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A police detective in Illinois has faced disciplinary action this week, after he was recorded on video telling a teenager he was being detained because he's white.* Footage of the controversial encounter surfaced on Facebook on Monday, and has since gone viral with more than 85,000 views. Dezi Baczek,18, who recorded the video, was among a group of teens who went to the local pawnshop in Lake Villa, a suburb of Chicago, to sell an item so the group could buy her brother a book that he wanted to read. How thoughtful. When the group of millennials exited the shop,...

Oakland’s elected leaders said Tuesday the city’s police should provide no assistance to federal immigration agents - even if the agents are working on a case that centers on violent crime. They said so much as allowing officers to block off a street creates the perception that Oakland is anything but a sanctuary city. The new red line came after a controversial operation by officers with Homeland Security Investigations — the criminal division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — at which Oakland police provided traffic enforcement.

Police in California are on the hunt for three potential suspects seen on surveillance video who may have made off with more than 1,800 gallons of vodka from a distillery on Sunday. The Los Angeles Police Department is reviewing surveillance footage showing three people creeping around the property of Fog Shots distillery weeks before the business was robbed. Art Gukasyan, the company’s CEO, told Fox News that nothing was taken the night of the video. But he said he "definitely believes" those people seen on it are involved in the robbery that occurred three weeks later.

Law enforcement officials in Beverly Hills are currently investigating a dozen sexual assault cases regarding people within the entertainment industry, including Harvey Weinstein and James Toback, police said. The Beverly Hills Police Department declined to release the identities of any of the others who are being investigated, but confirmed there are presently 12 open cases. "We take these allegations very seriously and are actively investigating them," a police spokeswoman said in a statement to the Daily News.

BRIDGEPORT — Six letters emblazoned on the back of a jacket could be a matter of life and death for the men and women who safeguard Connecticut’s largest city. That is how Sgt. Chris Robinson feels about having “POLICE” printed on outerwear worn by Bridgeport’s Finest. Robinson was suspended with pay last week for publicly criticizing Police Chief Armando “A.J.” Perez’s Nov. 13 memorandum forbidding cops from advertising their profession on their clothing. “We are the police, are we not? Yet then why are we now attempting to disguise or even go to such measures and means to hide it...

A new report says the New York Police Department has not done enough to roll out protocols that govern interactions with the LGBTQ community. […] The revisions to the Patrol Guide were done in 2012 and made changes like requiring officers to address people who are arrested by their preferred name to prohibiting strip searches to determine gender. The report says the department does not currently track all LGBTQ-related complaints alleging bias by police officers. This makes it difficult to detect violations, and assess possible bias issues against the community. …

A Cleveland police union president criticized for having his organization endorse Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and incendiary comments about NFL player protests has been ousted. The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association is the city’s largest police union. President Steve Loomis lost Tuesday by 38 votes to former president Jeff Follmer. Most of the union’s 1,243 members voted. The head of an association representing 200 black officers tells Cleveland.com some of its members questioned Loomis’ provocative statements and his decision to endorse Trump. Black Shield Association President Lynn Hampton says black officers were dismayed to see Loomis taking stances that created negative...

Brooklyn College is advising New York City Police officers to use bathrooms out of sight from students to avoid possibly offending them. Students said the NYPD “made safe spaces not feel safe.”

Take a look at the picture at the start of this article. The one on the left is good ol' cannabis, the plant we know and love. The one on the right is kenaf hibiscus, a plant which is not marijuana. Could you tell the difference? Well, a Nationwide Insurance agent couldn't - or didn't want to. What followed was an arrest and a lawsuit. On Oct. 5, the agent spotted the hibiscus plants while investigating a fallen tree on the property of Buffalo Township, PA couple Edward and Audrey Cramer. He then told police they had marijuana on their...

DENVER -- The Problem Solvers have uncovered a city law that's making Denver millions of dollars before defendants have even been convicted of a crime. The Denver statute is called a Public Nuisance Abatement Ordinance and it allows police to confiscate property, usually cars, for a crime you may later be found innocent of. It's exactly what happened to 57-year-old Semere Fremichael, a native of Eritrea. The immigrant from East African has been driving a taxi in Denver for the past 28-years. In April, he was arrested in an undercover prostitution sting. An undercover female cop tapped on Fremichael's taxi...

