Free Republic

The NBA consists of 76 percent black players. But blacks are just 13 percent of the country. Clearly, the league engages in racial discrimination against whites. Silly, right? Well, this is exactly what the sleight-of-hand Department of Justice pulled off to find that the Ferguson Police Department engages in "implicit and explicit racial bias"! The report insults anybody who's ever studied the statistics - or logic. The 105-page report concludes: "Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson's police...

1924: Pep, “The Cat-Murdering Dog” Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" was a black Labrador Retriever admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary on August 12, 1924. Prison folklore tells us that Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot used his executive powers to sentence Pep to Life Without Parole for killing his wife’s cherished cat. Prison records support this story: Pep’s inmate number (C-2559) is skipped in prison intake logs and inmate records. The Governor told a different story. He said Pep had been sent to Eastern to act as a mascot for the prisoners. He and the Warden, Herbert “Hard-Boiled” Smith, were friends. Pep was...

Events in Ferguson, Missouri raise this question: Is the criminal justice system unfair to minorities, especially blacks? Liberal blogger Ezra Klein says it is. And libertarian Rand Paul agrees. Klein serves up these statistics: · Of people impacted by a SWAT deployment, at least 54 percent were minorities. · White and black people are similarly likely to use drugs, but black people are 3.6 times likelier to be arrested for drug use than white people. · Until 2010, triggering the mandatory 5-year sentence for cocaine, which is used more often in the white community, required possession of 100 times as...

The facts that seem undisputed -- and in these situations that is so rare -- are that an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown was walking in a street; an altercation occurred with a police officer; the officer gave chase to Mr. Brown after the scuffle and shot Mr. Brown at least once in the back, approximately 20 feet from where the scuffle occurred. The police officer claims Mr. Brown tried to take the police officer's gun. Witnesses disagree. What is undisputed is by the time you read this, Mr. Brown, who worked his way through a bleak high school...

Call me crazy, but police in riot gear seem a thoroughly appropriate response to actual rioting. But even that basic logic is being shattered in Ferguson, Missouri, along with various store windows, as lawless opportunists take every advantage of a police shooting that deserves sober, objective review. If the opportunism of vicious vandals is not enough, add the kerosene of race-baiting showboats arriving on the scene to aggrandize themselves against the basic interests of the community. So what does that community need? Best to begin with what it does not need. It does not need the President of the...

Colonial Crimes and Punishments Crime: assault in sudden anger, blasphemy, counterfeiting, idolatry, murder, rebellion, robbery of a church, witchcraft Punishment: death by hanging Crime: denying God, killing chickens, spying, stealing grapes, striking one’s mother or father Punishment: death (usually by hanging) Crime: forgery, manslaughter, theft Punishment: branding with an “F” for forgery, an “M” for manslaughter, or a “T” for theft Crime: hog theft Punishment: first offense: 25 lashes and a fine of 400 pounds of tobacco (39 lashes for a Native American or mulatto), second offense: time in the pillory, ear nailing third offense: death (usually by hanging)...

To judge from the ghastly details of “The Wichita Massacre” that I relayed in a recent article, it is difficult not to think that this abomination of a crime supplies us with as blatant an expression of unmitigated evil as any that we’re likely to encounter. Indeed, Reginald Carr and his brother Jonathan are in fact the “soulless monsters” that one of their two surviving victims described them as being, and if they were white and their victims were black—rather than the other way around—there isn’t a person in America who wouldn’t have long known this. Yet as a...

Can you imagine getting a phone call that your sweet, seventy-three year old grandma was sucker punched by a roving band of teenaged thugs and she’s now in ICU with a broken jaw and a cracked noggin? You can’t? Yeah, me either. But we should start envisioning such a bizarre scenario for our sainted elders and others because “the knockout game” is all the rage for demonic hood rats lurking the streets. If you’re not dialed in on the sadistic phenomenon known as the “knock out game” then Google it yourself because I’m not going to provide a link to...

De Blasio gets policing advice — from ex-cons Forget Ray Kelly, Bill de Blasio is getting his policing advice from the real experts — hardened criminals. A group of 50 ex-cons, junkies and chronic vagrants gathered at a Manhattan “Think Tank” Thursday to describe what they thought the NYPD should be doing to make their lives easier. The felonious forum outlined a clear “get-soft-on-crime” vision. “I like the idea of ending stop and frisk. That was the first thing that was totally there for me,” opined Mikell Green-Grand, a 49-year-old former jailbird who has convictions for grand larceny and identity...

A Russian lawyer who is assisting fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden with his asylum request said Tuesday that he had brought Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 19-century classic novel "Crime and Punishment" to a meeting with him at a Moscow airport. "I bought him Dostoyevsky’s "Crime and Punishment," because I think that he should read about Raskolnikov," lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who arrived at Sheremetyevo airport Wednesday afternoon, said in an interview with Rossia 24 TV, referring to the novel's main character who repents after killing an elderly female pawnbroker and is sent to Siberia for punishment. "I am not saying there is...

