Free Republic

Police have asked the public for help identifying multiple drivers suspected of intentionally defacing a Black Lives Matter street mural in Springfield, Massachusetts, in September. The Springfield Police Department shared several videos of drivers doing burnouts and leaving tire tracks on the words, which are painted near the Springfield City Hall. Police said they have been investigating one incident from September 14 and two from September 20. The Springfield Police Department said it requested a criminal complaint, with felony charges of defacement of real or personal property, for a suspect involved in the September 14 incident. Police said they were...

CHICAGO — A federal judge today sentenced a former Chicago Police sergeant to 13 years in prison for participating in a robbery and extortion crew.In the 1990s, EDDIE C. HICKS and three others participated in a robbery ring that targeted suspected drug dealers under the guise of police investigations.  The four-person crew staged phony drug raids and automobile stops of suspected dealers, threatened them with arrest, then kept the drugs, cash, or weapons they discovered. All four were arrested and charged in federal court.  Hicks fled Chicago in June 2003 while free on bond and awaiting trial.  He remained a...

Over 3,100 people have been shot in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago thus far in 2020. The Chicago Tribune reports the exact number of shooting victims at 3,132, and that includes the fatally wounded as well as those who survived. The Tribune reports the number of homicides January 1, 2020, through September 28, 2020, at 576, CNN reported fewer than 500 for all of 2019.

The video shows police tackle a shirtless Parscale to the ground and place handcuffs on him after he emerged from his home, as he repeatedly said he “didn’t do anything.”

A woman at a grade-school football game in Ohio on Wednesday was reportedly tased and arrested by a police officer for not wearing a face mask in the stands. The woman was sitting in the bleachers with her mother when she got into an altercation with the cop about mask-wearing at a middle school in the town of Logan, the Marietta Times reported. Video of the incident, which was posted to YouTube, shows the woman resisting as the officer struggles to handcuff her for nearly two minutes before he deploys his Taser.

A former Philadelphia police officer who was cleared of charges that he falsified records is suing to get his job back, saying officials were retaliating for his support of Black Lives Matter. Bryan Turner, who is (b)lack, sued the city and the Philadelphia Police Department this week in federal court, claiming systematic discrimination against him. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and reinstatement with back pay. A spokesman for the mayor’s office said the city does not comment on open litigation. A spokesman for the police department declined a request for comment. Turner, 31, was fired in 2018 and arrested on...

An Orange County sheriff’s deputy suspected of breaking into the Yorba Linda home of a man who died in July is now on paid leave after being arrested, officials said Thursday. He is currently on paid administrative leave, said Carrie Braun, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department. However, she said, the agency is “looking into the possibility” of getting him on unpaid leave. On Wednesday, an attorney representing the family estate of the man contacted the Sheriff’s Department about items reported missing from the home, officials said. He gave the department footage showing the deputy breaking in. “Yesterday was when the...

Draconian enforcement of COVID-19 lockdown accelerates. Yet another shock video out of Australia shows police enforcing coronavirus rules by arresting an elderly woman sitting on a park bench for not wearing a mask. “This is unlawful, on what grounds am I under arrest?” asks the woman. An officer then walks around the back of the bench and snatches her friend’s phone away, preventing her from filming the encounter. The woman is told that she is being arrested for failing to provide her name and address. ... Once a person has been targeted for not wearing a mask or violating any...

Police said they were called to a home in Glendale Friday night with a report of a boy who had threatened people with a weapon. The young man reportedly ran and was shot by an officer after being pursued by police. The child’s mother, Golda Barton, told KUTV-TV that her son has autism and she had called police because he was having a breakdown and needed a crisis intervention team. Barton claimed she told police her son was unarmed and warned them that he did not know how to regulate his behavior. A few minutes after two officers who had...

Tempe police are investigating after an officer pointed a gun at a Black hotel employee, while searching for a white suspect. See video at link.

Three Tennessee police officers are facing repercussions after they entered the wrong home in a botched police raid. The dents made when police kicked in the front door of Azaria Hines’ home remain, along with the trauma of that morning. “I feel violated. I feel embarrassed. I’m humiliated,” Hines said. “Everybody is all in my business. And all of this for nothing, for something that I had nothing to even do with.” Police Chief John Drake decommissioned the officers after they raided the wrong address, using what he calls “excessive force.” They had reportedly been given outdated information given to...

