Free Republic

Brothers Arrested On Charges Of Selling Drugs; Surveillance Tape Contradicts Police Claims; Investigation Leads To Arrest Of 2 Officers, $10 Million Lawsuit NEW YORK (AP) ― When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong. But proclaiming innocence wasn't going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof. "I sat in the jail and thought ... how could I prove this? What could I do?" Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview. As he glanced...

We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration is not likely to waste this opportunity to further expand government. Hopefully, we can take a deep breath and look at history for the optimal way to deal with this dangerous situation, which is not unprecedented. Alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s brought similar violence, gangs, lawlessness, corruption and brutality. The reason for the violence was not that making and selling alcohol was inherently...

ON A SWELTERING July afternoon in 2007, Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and his narcotics squad members raided an Olney tobacco shop. Then, with guns drawn, they did something bizarre: They smashed two surveillance cameras with a metal rod, said store owners David and Eunice Nam. The five plainclothes officers yanked camera wires from the ceiling. They forced the slight, frail Korean couple to the vinyl floor and cuffed them with plastic wrist ties. "I so scared," said Eunice Nam, 56. "We were on floor. Handcuffs on me. I so, so scared, I wet my pants." The officers rifled through drawers, dumped...

WEST MICHIGAN -- The family of injured shooting victim Derek Copp has hired a lawyer who is questioning why the Grand Valley State University student was shot by police and the basis of a search warrant to look for marijuana in his off-campus apartment. "We have some very important questions about what appears to be some shocking police activity," Grand Rapids attorney Fred Dilley said Monday. Dilley questioned the safety and necessity of raiding a student's apartment, entering through a rear slider, and the "manner in which it was served and executed." "The question is, is that a sufficient basis...

The SEC's fraud charges may be the least of accused financial scammer R. Allen Stanford's worries. Federal authorities tell ABC News that FBI and others have been investigating whether Stanford was involved in laundering drug money for Mexico's notorious Gulf Cartel. Authorities tell ABC News that as part of the investigation, which has been ongoing since last year, Mexican authorities detained one of Stanford's private planes. According to officials, checks found inside the plane were believed to be connected to the Gulf cartel, reputed to be Mexico's most violent gang. Authorities say Stanford could potentially face criminal charges of money...

DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — Sgt. Faron White's job running a squad that targeted drug dealers, gamblers and other organized crime in a northern Alabama city earned him accolades but was filled with pressure. Add a rocky marriage, ill father, unexpected household expenses and gambling losses, and somewhere along the way, the decorated veteran officer snapped, police said Tuesday. White is accused of staging his disappearance, staking himself with $2,500 in confiscated drug money and flying off to Las Vegas to try to win back thousands of dollars to pay his debts. He didn't act alone, police said. A Decatur police...

<p>THE DRUG raid by Prince George's County law officers on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week was a Keystone Kops operation from start to finish.</p> <p>Acting on a tip that a 32-pound package of marijuana had been sent by Federal Express from Arizona to Mr. Calvo's home (addressed to his wife, Trinity Tomsic), Prince George's police swung into action. Which is to say they got on the phone, calling law enforcement agencies to see who might have a SWAT team available to bust the unsuspecting Calvo family. (It seems the police department's own team was tied up.) After being turned down at least once, they finally struck a deal with the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, whose track record with domestic disputes is extensive but whose experience with drug busts is slight. And it showed.</p>

High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It, by Joseph A. Califano Jr., New York: Public Affairs, 270 pages, $26.95 The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World’s Most Troubled Drug Culture, by Richard DeGrandpre, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 294 pages, $24.95On the opening page of High Society, which aims to explain “how substance abuse ravages America,� Joseph Califano declares that “chemistry is chasing Christianity as the nation’s largest religion.� Although it is not always easy to decipher Califano’s meaning in this overwrought, carelessly written, weakly documented, self-contradictory, and deeply misleading anti-drug screed,...

Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later 92-year-old woman's death has done little to curb the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country. It was one year ago this week that narcotics officers in Atlanta, Georgia broke into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. They had earlier arrested a man with a long rap sheet on drug charges. That man told the police officers that they'd find a large stash of cocaine in Johnston's home. When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened...

WASHINGTON -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters. Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming. Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's...

Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix was appointed last month as head of a drug intelligence unit in Mexico's attorney general's office. Less than 30 days later, he was shot and killed in a sophisticated street ambush that is being characterized as a "planned execution" – another assassination presumably by one of the Mexican drug cartels. He hadn't even finished unpacking boxes in his new office. The list of atrocities of this kind in Mexico grows on a daily basis: Last weekend, two journalists for the Azteca television network who had previously covered the drug wars in Mexico were reported missing and...

The urge of lawmakers amid the unthinkable is to entertain the feel-good notion of legislation that could have prevented the awfulness.     The inclination to legislate the worst impulses out of the human condition is understandable in the wake of the horror at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead at the hand of a gun-toting sicko, who then shot himself. But as we know only too well, if only from anecdotal experience, laws have their limits.     To take the principle of gun-control measures to the ultimate level, let's say America decided in the coming weeks that it no longer could tolerate...

