Free Republic

Tennessee police chief using lie detector to sniff out racists on his force The police department in Coopertown, Tenn. has been rocked by scandals for more than a decade. Their newest police chief, Shane Sullivan, is using a polygraph test to clean up the town’s image and keep bigots off his force. COOPERTOWN, Tenn. — A police chief hired to rebuild a tiny Tennessee department dismantled by scandal is using a lie-detector test to keep racists off his force. Coopertown Police Chief Shane Sullivan took over the department in November, becoming the 11th chief in as many years. He was...

It looks like the Barclays Center thinks Jay-Z fans are more likely to cause 99 problems than the upper-crust Barbra Streisand set. The arena forced the crowd at the rapper’s recent concert series to herd through its new airport-style metal detectors — while fans of the legendary diva were spared the same indignity at her show on Thursday. The security-policy switcheroo was blasted yesterday as a “double standard” that seemed racially inflammatory considering the audiences for each... Another tweeter quipped that for the Streisand fans, Barclays security should have employed “a brisket-sniffing dog!” Not only did the arena treat Jay-Z...

Jason Barnum is arraigned at the Anchorage Jail for attempted murder and other charges on Friday, September 14, 2012. Barnum was arrested at the scene of a shooting at the Merrill Field Inn on Thursday.

Perhaps we need an internment camp for white folks. Not all white folks. I know a lot of white people. Some of my best friends are white, and they are overwhelmingly peace-loving people. But we know who they are. White males between the ages of 18 and 45 who subscribe to an ideology of white nationalism. These people have similar physical markers and attire. They generally like to shave their heads and they wear black or camouflage military garb, and many wear white hoods for ceremonial worship. They subscribe to an ideology with historical roots we can trace back to...

Female G20 protestors sue Toronto police for $1.4MILLION after they were 'profiled for having hairy legs' A group of women is suing the Toronto police, saying they were profiled and arrested for having hairy legs during the G20 summit in 2010. The women are part of a $1.4 million lawsuit filed by seven friends, men and women, who were locked up during the protests against the gathering of world leaders. The lawyer for the friends, who had traveled to Toronto from their hometown to take part in the demonstrations, said police use of 'hairy legs' as a cause for detention...

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy — hailed as a “Braveheart”-like folk hero after getting out on the streets and leading his troops during the NATO Summit protests in May — is on the hot seat. His key strategy — doing away with mobile strike forces, which formerly were sent out to crime hot spots, and putting more cops back on the beat — has been called a failure by some. Now, McCarthy is preparing to roll out a new tactic. Social scientists who have studied murder say they’ve gotten to a point where they can predict who is most likely to...

PHOENIX (AP) — A trial will begin as scheduled on July 19 in a racial profiling lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio after the judge who will decide the case rejected handing the matter to another judge.

Via CNN: "I welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down major provisions of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 on federal preemption grounds. Today’s ruling appropriately bars the State of Arizona from effectively criminalizing unlawful status in the state and confirms the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate in the area of immigration. While I am pleased the Court confirmed the serious constitutional questions the government raised regarding Section 2, I remain concerned about the impact of Section 2, which requires law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of any person lawfully stopped or detained when they have reason to suspect...

SANFORD, Fla. — (MCT) For weeks, the death of Trayvon Martin, the investigations it launched and the civil rights rallies it spurred were the most important news stories in the country, according to pollsters. At least six news organizations or polling companies did surveys. What they documented, in general, was that people were fascinated and outraged by the Feb. 26 death of the unarmed 17-year-old and angry at the shooter, Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Two sets of findings, though, stand out: Although it was the No. 1 story in the country overall, twice as many blacks as whites singled...

An Arizona doctor says he’s going to sue Barnes & Noble unless he gets an apology from an employee who tossed him from the store because he was alone in the children's section. Dr. Omar Amin, 73, of Scottsdale, said he was browsing for books for his five- and seven-year-old grandkids at the store on May 4 when he walked into the children’s reading area to quietly answer a cellphone call. Amin, a renowned researcher of infectious diseases, told local station KTVK that he sat on the ground to avoid bothering other shoppers with his chatter. “This man approached me...

