for police tires, which is why many were shocked when a photo allegedly from Goodyear’s sensitivity training was posted online. The leaked photo said “Black Lives Matter” attire was permitted, but “Blue Lives Matter” would be met with zero tolerance.While Goodyear denied that the photo came from their corporate office, they admitted that their policy bans any political paraphernalia “that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity...

A group of wealthy celebrities requesting the abolition of something they donÂ’t even need is disingenuous at best, callous at worst. The Black Lives Matter movement seeks to counter the systemic racism they believe is foundational in American culture with a systemic solution: defunding the police. The calls to defund the police have reached the ears of every elected official, from local levels up to the federal executive. Now, the cries from the street are being echoed by celebrities.A group of some of the most notable black artists in America have penned a letter to studios and Hollywood executives demanding...

As I noted in today's article, Law-and-Order African Americans Stand With Trump, A Monmouth University poll however shows that 72% of African-Americans are satisfied with their local police departments. Despite what you're seeing on television, 21% of African-Americans are very satisfied with the local police and another 51% are satisfied. Only 5% are very dissatisfied. Another 12% are somewhat dissatisfied...I also note in the article that, "41% of African-Americans reported that they had an experience where a police officer had helped keep them or their family members safe in a dangerous situation. That's significantly higher than the 33% of white...

On April 4, eight people were arrested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for sidewalk counseling and praying in front of an abortion facility. On April 4, eight people were arrested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for sidewalk counseling and praying in front of an abortion facility. Although most of the pro-life advocates did not come as a group and were spaced more than six feet apart, officers allege they were violating the North Carolina governor’s stay at home order as well as that of Mecklenburg County by participating in a gathering of more than ten people. The order allows for...

To build his highly touted deportation force, President Donald Trump is reviving a long-standing program that deputizes local officers to enforce federal immigration law. The program received scant attention during a week in which Trump announced plans to build a border wall, hire thousands more federal agents and impose restrictions on refugees from Middle Eastern countries. But the program could end up having a significant impact on immigration enforcement around the country, despite falling out of favor in recent years amid complaints that it promotes racial profiling. More than 60 police and sheriff's agencies had the special authority as of...

The proliferation in local police departmentsÂ’ use of surveillance technology, which in most places has occurred without any community input or control, presents significant threats to civil rights and civil liberties that disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income communities. Here is a list of costly and invasive surveillance technologies that might be recording you, your family, and your neighbors right now: 1.) Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras CCTV allows the police to monitor us any time we are in a public space, even if they have no reason for doing so. Despite proof that CCTV is ineffective in reducing crime,...

The below article appears in our "Police Under Fire" special report. (Click here to download a PDF of the full report.) On December 18, 2014, President Obama signed an executive order creating the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In May 2015, the task force came out with its Final Report, which is commonly given the title “21st Century Policing.”One of the report’s recommendations, which the Obama-friendly media fixated on, concerns greater restrictions on transfers of military equipment to local police agencies. However, as we reported in a related article ("What's Happening to Our Police?"), the new “accountability” rules...

The below article appears in our "Police Under Fire" special report. (Click here to download a PDF of the full report.) The federal government has been busy creating unconstitutional agencies co-opting policing while simultaneously using a “carrot and stick” approach — unconstitutional federal aid and federal mandates — to absorb and coerce the local police, transforming them into instruments of an emerging national police force.This subversive transformation of America’s way of policing has been under way for a long time. The American ideal of local police — locally funded and locally controlled — whose job it is to protect the...

The federal government has been busy creating unconstitutional agencies co-opting policing while simultaneously using a “carrot and stick” approach — unconstitutional federal aid and federal mandates — to absorb and coerce the local police, transforming them into instruments of an emerging national police force. This subversive transformation of America’s way of policing has been under way for a long time. The American ideal of local police — locally funded and locally controlled — whose job it is to protect the public against violent and fraudulent criminal elements that will always be found in every society, is being radically changed. Over...

Harlem (1964). Watts (1965). East Coast, West Coast. A police shooting and an attempted arrest provide the pretexts for days of massive rioting, looting, arson, death, and destruction. Racism and police brutality, say the rioters/looters (and their supporters in political office, the media, and academia), are responsible for the violence and devastation. The Harlem riots provided the spark for additional riots that year in Chicago, Philadelphia, Rochester, and the New Jersey cities of Paterson, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. The war zone-like wreckage of Watts, a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, became the symbol “inspiring” similar rioting in more than...

In August 2014, in the immediate aftermath of a violent incident wherein police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot a young black man named Michael Brown, outraged and agenda-driven agitators — many from out of town — seized on the news as an excuse to run wild, steal, destroy property, and more. Businesses were burned to the ground and looted. Even a local church was not spared by the frenzied and violent mob. According to news reports, more than 160 gunshots were fired by “protesters,” too. At least one man died amid the chaos. Pictures that emerged after the late...

While the widely reported de-militarization edicts were issued last week by the federal government, the real agenda surrounds empowering Washington, D.C. to have even more control over local police departments. ---- Obama Usurps Local Police With Fake “Ban” on Militarization The New American 25 May 2015 After having drastically accelerated the militarization of local police forces by the federal government, Obama is now having second thoughts about it — or so the administration and the establishment press would have you believe based on widely reported “de-militarization” edicts issued last week. But while the decrees were framed by virtually all of...

This month, more Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles (MRAPs) have found their way from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Main Streets of America. These are just the latest acquisitions in a growing practice by Pentagon that's militarizing America's municipal police forces. Police departments in Boise and Nampa, Idaho, each acquired an MRAP, as did the force in High Springs, Florida. The offer of war-ready machinery, at practically no cost, has proven hard to resist for local police departments. Increasingly, they are looking like soldiers equipped for battle. The growing similarity between our domestic police forces and the U.S. military...

This month, more Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles (MRAPs) have found their way from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Main Streets of America. These are just the latest acquisitions in a growing practice by Pentagon that's militarizing America's municipal police forces. Police departments in Boise and Nampa, Idaho, each acquired an MRAP, as did the force in High Springs, Florida. The offer of war-ready machinery, at practically no cost, has proven hard to resist for local police departments. Increasingly, they are looking like soldiers equipped for battle. The growing similarity between our domestic police forces and the U.S. military...

Friday, 23 November 2012 17:00 Homeland Security Uses Local Police to Set Up Surveillance Buffer Zones Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. In order to sweeten the pot of federalization, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is giving gifts of expensive gadgets to local police forces. Cops in North Jersey, for example, were showered with gifts from their would-be overseers. As reported by The Record: Oradell, Emerson, Closter and Harrington Park police have car-mounted night-vision technology and video and recording equipment that can watch over the Oradell Reservoir and dam — and the hikers and anglers entering it. West Milford...

Last week, the Justice Department made an astonishing statement about its unprecedented lawsuit to stop the Arizona illegal-immigration law. Attorney General Eric Holder's spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler, claimed that it was appropriate to go after Arizona, but inappropriate to stop "sanctuary cities." Schmaler said: "There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called sanctuary cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law. . . That's what Arizona has done in this case." There's a big...

President Obama is suing Arizona for hav ing its cops identify and round up illegal aliens -- even though he's also deputizing them to do the same thing. That's right: Under a little-known federal program called ICE 287(g), the administration has continued to enlist at least eight Arizona state law-enforcement agencies to carry out the procedures at issue in the new Arizona law, which goes into effect July 29. The program dates to a 1995 law signed by President Bill Clinton, which allows US immigration officials to train local law-enforcement officers and authorize them to ID and detain illegals. After...