Two police officers in New Jersey admitted they vandalized vehicles belonging to a man after he filed an internal affairs complaint against them. SNIP The officers said they slashed the tires of the vehicles and smashed a window on one of them, causing more than $500 in damage. “Spiteful retaliation from law enforcement officers towards a citizen for any reason is an unacceptable option. This is in no way condoned at any level, for any reason," said Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni.

Three Metro Nashville police officers have had their law enforcement powers restricted after they improperly forced open the door of a family's home Tuesday around dawn, Interim Police Chief John Drake said. The officers who've been decommissioned announced themselves, then began using a battering ram as they executed a warrant in search of evidence connected to a teenager wanted in a property crimes investigation, Drake said Wednesday at a news conference. They were not there for a violent criminal or drug raid, he added. Officials later learned the teenager had not lived at that address in several months, he said....

*Video of an Australian woman being choked by police and violently wrestled to the ground for not wearing a mask has reportedly sparked an internal investigation. According to local outlet 7News, her decision to walk the streets bare-faced was a breach of the Chief Health Officers orders under Stage 4, which mandates the wearing of masks. She also faces separate charges of resisting and assaulting police. The woman was subsequently found to have had an exemption for wearing a mask from a doctor, according to 7News. The incident took place Monday afternoon when the 21-year-old woman was approached by two...

Four more Baldwin Park police officers, former and active, have filed government claims against the city, following in the footsteps of former police Chief Steve McLean, who alleged city officials were corrupt in June, according to an attorney representing the claimants. In government claims filed against the city in July, Chris Kurberry, Mike Hemenway, Daniel Rodriguez and an unnamed claimant identified as “AA DOE” continue McLean’s original allegations, calling Mayor Manuel Lozano and other city leaders racist and corrupt. Lozano declined to comment on the claims, saying he would address them once they are presented to the City Council. City...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Despite mounting public pressure to file criminal charges nearly five months after Breonna Taylor’s death, prosecutors may face significant obstacles to bringing homicide-related charges against police officers who were shot at when sent to her house with a warrant, legal experts said. Tensions have swelled in her home town and spread far afield as activists, professional athletes and social media stars push for action while investigators plead for more patience. The warrant also has been called into question and, with federal officials looking into potential civil rights abuses, the case could reach beyond the officers on...

The charges, which grew out of a lethal 2019 raid based on a fraudulent search warrant affidavit, suggest that cops routinely built their cases on lies.A Harris County, Texas, grand jury has confirmed the criminal charges against six former Houston narcotics officers that District Attorney Kim Ogg announced on July 1, while adding two more counts against one of the defendants. The 17 felony charges include falsification of search warrants, fraudulent reports of drug purchases, and phony overtime claims. The indictments, which were issued on Friday, reflect the shady practices and lax supervision that enabled veteran Houston police officer Gerald...

When he heads to airports now, Samuel Haile thinks of that day at Buffalo's airport a few years ago. The government took $12,000 from his carry-on and wouldn't give it back. Haile was not charged with a crime ... Dozens of passengers have suffered such a loss in recent years in Buffalo. With an X-ray machine, a screener spots a dense mass in a piece of luggage. If it's an unusually large sum of cash, the government takes it on the suspicion that it's drug money. At Buffalo and every other airport in the country, the TSA screens bags and...

A Virginia state trooper is under investigation for a traffic stop in 2019 during which he can be heard on video telling a [b]lack driver, "You're going to get your a-- whooped," before forcefully removing the man from his car, authorities said Wednesday. An attorney for the motorist, Derrick Thompson, tweeted video Monday from the encounter that Thompson recorded with his cellphone.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- With weapons drawn, Louisville Metro Police SWAT officers raided a home last July to serve a warrant on an alleged drug suspect, but instead, they handcuffed a man hired to paint the vacant house, his girlfriend and her 10-year-old daughter, a lawsuit claims. In fact, the suit alleges, LMPD officers had already searched the home in the 100 block of Amherst Avenue near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport 10 days earlier and arrested the person they were looking for -- and who was still in custody at the time of the July 15, 2019, raid. Roy...