Free Republic

Tempers flared Tuesday night at a Los Angeles Police Commission community forum on a controversial proposal to ease the towing and impound policy for unlicensed drivers. Under current laws, the cars of unlicensed drivers are towed and impounded for 30 days if they are stopped by officers. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has proposed lifting the 30-day impound and giving the registered owner or a licensed driver a reasonable chance to retrieve the vehicle. Critics, including the LAPD police union, say the changes just reward lawbreakers and put politics above safety. The meeting in Northridge was packed with residents who were...

In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA's dominant election results reporting company. When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com. The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format. As reported by BlackBoxVoting.org in 2008, the bad news is that...

“California Lawmaker Pleads No Contest in Shoplift Case,” The Associated Press reports at Fox News. Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, entered the plea in San Francisco Superior Court after the judge reduced a theft charge against her from a felony to a misdemeanor at a prosecutor's request. After she tried to lift $2,500 worth of clothes? How many of us mere mortals think we could get away with felony grand theft and have the prosecutor go to bat for us, and then walk away from it with no jail time, our jobs intact and a fine of less than the...

GREENBRAE, Calif. (KGO) -- A 90-year-old Marin County man recovering after being wounded during a shootout with an intruder is having trouble breathing and is heavily sedated. Jay Leone shot the burglary suspect three times after the man broke into his Greenbrae home Wednesday morning. Police say the suspect also had a gun and shot Leone in the cheek. His sister tells ABC7 it has been "touch and go" the last few days. Leone is now on a ventilator and doctors may have to perform a tracheotomy. Leone is a World War II veteran and a former law enforcement agent....

GREENBRAE (CBS 5) – It turns out it took more than firepower for a 90-year-old Greenbrae resident to free himself after a burglar kicked in the door of his home around 11 a.m. Wednesday. In an exclusive interview at his bedside at Marin General Hospital, 90-year-old Jay Leone told CBS 5 he had to outwit the burglar who held him captive at gunpoint. After the gunman, identified as 30-year-old Novato resident Joseph Cutrufelli, allegedly kicked in the door, Leone said he was ordered not to move as the house was scoured for valuables. But after awhile, Leone insisted that he...

KINGSBURG, Calif. (KMPH) - A Kingsburg man opens fire, and now the father of four is being called a hero. Deputies say he shot a man who broke into his home. It happened at a house in Kingsburg, just after midnight, last Friday morning. 39-year-old Adan Duran says the intruder first broke into his truck, took a hammer out of his own tool box and tried to break in through the garage. When he couldn't, he went to the front of the house where he was confronted by two dogs that bit him. Duran says he attacked the dogs and...

Thousands of Los Angeles County workers who collected a reported $48 million in unused vacation pay could dramatically impact both the county’s budget and pension funds, according to county officials. KNX 1070′s Vytas Safronikas reports the Board of Supervisors is outraged over a new report showing dozens of retirees receiving hefty compensation packages. The Los Angeles Times reported on one Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Marie Hannah who retired with a $143,000 annual pension and a one-time payment of $183,683 for unused time off. The package was reportedly for a combination of 325 days of vacation pay, sick time, comp...

A former sheriff’s deputy and World War II pilot shot and injured an armed intruder in a quiet Greenbrae neighborhood Wednesday morning in what law enforcement described as a random residential burglary, Twin Cities police said. Jay Leone, 90, was shot once in the face after he encountered the suspect at about 10:46 a.m. on Jan.4 in the 300 block of Via La Cumbre, a one-way street off Eliseo Drive in Greenbrae. Leone, armed with a .38-caliber handgun, fired three times and hit the suspect in the torso area, according to police. The suspect fled and made it to a...

When Governor Brown signed AB 144 into law in October, the bill came to his desk sponsored by the California Police Chiefs Association, among other public safety organizations. Effective as of Jan. 1, the new law was written by California legislators in 2011 as an effort to stop people from visiting their local coffee shop or shopping mall while packing heat. Known as the "open carry" law, it was vehemently opposed by gun rights advocates and is now the subject of state and federal lawsuits. The president of the group California Right to Carry, Charles Nichols, has filed a civil...

It’s now illegal for Californians to openly carry an unloaded handgun in a public place. The new law does not apply to unloaded long guns. As TTAG predicted, open carry advocates are there. “A man showed up at a Daly City mall Monday with an unloaded shotgun strapped to his back – and he wasn’t arrested,” sfexaminer.com reports with hyphenated astonishment. “A security guard called police after spotting a man with a shotgun outside Serramonte Shopping Center about 9 a.m., before the mall opened for business, Daly City police Sgt. Michael Barton said. Responding cops located the man, but then...