Few things are more painful to me than the abuse of power, or incompetence in the execution of that power. The consequences for those affected by such malfeasance and clumsiness are so great as to demand a sense of outrage from us all. Over the last year, for example, dozens of men, including the president of the United States himself, have been credibly accused of sexual assault and sexual misconduct. And the fact that they were powerful men made the allegations really sting. That’s why I find misconduct and chicanery on the part of the law enforcement community so troubling....

A Buffalo Township couple is suing the township police and the Nationwide Insurance Co. after, their lawsuit says, hibiscus plants growing in their backyard were mistaken for marijuana plants. In a lawsuit, Edward Cramer, 69, and his wife, Audrey Cramer, 66, claim that Buffalo Township police handcuffed them both and made them sit in the back of a police car for hours last month as police ransacked their house looking for marijuana. But rather than running a pot-growing operation, the Cramers say they grow flowering hibiscus in their backyard. The Cramers were not charged. They filed a civil lawsuit Thursday...

Black Lives Matter Pennsylvania activist Asa Khalif was arrested Monday after he broke a window during a protest at the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office in Philadelphia. Khalif, 47, and another protester showed up at the office on S. 12th Street unannounced Monday morning and demanded answers regarding Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s open investigation of the deadly police shooting of David Jones, Shapiro's spokesperson Joe Grace told NBC10.

The number of U.S. police departments outfitting their officers with body cameras increases each year, but the cameras can pose a threat to civil rights if the departments fail to set rules that govern when officers review footage from their cameras, according to a new report. The vast majority of the nation’s biggest police departments allow officers to watch footage from body cameras whenever they want, including before they write their incident reports or make statements, said the report, which was released Tuesday by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Unrestricted footage review places civil rights at risk...

A cellphone video showing a Salinas Police Department officer pointing his gun at a motorist who has no criminal record spurred a debate on KSBW's Facebook page last week. It's a tense situation as driver Alfonso Vargas, 21, of Salinas, holds up his cellphone to record an officer who is giving commands. Advertisement "Let me see your hands. Drop the phone, put your hands up," the officer orders. Two Salinas police officers had their guns pointed at Vargas. He was suspected of a vehicle code violation, Vargas said. Vargas uploaded the video on KSBW's Facebook page and wrote, " I...

Calling violence in Baltimore "out of control," Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered 30 agency heads to meet every morning at police headquarters, and to make crime reduction the top mission not only of police, but also of health workers, housing officials and public works crews. The mayor ordered the directors of more than half of the city’s 55 departments to report to meetings daily at 8 a.m., when they will plan with Police Commissioner Kevin Davis where weeds should be cut, lead paint covered and drug houses boarded up and job applications can be handed out, among other tasks. [Snip] "Violence...

Baltimore’s mayor said Wednesday she will renew a push to add two civilians to police trial boards after a board of three officers ruled that a police van driver violated no policies when a black man was fatally injured inside his van. The death of Freddie Gray in 2015 a week after he was injured during a police van ride sparked riots and reform efforts in the state capital, but police union opposition has kept civilians off such panels in Baltimore, even as civilians join police in handling complaints in other cities. ”I do think it’s fair to have citizens...

For those you have engaged in public advocacy in the past: what is the right/best way to petition the county sheriff's office or local police departments, to ask them to issue a public statement saying "We will not obey or enforce any illegal or unconstitutional laws"? Hoping that some of you have been through something similar in the past and can offer good solid advice. Thanks FReepers. PS: if your answer is "Move to another state" or "It's too late for your state" -- that's not helpful. Yes, we know the long-term solution -- but some still want to put...

New York: There were chaotic scenes at the closing of the controversial FERGUSON play in Manhattan. The near riot situation took place at the closing night curtain, when cast member, Cedric Benjamin, who plays Michael Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson, urged the standing room audience to turn on their phones and record him as he accused the FERGUSON play of being unbalanced and biased. Benjamin’s rant was shut down by director Jerry Dixon, calling the actor “unprofessional” and ordered him to stop and told the cast the performance was over and they were "dismissed." As the argument and shouting spilled into...

A man who was arrested Monday in Washington, D.C. allegedly traveled to the nation’s capital to kill “all white police” at the White House. Michael Arega, of Dallas, Texas, was arrested Monday afternoon after the Secret Service Protective Intelligence Division received an alert just before 3 p.m. from the Montgomery County Maryland Police Department to be on the lookout for Arega. He reportedly traveled from Texas to kill “all white police” at the White House, according to a statement from the U.S. Secret Service.