Free Republic

An Alabama police chief has determined that one of his officers used “appropriate force,” when the cop arrived at the scene of a traffic accident and immediately shot an apparently unarmed Air Force airman. The airman, 20-year-old Michael Davidson, was shot in the chest and nearly bled out before receiving medical aid, according to the Raw Story. Davidson was driving to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He may have been driving erratically, according to the Ledger-Enquirer. After clipping another vehicle, he pulled over to exchange insurance information with the other driver. Eventually, Officer Phillip Hancock arrived...

Actual headline below: Would not fit in title header Rookie cop who shot 72-year-old dead in his home while investigating burglary at the WRONG address will not be charged A family devastated: Waller was shot by Fort Worth police as they searched his home for burglars in the dark using only flashlights http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2548819/Rookie-cop-NOT-charged-killing-72-year-old-accidental-search-home.html

HOUSTON -- A suspect was shot and killed by an officer with the Houston Police Department late Thursday. - - - - - - - - - - Smith said a uniformed officer was working security when he saw a young man looking in the windows of a bicycle shop. The officer believed the man was casing the business and approached the suspect, who then got on a bike and started riding away. The officer got in his personal vehicle and stopped the suspect, police said. As he was being detained, police said the suspect shoved the officer and ran...

DALLAS –– Footage from a surveillance camera pointed at the street where officers shot a mentally ill man in the abdomen earlier this week shows the man never walked toward police nor raised a knife to them, disputing a police officer’s narrative provided in a sworn affidavit.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An unarmed man seeking help after a car crash over the weekend was shot 10 times by the Charlotte police officer who's now charged in his death, investigators said Monday. A police news release said Officer Randall Kerrick fired 12 times at 24-year-old Jonathan A. Ferrell early Saturday while responding to a breaking and entering call. Ten of the bullets hit the former Florida A&M University football player. Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter and is scheduled for a first court appearance on Tuesday.

Police in Fort Worth, Texas, are blaming “poor lighting” after two officers went to the wrong home in search of a possible burglar and ended up shooting a 72-year-old man dead in his garage. The officers, who are both in their first year with Fort Worth PD, were responding to a burglary alarm on May 28 when the tragic mistake occurred. “Due to poor lighting conditions, and officers attempting to arrive on the scene undetected,” the cops approached the home of Jerry Waller by mistake, according to an affidavit. The house they were actually supposed to go to was across...

Detective Hassan Hamdy made the split-second decision to fire a single fatal shot at an unarmed motorist during an early morning traffic stop on a highway in Queens because he thought the driver was reaching for a gun, according to the detective’s lawyer. The driver, Noel Polanco, 22, did not comply with Detective Hamdy’s orders to put his hands up, instead reaching “down in a quick motion, down on the floor of the car,” said lawyer Philip Karasyk, representing the detective. Detective Hamdy twice yelled “Police!” and was wearing a heavy vest with the word “police” written across it, Mr....

A New York police detective shot and killed an unarmed man, whose hands, a witness said, were on the steering wheel of his Honda, after he had been pulled over early Thursday for cutting off two police trucks on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the authorities said....The shooting, which occurred at 5:15 a.m., was the latest in a series of episodes in which police officers fatally shot or wounded civilians...A passenger in Mr. Polanco’s car, Diane Deferrari, said in a phone interview Thursday night that just before pulling the car over, officers appeared irate that Mr. Polanco had cut...

An Army reservist with a clean record was fatally shot in his car by an NYPD detective early Thursday — before he even had “a chance to put his hands up” in surrender, a witness told the Daily News. Noel Polanco, 22, was killed on the Grand Central Parkway in what witness Diane DeFerrari called an act of “pure road rage” following a terrifying chase by cops in an unmarked vehicle. “Noel didn't have a chance to put his hands up. They screamed, ‘Put up your hands!’ and shot at the same time,” said DeFerrari, a 36-year-old bartender who was...

By AUDREY BARNES/myfoxdc CULPEPER, Va. - Investigators are trying to figure out what led to a police shooting that killed a 54-year-old woman in Culpeper. A telephone pole on North East Street is where police say the confrontation between Patricia Cook and a five-year veteran of the Town of Culpeper Police Department ended. Ironically, it began about 75 yards up the street outside of the church Cook attended. And if you had to pick a person least likely to be shot and killed by police, the victim's next door neighbor said it would be Patricia Cook. “She’s always talked really...

