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" If some policeman thinks you’re doing something illegal, your life is over. Without money, you cannot hire a lawyer and they can just rob everything you have on a whim."

Authorities say a San Francisco Bay Area police sergeant was shot and killed during an early-morning traffic stop. Hayward Police Wednesday morning identified the officer as Sgt. Scott Lunger. Lunger was shot about 3:15 a.m. after he stopped a white Chevrolet pickup that was swerving on the road. […] Police later discovered a truck in Oakland with bullet holes. It matches a description of the truck involved in the incident. It was not clear if the driver has been arrested. …

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When I was pulled over by police many years ago on a remote stretch of Illinois 171 at 1 a.m., I was the same age as Michael Brown. Brown was the 18-year-old black teenager shot and killed Aug. 9 by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking weeks of street protests against Ferguson police. It was on another August night when my 21-year-old brother and I spent time at the Bluefront Lounge near Willow Springs, listening to our favorite country-and-western band. Later, I drove us home in my brother’s 1962 Chevrolet Impala with the convertible top down, while he sang...

City, county settle NM 'anal probe' lawsuit ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A city and county in southern New Mexico have settled a lawsuit filed by man taken to two hospitals and forced to have anal probes over suspicion of hiding drugs. Attorney for David Eckert said Monday that Hidalgo County and the city of Deming recently settled their portion of a lawsuit for a total $1.6 million. The lawsuit, filed against police and sheriff's officials in Deming and Hidalgo County, which borders Mexico, alleges Deming police sought a search warrant for Eckert because they thought he appeared to be clenching his...

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...

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...

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On numerous Internet forums, and some email lists, gun owners periodically report being hassled by police when pulled over for routine traffic infractions. . . . But often there is a common thread to these stories – the dorky gun owner brought up the gun thing all on her own! . . .

A traffic stop in Lake Wales for tinted windows turned into an angry confrontation between police, deputies, state troopers and as many as 100 bystanders. Two officers and one of the two people arrested were treated for minor injuries. Police are looking for three others in the incident, which started around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, the Lake Wales Police Department said.

The Minnesota State Patrol announced today that it has disciplined a state trooper for using her squad car to ram the van driven by a Hudson, Wis., man during a traffic stop in St. Paul on New Year's Eve. A review board established by the Patrol concluded that while the trooper, Carrie Rindal, had reason for a heightened level of concern, her decision to ram the van was not justified. The board also found that the driver, Sam Salter, 40, was not "actively intending to flee." Rindal arrested Salter at gunpoint for fleeing police, and took him to the Ramsey...

While lawmakers in Washington debate whether to forgive illegal immigrants their trespasses, a small but increasing number of local and state law enforcement officials are taking it upon themselves to pursue deportation cases against people who are here illegally. In more than a dozen jurisdictions, officials have invoked a little-used 1996 federal law to seek special federal training in immigration enforcement for their officers. In other places, the local authorities are flagging some illegal immigrants who are caught up in the criminal justice system, sometimes for minor offenses, and are alerting immigration officials to their illegal status so that they...

Dozens of Central Texas drivers got pulled over Thursday for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Travis County deputies kicked off what has become a controversial reward program. You know that heart stopping feeling you get when seeing the flashing red lights of law enforcement in the rear view mirror. Well, you won't see that if you're a good driver, but you may get pulled over. Getting pulled over for doing nothing wrong may not sound right to a lot of people. Travis County Deputy Derrick Taylor says his job is to not only look for bad drivers, but reward and encourage...

A driver trying to escape a what Woodbury police called a traffic stop lost control of his car and crashed into a house early this morning. Shortly after midnight the driver of a red Acura led police on a brief chase before crashing into a house

State Trooper Shot and Killed During Traffic Stop In Carnegie Pennsylvania A Pennsylvania state trooper was shot to death near Carnegie overnight. It happened around 2 this morning at the Roslyn Farms interchange on the Parkway West. Details are just coming in, but what's known is a Carnegie cop spotted a state cruiser off to the side of the highway. Inside he found a state trooper slumped over the wheel. Apparntly he was shot to death while making a traffic stop. An all points builletin is out for at least four suspects...all said to be black men who were last...

Police escort for contact lens driver 09 August 2005 By JULIE JACOBSON A motorist was asked to drive under police escort to an optometrist to prove he was wearing contact lenses. "I couldn't believe it," writer Michael Romanos said, after being pulled over by Wellington area traffic boss Senior Sergeant Richard Hocken for not wearing a seatbelt while on his way to do some shopping yesterday. A condition of his licence is that he wears either glasses or contact lenses while driving. "He asked me to prove I was wearing contacts and when I said I wasn't going to take...

Routine traffic stop nets drugs: A patrol deputy found 22 bags of powdered cocaine in a pickup truck after a routine traffic stop Friday night, a Leon County Sheriff's Office spokesman said. Michael L. Williams, 42, was charged with unlawful use of blue lights, possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana and possession of cocaine with intent to sell or distribute. He was released from the Leon County Jail on $5,300 bail. Williams was stopped near South Monroe Street and Orange Avenue when the deputy noticed Williams' truck had blue lights, which are allowed only for emergency vehicles, Chris...

I'm in a rental car with Al Franken, and we're driving across New Hampshire on the Sunday before the nation's first primary, heading to a John Edwards rally. The Democrats are in a kooky mood following the sudden collapse of Howard Dean in Iowa, and Franken -- comedian, celebrity, scourge -- is spending two days in the state not in any official capacity but as a sort of good-will representative from the party's satiric wing. He is not, as you might think from the outrageous trappings of his comedy, an extreme lefty but rather a devout party man, one who...

FORT WORTH - West side patrol officers are under new orders: Make two traffic stops a day or face a penalty that includes having days off changed or being reassigned to a different beat, shift or district. The policy, described in a memo obtained by the Star-Telegram as an active approach to decreasing serious crime in west Fort Worth, disturbs some officers to whom it sounds similar to an illegal quota. "To me, this is a thinly veiled attempt at a quota, and I don't like it," said Lee Jackson, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, which represents...

Sometimes Eugene police ask people for their Social Security numbers, and sometimes they don't. The department has no specific policy regarding the collection of the nine-digit identifier, and different officers handle the issue in different ways. Spurred on by a recent surge of complaints from the community, the city's human rights and police commissions have agreed to form a joint task force to look into the issue and possibly create a written policy to govern the collection and use of the information, a move welcomed by police, acting Capt. Rick Siel said. The inconsistency has created confusion, Siel said, and...