SAF, CALGUNS Foundation Sue California Over Firearms Statue Golden State imposes 10-day wait between gun purchases by Neil W. McCabe 01/02/2012 The Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation joined the Calguns Foundation lawsuit against the California Department of Justice and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris filed December 23 contesting the state’s 10-day waiting period between gun purchases. "We've joined in this lawsuit because it makes no sense for California to require a gun owner who already possesses a firearm from buying another one within a few days," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. "We recall what Dr. Martin Luther King...

“San Jose Police Detective Matthew Christian created a document, on letterhead that bore the seal of the Santa Clara County Crime Lab, which falsely stated that Michael Kerkeles’s semen was found at the alleged crime scene. The fake report purported to be authored by a technician named ‘Rebecca Roberts.’ Christian then testified under oath that the report was true.

Gun turn-in programs (“Annual gun swap hits its mark,” Local, Dec. 20) are the first step to disarm the citizens of the United States. They are designed to desensitize people to the action of giving up our arms at the request of the government. The Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment in recognition of the God-given right to a person’s self-defense. As they had just fought a war against a tyrant, they recognized the need for every citizen to have the means to defend himself against criminals both local and governmental. Presently there is a modicum of respect (fear) of...

BELLEVUE, Wash., Dec. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation has joined the Calguns Foundation and three California citizens in a federal lawsuit against the California Department of Justice and Attorney General Kamala Harris, challenging the state's requirement that gun owners wait at least ten days before taking possession of an additional firearm. The case is known as Jeff Silvester et.al. v Kamala Harris, et.al. "We've joined in this lawsuit because it makes no sense for California to require a gun owner who already possesses a firearm from buying another one within a few days," said SAF Executive Vice...

California --(Ammoland.com)- I know that our fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self-defense is important to you. This individual liberty ensures that we have an opportunity to protect our lives and those of our loved ones should the need arise. We Californians are all too aware of the many infringements of this enumerated right that regular, law-abiding people like us face on a daily basis, yet it’s for this very reason the road to freedom runs through the Golden State. 2011 was a notable year for gun rights and our culture of respect for the constitution. Over the...

FIRST OFF, merry Christmas. Now, for the gift that keeps on giving: city council meetings. Specifically, Ontario's. I attended Ontario's meeting last Tuesday in hopes of getting a short item or two, despite the scanty agenda. As often happens for me in situations that seem unpromising, the meeting proved to be a gold mine. (Philosophers among my readership sometimes ask if news breaks out simply because I'm at a meeting, or if the news would have happened anyway. That's an imponderable. Does the light in the refrigerator stay on when the door is closed?) Let's start with the public comment...

ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Delfino Aldama was fixing a customer's brakes this month when his smartphone chimed with a text message that tipped him to a police checkpoint more than an hour before officers began stopping motorists. The self-employed auto mechanic frantically called friends with the location and drove an alternate route home

Former Oakhurst resident Danny Henley, 53, was shot and killed after attempting to murder Oakhurst resident Derry Burnett shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18. The incident occurred at Burnett's residence on Snowline Court off Highway 41, just north of the closed Snowline Restaurant. According to Madera County Sheriff's Department reports, Henley went to Burnett's property with the intent to shoot him. Burnett had previously allowed Henley to live on his property but, when Burnett found out that Henley was bringing stolen goods onto his property, asked Henley to leave. According to Madera County Sheriff John Anderson, Henley returned to...

While the elites make excuses, citizens cope with theft and destruction. I am starting to feel as if I am living in a Vandal state, perhaps on the frontier near Carthage around a.d. 530, or in a beleaguered Rome in 455. Here are some updates from the rural area surrounding my farm, taken from about a 30-mile radius. In this take, I am not so much interested in chronicling the flotsam and jetsam as in fathoming whether there is some ideology that drives it. Last week an ancestral rural school near the Kings River had its large bronze bell stolen....

MAGALIA — A 29-year-old Magalia man with a prison record dating back to at least to 2003, was shot and killed Monday night after he allegedly forced his way into a home in the 15100 block of Jack Pine Way. John Randolph Shanks III was pronounced dead in the home around 8 p.m. The male resident of the home, who has yet to be identified, reportedly shot Shanks once in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun, according to Butte County sheriff's Sgt. Jason Hail. Hail said Shanks, who was wearing a bandana over his face when he entered the home,...