RAPID CITY, S.D (AP) -- A western South Dakota police officer was killed and two others were seriously wounded after a shootout with a man during a routine stop, authorities said late Tuesday. Officer James Ryan McCandless, 28, was pronounced dead at a local hospital, Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender said. Officer Nick Armstrong, 27, was in critical condition after undergoing surgery, and the third officer, who was shot in the side of the face, was listed as stable. His name hasn't been released. Gunfire erupted about 10 minutes after the three officers approached four people at an intersection....

SEATTLE - The city of Seattle has reached a $1.5 million settlement of claims brought by the family of slain woodcarver John T. Williams, who was shot dead by Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk last August. The settlement was reached after a mediation involving representatives of the John T. Williams estate, Williams’ mother and the city. The Williams family, which earlier failed in its attempts to get criminal charges filed against Birk, expressed relief that the matter could be resolved early without extended and costly litigation. "This is one step towards justice, but it is only a step. Nothing can...

LAS VEGAS -- The coroner's inquest into the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a Las Vegas police officer will continue Saturday. During the inquest Friday, Sequoia Pearce, the fiancé of 21-year-old Trevon Cole, told a jury of seven that she and Cole had tried to surrender when police stormed their northeast valley apartment. Authorities said Det. Bryan Yant, 34, shot and killed Cole when he made a sudden move during a search of Cole’s apartment the night of June 11. Yant and other officers suspected Cole was dealing marijuana from the residence. Cole was unarmed and his family...

LAS VEGAS- In a circle in the corner of the Summerlin Costco parking lot, friends and strangers lit candles in memory of 39-year-old Erik Scott. "There's nothing we can do to bring Erik back," yelled one speaker. "But, there is something we can do to change the system." They stood shoulder to shoulder, firmly believing the West Point and Duke University graduate did not deserve to die. "I know Erik," said his friend Ivan Sher. "I know him really well. I know his disposition, and there is no possible way that what was represented could have actually happened."

LAS VEGAS -- Family members and friends are planning a vigil to mark the one-month anniversary of the Las Vegas police slaying of a man in front of a membership warehouse store. The 9 p.m. Tuesday event is part of an ongoing family campaign to highlight the July 10 death of 38-year-old Erik Scott by police just outside the Costco store in Summerlin. Police say Scott had a gun and the three officers who shot Scott were responding to reports of a man ripping merchandise inside the store. Family members say Scott had a concealed weapons permit, and police should...

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Spectators at Sunday's U.S. Open of Surfing might see this message flying over the ocean: "Vegas police cover up? R.I.P. Erik B. Scott.com." Here's what it means: Family and friends have paid for a plane to fly a banner near the municipal pier in an attempt to gain national attention for Scott's death and in hopes of getting answers to some questions. Scott, a West Point graduate with an MBA from Duke, was killed in an officer-involved shooting at a Las Vegas Costco on July 10, and family and friends say they have little information about what...

... An attorney for Scott's family is outraged, but Clark County District Attorney David Roger says there's a legitimate reason for the delay. Roger says for reasons beyond Metro's control, the original coroner's inquest date simply won't work. ... But now that the inquest has been postponed, Scott's family still doesn't know when they'll finally be allowed to see that videotape. "We're now going on three weeks. What could possibly be a legitimate reason not to produce the video and 911 recording," asked Goodman.

Police surround Seattle home where person of interest in police shooting may be hiding A SWAT team and police negotiators surrounded a Leschi home in Seattle where the man sought for questioning in the Lakewood police shooting may be hiding. By Seattle Times staff A SWAT team and police negotiators surrounded a Leschi home in Seattle where the man sought for questioning in the Lakewood police shooting may be hiding. Police responded to the home at East Yesler Way and 32nd Avenue South where police stopped a woman who was leaving the home. She told them Maurice Clemmons was on...

Nearly three months before her fatal stand-off with Rock Hill Police, 15-year-old Yvette Williams had enrolled in a program to help young people get out of gangs. Williams was the first student to sign up with Project GO — short for Gang Out — in Rock Hill. The middle-schooler had some gang affiliations, said Project GO executive director A.V. Strong, but she was working hard to get out. Strong said he last saw Williams at a church workshop, and he spoke Tuesday at her funeral. Strong, who supervises the statewide program from Columbia, said the teen was making progress. He...

A 28-year-old Atlanta man was shot by an off-duty Atlanta police officer Tuesday night, but accounts vary as to what led to the conflict. Atlanta Police Lt. Keith Meadows said an officer, working security at the Cityviews Apartments on Richardson Street, saw what he believed to be a “suspicious” person and when the officer approached the man ran to his car. The officer approached the “The subject reached under his seat and the officer felt threatened,” Meadows said. The officer fired a single shot to the face. No weapons were found on the man, Meadows said. The wounded man had...