65-year-old man says nurse in her 20s raped him at Philadelphia hospital The man claims the woman assaulted him on Feb. 27 while he was at Temple University Hospital recovering from a motorcycle accident. A 65-year-old man says a young female nurse raped him while he was recovering from a motorcycle accident at a Philadelphia hospital last month. The man, who has not been identified, said a Temple University Hospital nurse in her 20s entered his room at around 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 27, offered to bathe him and then sexually assaulted him in a bathroom, NBC Philadelphia reported. Police...

If you think a twenty-something ought to be tossed in federal prison for 35 years because he tried to download some musty academic journal articles without permission, you are a lot things, but a conservative is not one of them. You might be relieved to know that Aaron Swartz, one of the internet geniuses behind RSS and Reddit.com, will not be imprisoned for a third of a century. Unfortunately, that’s because the fragile young man hanged himself after the United States attorney prosecuting the case generously offered him the alternative of pleading guilty to a felony, paying a crippling fine...

<p>A homeless man was sentenced today to 60 days in jail for choking a pelican to death because he was hungry.</p> <p>The District Attorney's Office said Sergio Alvarez, 30, caught the bird near the Malibu pier on Aug. 22.</p> <p>About 5:50 p.m. that day, a bystander flagged down a sheriff's deputy and said a man was choking a pelican.</p>

For Summer 2012 - U.S. Bikini Laws ... Circa 1920s - 1930s Bathing Suit Arrests, Chicago, 1922 “Women being arrested in Chicago for defying a ban on wearing brief swimsuits in public. Women were meant to cover-up when not in the water” - Australian National Maritime Museum US Bikini Laws, 1922 ‘June 30, 1922. Washington policeman Bill Norton measuring the distance between knee and suit at the Tidal Basin bathing beach after Col. Sherrell, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, issued an order that suits not be over six inches above the knee.’ - National Photo Co. US Bikini Laws,...

South Korea unveils robotic prison guards, promises futuristic cavity searches To round out their drug-sniffing clone dog army, South Korean authorities are now experimenting with robotic prison guards. Lest you think these cyber-wardens will be equipped with gatling guns in the style of Robocop's ED-209, know that this alarm-equipped bot has more in common with the Death Star's delivery droids. Of course, the robots' responsibilities may expand as the technology improves. Explains Reuters of these security machines' potential uses: The robot has been designed to patrol a prison autonomously, but an IPad will allow manual control as well. The next...

Welcome To The World's Nicest Prison BASTOY, Norway (CNN) -- Jan Petter Vala, who is serving a prison sentence for murder, has hands the size of dinner plates and shoulders like those of an ox. In an alcoholic rage, he used his brutish strength to strangle his girlfriend to death a few years ago. On a recent Thursday, however, at this summer-camp-like island prison in southern Norway, where convicts hold keys to their rooms and there are no armed guards or fences, Vala used those same enormous hands to help bring life into the world. The 42-year-old murderer stood watch...

Chicago area has most corruption convictions in nation, UIC study says The Chicago area logged the most public corruption convictions of any federal jurisdiction in the United States during the past 36 years, according to a report released today by the University of Illinois at Chicago. Federal prosecutors secured a total of 1,531 public corruption convictions in the Northern District of Illinois since 1976, said Dick Simpson, head of the university’s political science department. Meanwhile, Illinois logged 1,828 public corruption convictions, the third most of any state, according to the report. Only California and New York had more. But those...

DNA Test Helps Enforce Pet Clean Up Policy SAN DIEGO - The same DNA technology that has solved cold case murders is now being used to crack down on a whole new class of criminals: dog owners who don't clean up after their pets. "Unfortunately, people leave surprises in my yard, but I always carry plastic bags, so I can clean up those surprises," said dog owner Ted Stevens. Now, BioPet Vet Lab ,a company in Knoxville, Tenn., has developed technology that is says can identify the dogs that leave unwelcome calling cards on neighborhood lawns. The system, called Pooprints,...

Individuals wiser than I tell us the balance of nature allows for both good and bad, although not always in equal measure. Most of the time, we must search hard for the good in a situation so our personal scales will balance. Priests and preachers put it another way by teaching us that God does not close a door without opening another. In the case of our family and of the man who tortured and killed my wife’s sister nearly 30 years ago, the closing of his prison cell opens the door for our long-delayed healing. If you have not...

Sen. Chuck Schumer refused to answer questions Monday evening about the Twitter scandal that has ensnared Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), his one-time congressional aide. But in a statement, the powerful Democratic senator said he was "deeply pained and saddened" about the married congressman's admission at a New York news conference Monday that he carried on lewd online conversations with at least half a dozen women. "By fully explaining himself, apologizing to all he hurt and taking full responsibility for his wrongful actions, Anthony did the right thing," Schumer said. "He remains a talented and committed public servant, and I pray...