The narrow framework of criminal law doesn’t fit fatal police miscalculations.In late March, a Queens grand jury indicted three of the five officers who shot at Sean Bell’s car outside a Jamaica strip club last November, and exonerated the remaining two. The grand jury received widespread praise for careful reasoning. But the only thing that the indictments show is how inappropriate a criminal-law template is for police actions. It is probably too much to hope that Albany legislators will face down anti-police politics and correct that ongoing injustice. Nevertheless, we desperately need an alternative, non-criminal legal regime for responding to...

Last month, Mexican military officials in Matamoros, just south of Brownsville, Texas, stopped a tractor-trailer containing weapons and ammunition, along with a pickup truck fitted with armor and bulletproof glass. The weapons included 18 M-16 assault rifles, one equipped with an M-203 40mm grenade launcher. Also seized were several M-4 carbines, 17 handguns of various calibers, 200 magazines for different weapons, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, assault vests and other military accessories.

Fulton DA seeks charges in shooting of 92-year-old woman in her home The Fulton County district attorney will seek felony murder charges against at least one of the three Atlanta police officers who shot and killed an elderly woman in a botched drug raid, according to one of the officer's attorneys. Defense attorney Rand Csehy, who is representing Gregg Junnier, said he received an e-mail message from District Attorney Paul Howard's office today saying the DA would seek charges before a grand jury Feb. 26. "It's an overbroad indictment," said an angry Csehy. He said that Howard's office has "broken...

The 800-pound gorilla is back, and as usual folks are pretending the critter ain't in the room. We'll call this particular 800-pound gorilla Joey, in tribute to that 1940s film about the giant ape called Mighty Joe Young. I think it's time Joey got his props. I think it's time we acknowledge Joey. Joey, meet the guys. Guys, shake hands with Joey. "The guys" in this case are those Baltimoreans who, for the past week, have expressed angst and dismay about the appalling way some young black men in this city, addicted to the thug life, dispatch each other with...

The rising use of SWAT teams is bad, but it's about to get worse.Radley Balko on botched SWAT raids in the November 2006 issue of Playboy.

Two years ago, my 23-year-old brother became addicted to painkillers after breaking his leg and undergoing several operations to repair it. Last year, while he was checking into rehab for abusing OxyContin, I was drafting a chapter in my new book calling for drug legalization. It was a difficult moment to believe in individual liberty: I felt firsthand the effects of what it's like when people make bad decisions. I saw how hard my brother struggled to get clean, first moving forward and then backsliding again into substance abuse. One of the more compelling arguments for the war on drugs...

PENN HILLS, Pa. -- Parents and at least one school board member said they believe an elementary school in Pennsylvania overreacted when it suspended 14 students earlier this month for mixing sugar and Kool-Aid crystals and calling it "Happy Crack." Officials in the Penn Hills School District said the kids were suspended for imitating drug activity. The students put the mixture in plastic bags and labeled it "Happy Crack." But some parents said they don't think that should have gotten the students suspended from Shenandoah Elementary School. School Board Member Erin Vecchio told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she agreed with...

Single-issue people. They're out there... on every thread. No matter what the topic, they try to link it to their pet issue in some way, shape, or form. They are... The Thread Hijackersâ„¢. While little can be done to stop them, and it is probably best to ignore them, I find it much, much more fun to mock them. Sure, being passionate about an issue you care about is a good thing, but thread hijacking is annoying and, to be honest, turns off people who might otherwise agree with you. So, on to the mocking. I'd like to coin the...

More than 2,200 people have been arrested in Texas bars in the six months since the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced a crackdown on public intoxication, primarily targeting bars. The arrests included people who were drunk in bars, who sold alcohol to a drunk person, or a drunk employee on the premises of a bar or restaurant with a license to sell alcohol, said Carolyn Beck, a spokeswoman for the TABC. The commission has been responsible for enforcing the state's alcoholic beverage code for the past 70 years. In August, 2005, the agency announced it was beginning a crackdown on...

Well, being that I have already solved the ILLEGAL Immigration Issue, I figgered I'd go ahead and explain the reasons we ought not waste Policeman's time and energy busting those who smoke a doobie out in their buddy'a cabin in the mountains or in some lowlife scumbag druggie's basement...SomeDrugs ain't as bad as other drugs!! Surprise!! Surprise!! Surprise!! That said...here's the solution...well, I don't wanna ruin the conclusion of this thread so I'll just let y'all know once the thread starts hoppin' with all them Stonies and PRO-WOSDers!! LOL...should be fun!! BTW...first guy I'm gonna ping is OWK on the...

The Supreme Court gave police broader search powers Monday during traffic stops, ruling that drug-sniffing dogs can be used to check out motorists even if officers have no reason to suspect they may be carrying narcotics. In a 6-2 decision, the court sided with Illinois police who stopped Roy Caballes in 1998 along Interstate 80 for driving 6 miles over the speed limit. Although Caballes lawfully produced his driver's license, troopers brought over a drug dog after Caballes seemed nervous. Caballes argued the Fourth Amendment protects motorists from searches such as dog sniffing, but Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed, reasoning...

ulia is a hot, dusty town of 5,000 on the Texas Panhandle, about 50 miles south of Amarillo. For some, it's a frightening place, slow and bigoted and bizarre. Kafka could have had a field day with Tulia. On the morning of July 23, 1999, law enforcement officers fanned out and arrested more than 10 percent of Tulia's tiny African-American population. Also arrested were a handful of whites who had relationships with blacks. The humiliating roundup was intensely covered by the local media, which had been tipped off in advance. Men and women, bewildered and unkempt, were paraded before TV...