These students from South L.A. say people often assume they're doing something wrong based on their race. In April 2012, neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was arrested in the Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old unarmed black teenager, in Florida. Zimmerman saw Trayvon walking through his gated community, followed him and shot him. He claims it was in self-defense after Trayvon attacked him. In March, two Pasadena police officers shot and killed Kendrec McDade, an unarmed 19-year-old black college student. Police were responding to a 911 call in which the victim said he was robbed at gunpoint,...

This evening "Piers Morgan Tonight" welcomed Mark Nejame with new details on George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing Trayvon Martin. Joining Piers Morgan for a live interview, the CNN legal analyst shared an exclusive photograph which suggests Zimmerman has black heritage: "The man in the middle is apparently George Zimmerman's great-grandfather. The woman above him, is in fact his grandmother who is half black," explained Nejame. "And the little child in the gentleman's lap, is his mother. So we see that he really has signifcant multiracial, multicultural roots." In a case ripe with racial undertones, Nejame suggests that Thursday's...

California.. New Law to ask state contractors: Are you straight or gay? State Assembly Speaker John Perez runs the Assembly Its not the law of the land yet. But a bill moving through the state Assembly would ask state contractors if they’re gay. The bill passed in the Assembly. The measure would allow business owners to identify themselves as gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. Only one Republican voted for the bill.

The Obama administration on Tuesday said it was preparing to sue Arizona county sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department for violating civil rights laws by improperly targeting Latinos in a bid to crack down on illegal immigrants. The sheriff's high-profile crackdown on illegal immigrants has helped thrust the issue onto the national political stage with some states passing tough new laws aimed at pushing out those in the country illegally. The administration's Justice Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have been in settlement talks for months over allegations that officers regularly made unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos, used...

Since when is something we do every day taboo, like profiling? Every American who can think, profiles. If you are looking for a mate, you profile. In fact, if you search for a mate on line, the first thing you do is establish a profile. You profile yourself! When you fill out a resume to look for a job, your resume is a profile. When you show up for the interview, you are being profiled by your potential employer. You beginning to get the picture? The doorman at a trendy bar profiles, and you won't see anybody getting into one...

In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green. The 60-year-old Compton, Calif., woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African-American drivers who didn't speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles. >>SNIP<< charged the immigrants up to $4,000 a person for the ride north >>SNIP<< is estimated to have smuggled several dozen immigrants a month into Los Angeles, immigration authorities said.

A judge heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit that alleges racial profiling in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration patrols, a week after federal authorities accused the sheriff's office of a wide range of civil rights violations. ****** Arpaio's lawyers have asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that those who filed the case lack standing to show they face a threat of future injury from the sweeps and people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had violated a law.

The Justice Department, following an often hostile three-year investigation, said Thursday the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) in Phoenix under the leadership of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio violated federal law and the Constitution in its handling of persons arrested and inmates held in its jail system. Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the department’s Civil Rights Division, said investigators concluded there was reasonable cause to believe that sheriff’s deputies engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law that jeopardized the agency’s commitment to fair and effective law enforcement. The not-unexpected decision said...

MADRID — Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Spanish authorities of using racial and ethnic profiling, with police singling out people who are not white in order to meet quotas. In a new report, the human rights group said some police stations in Madrid have weekly and monthly quotas for ID checks and detentions of immigrants not carrying residency papers or work permits, encouraging officers to target people belonging to ethnic minorities, even if they are living legally in Spain as residents or are citizens. “People who do not ‘look Spanish’ can be stopped by police as often as four times...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims the FBI targets specific American communities across the United States based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion for “assessments” and possible criminal investigation. Citing records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU alleges that FBI agents identified Chinese and Russian communities in San Francisco as a place to look for organized crime syndicates and Arab-American and Muslim communities in Michigan as a possible terrorist recruitment ground, among others. The ACLU calls this practice “racial profiling on an industrial scale” and has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to ban it. But...