Free Republic

Father Nathan Monk at Pensacola City Council, silenced and bullied by tyrants who did not like what he had to say to them.

Last December, a truck pulling a trailer arrived at a darkened warehouse in Jessup, Md. As federal agents watched, a group of men began heaving bales of marijuana out of the trailer and onto the loading dock. Among them was a big guy, who agents later learned was a cop. Authorities say Anes Hadzifejzovic, 27, a Montclair patrolman, used his status as a law enforcement officer to help move thousands of kilograms of marijuana, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, as part of a long-running operation that shuffled drugs and money between Maryland, New Jersey, California,...

Scandal highlights lack of women in Secret Service By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press – 1 hour ago </span></span> <script type="text/javascript"> if (gbar.lPWF) { gbar.lPWF(function() { gapi.plusone.render('plusone-div', { "size" : "small", "count" : "true", "href" : "http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jvg2Ipgq5i2cc8pvqOXXvvlsnItQ?docId\x3d687dfe077ee840918f70c824c98f7df1" }); }); } sandbarSharebox.registerMicrodataParser( window.top, document.getElementById('hostednews-article')); </script></p> <p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents are often portrayed in popular culture as disciplined, unflappable, loyal — and male. A spiraling prostitution scandal that has highlighted the dearth of women in the agency that protects the president and dignitaries has many wondering: Would more females in the ranks prevent future dishonor?</p><p>Only about a tenth of field agents...

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas. The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup. Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose...

Sometimes bad things happen in bad situations. That's the message from some people that James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times talked to about the case of New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer Alex Brandon, whose news-gathering work in the Hurricane Katrina–wrecked city in 2005 excluded the news that police were killing unarmed black people. Brandon witnessed the immediate aftermath of the Danziger Bridge shooting—when police gunned down six people, killing two—and endorsed the police account of the incident, according to his former colleague Mike Perlstein: "He was backing the police and saying they were in a gun battle and they were...

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano says he will pursue legal action against the police union for the union's Thursday protest outside City Hall. About 200 officers marched from Police Headquarters to City Hall to protest the mayor's decision to lay off 16 officers as part of a plan to deal with the city's budget crisis. The officers blocked Church Street and demanded to speak to DeStefano about his decision. A spokesperson for the mayor says the city is aware that many of the officers who participated in the protest were on duty -- something that is not permitted.

It was about 6:00pm on June 22, 2010 when Robert Threadgill, 80-year-old former member of the 1970's singing group “The Threadgills”, had realized that he forgot his fishing pole at a nearby community-property creek called Woodcreek behind his condo where he fished often and had walked over to retrieve it. While there, still on a community property section of lawn, Mr. Threadgill apparently got into a minor verbal dispute with an employee of a Cypress Creek Falls Lodge, who was on another side of a fence next to their property, about debris those employees would throw into the creek. The...

Clifford Grevemberg doesn't want to go to jail. On Friday night, the lanky 18-year-old was arrested by Tybee police on a disorderly conduct charge in front of the Rock House on 16th Street. He says he was Tased twice and thrown to the ground, breaking one of his front teeth and leaving scrapes on his face and knee. But Grevemberg, who suffers from a form of autism, still wants to know what he did wrong. "I just wanted to go to sleep," the 6-foot-9-inch tall, 170-pound teenager said Saturday. "I sat down on the curb and put my head in...

As I noted in a post during the Republican convention in September, there was something fishy about the Republicans' use of the slogan "Country First" in the recent campaign. Why not "America First?" We got the answer the other day when the Bush administration continued its attack on the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were sentenced to long jail terms for shooting and wounding a drug smuggler. The Bush Justice Department continued to go after the men this week and succeeded in an effort to prevent any significant reduction in the sentences of former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose...

NEW DELHI (Oct. 24) - A Roman Catholic nun who accused a Hindu mob of raping her said Friday that she will not cooperate with local police, alleging that they stood by idly during the attack. Hiding her head and face behind a scarf, the nun told reporters that she was raped after a mob attacked a Christian prayer hall on Aug. 25 in the eastern state of Orissa. In her first public comments, the nun said a group of about 50 men tore off her clothes and raped her. Later, she said, she was paraded naked, together with a...

Thirty-one members of Congress on Wednesday asked President Bush for an "immediate review" of the convictions of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were sentenced in 2006 to lengthy prison terms for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he fled back to Mexico. "Should you be unwilling to pardon Agents Ramos and Compean, as some of us have advocated, we ask that you then consider commuting their sentences to time served," the Republican lawmakers said in a letter. "Your intervention in this matter will not only serve to correct this injustice, but also help...

Drug use, identity theft described in testimony The federal trial of a rogue motorcycle cop threatens to blow the lid off alleged widespread corruption within the Boston Police Department as a key witness drops daily bombshells implicating unindicted officers allegedly involved in illicit drug use, identity fraud and wild sex romps. Roberto “Kiko” Pulido, 42, an 11-year veteran of the force, is on the hot seat in U.S. District Court charged with attempted possession and conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He and two other officers, Nelson Carrasquillo and Carlos Pizarro - both of whom have since pleaded guilty to like offenses...

See for example this thread first. A state trooper who's in Tennessee let a speeder get away for free It did not involve tact but a sexual act Did I say the driver was a "she" ?

CHICAGO - The city's police department has long been fighting the perception of lawlessness on the force, even before Al Capone had so many officers in his pocket. Now, one of its best crime-fighting tools is subjecting it to ridicule around the globe. Surveillance camera footage of an officer pummeling a female bartender half his size has made its way into living rooms worldwide through 24-hour news channels and YouTube. "He's tarnished our image worse than anybody else in the history of the department," Police Superintendent Phil Cline said of Anthony Abbate, a 12-year veteran charged with felony aggravated battery...

Nov. 23, 2006 — - Roughly 3 million Americans live with epilepsy. And a surprising number of them go to jail for it. Why? Around the country, police officers and bystanders who see someone having a seizure mistake it for disorderly, criminal behavior. That's what happened to Daniel Beloungea of Pontiac, Mich. On most days Daniel lives the normal life of a 48-year-old single man. But roughly once a week, he loses total control of his body and mind to an epileptic seizure. A seizure took over Beloungea's body while walking through his suburban Detroit neighborhood last April. When an...

BRADENTON -- For years, the Bradenton Police Department has quietly, without judicial review, confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and property from people they arrested for drug possession and other crimes. The police bypass the courts and confiscate money and property on the spot through a department-created form called the "Contraband Forfeiture Agreement." By signing it, a person agrees to relinquish their property to the police and waive any rights they have to try to get it back through the courts. In some cases -- including one last year where police seized more than $43,000 from a man...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

"It's (expletive) over, son."For two hours, authorities say, that message would be pounded into Lester Eugene Siler’s head and body, reinforced with the barrel of a gun and echoed in threats of electrocution. Handcuffed and surrounded, Siler was now a prisoner of the war on drugs in Campbell County. Seven months later, five former Campbell County Sheriff’s Department lawmen are poised to plead guilty to federal charges they conspired to violate Siler’s civil rights by beating, threatening and torturing him.

Great Moments in Police Work Officers of the Texas City Police Department were conducting a prostitution sting April 4. Things were going well -- eventually six hookers were arrested, no doubt the first step toward forever eradicating the problem of prostitution on the Gulf Coast. Around midnight, according to police, the officers observed a Texas City PD patrol car pull up to one of the women posing as a working girl. TCPD officer Lee Marshall, a two-year veteran of the force, was later charged with the class B misdemeanor of solicitation of prostitution. The department is not talking about the...

Robert Davis, the retired teacher whose beating during an arrest by New Orleans police was caught on videotape shortly after Hurricane Katrina, had the charges against him dropped, Davis and his attorney said Monday. Davis, 64, had returned to New Orleans to check his property following the Aug. 29 storm. He said he was looking for a place to buy cigarettes in the French Quarter when police grabbed him. The Oct. 8 beating by three New Orleans police officers was captured on video by an Associated Press Television News crew covering the aftermath of the hurricane. The videotape shows an...