Free Republic

Florida authorities jailed Jennifer Box for three nights over Christmas on another woman's warrant. Now she's suing, alleging they violated her rights Jennifer Heath Box shivered on a mat on the floor, her back pressed against another inmate's back, as they desperately tried to stay warm. The air conditioning blew a frigid breeze through the Broward County Jail in south Florida. Guards walked by wearing coats and beanies. It was Christmas Eve. Her son, a Marine, was leaving on Dec. 27 to spend three years stationed in Okinawa, Japan. And the police had arrested the wrong "Jennifer."

Terrifying body camera video showed the moment US Marshals arrested an innocent Arizona grandmother under the barrel of a gun after mistaking her for a completely different person. The two-minute video, obtained by ABC15 after six months of hounding the federal government, showed rifle-wielding officers shouting commands at 66-year-old Penny McCarthy. McCarthy was confused and frightened during the March 5 incident, not even aware at first that she was being pursued by US Marshals. 'We have an arrest warrant,' a federal agent is heard saying on the video. 'For me?' McCarthy responded. 'Yes. For you,' the officer said. 'Who am...

Shocking footage shows US Marshals aggressively arresting an Arizona woman who they thought skipped out on probation 25 years ago — but they got the wrong person and instead pulled their guns on a grandmother who had never heard of the suspect. “I truly felt like I was being kidnapped,” 66-year-old Penny McCarthy told ABC 15 after the outlet obtained bodycam footage from the arrest. “Turn away. Turn around. Turn away. We’ll discuss it later. Turn away. You’re gonna get hit,” the officers roared at her. “Can you prove you’re the police?” McCarthy asked — but the officers refused to...

The most high-profile opponent of Australia’s brutal COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and violent suppression of public criticism has been Monica Smit. Her resistance is continuing. She has announced that she will be suing the Victoria police. The court case is scheduled for July 23 and is expected to take 15 days.

After bags of heart-shaped Valentine’s Day candy found inside a man’s car led to his arrest on a drug charge, he decided to sue police in New Jersey, according to a federal lawsuit. Fernando Saint-Jean, of Massachusetts, says he was “falsely charged” with possession of MDMA/ecstasy after officers found the candy inside his car during a traffic stop in New Jersey, court documents state. However, lab test results proved that the pastel-colored candy, commonly found in stores around Valentine’s Day, did not contain illegal substances more than two months after Palisades Interstate Parkway Police officers arrested Saint-Jean in May 2018,...

Hertz customers are attempting to sue the rental car company after being falsely arrested and sometimes jailed for months after the company listed the rental cars they paid for as stolen. More than 165 people from several states have filed legal complaints against Hertz for 'egregious business malpractices,' according to civil litigation ongoing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington. The news made national headlines last week bringing forward another hundred claimants, lead attorney Francis Alexander Malofiy told DailyMail.com. Each customer claims they were falsely arrested for driving a stolen vehicle despite having receipts confirming their rentals. The furious claimants say...

After the FBI seized Joseph Ruiz’s life savings during a raid on a safe deposit box business in Beverly Hills, the unemployed chef went to court to retrieve his $57,000. A judge ordered the government to tell Ruiz why it was trying to confiscate the money. It came from drug trafficking, an FBI agent responded in court papers. Ruiz’s income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer, the agent wrote. The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs...

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii officials wrongly arrested a homeless man for a crime committed by someone else, locked him up in a state hospital for more than two years, forced him to take psychiatric drugs and then tried to cover up the mistake by quietly setting him free with just 50 cents to his name, the Hawaii Innocence Project said in a court document asking a judge to set the record straight. A petition filed in court Monday night asks a judge to vacate the arrest and correct Joshua Spriestersbach’s records. The filing lays out his bizarre plight that started...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When a detective asked for help identifying a murder suspect from a Facebook photo, an Albuquerque Public Schools employee obliged. But that employee picked the wrong girl. The case of mistaken identity left an Albuquerque High student in jail for a week — charged with a murder she played no part in. Making matters worse for 17-year-old Gisell Estrada, the criminal complaint was sealed, which Estrada’s defense attorney says left him blind to the allegations against her. Police had said Estrada and her friends set up the robbery of a 21-year-old man in July that ended with...

NYPD officers arrested Ousmane Bah on November 29th after he was falsely linked to a series of Apple Store thefts in Boston, New Jersey, Delaware and Manhattan. Apparently, the real perpetrator used a stolen ID that had his name, address and other personal information. However, since the ID didn't have a photo, the lawsuit states Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details. A detective that eventually examined Apple's surveillance footage after the arrest determined that the real Bah didn't look anything like the thief. Further, Bah was attending his senior prom...

The police department in Douglas County, Colorado, has finally apologized to Joshua McCay for arresting him in 2017 and charging him with driving a car during a police chase, despite having no evidence against him. It took months for the police to arrest another suspect and drop their case against McCay, and the case raises some huge questions about how police handled the situation. Meanwhile, McCay is stuck with the cost of thousands of dollars in legal fees from battling a charge he should never have faced in the first place. On Aug. 31, police arrested three people who had...

Kyle Chapman, known as “Based Stickman” on Facebook, was arrested in Berkeley, CA Monday after fighting with a group who confronted him for carrying an American flag around town. Chapman was walking around Berkeley wearing a baseball helmet and toting the flag while being filmed to promote a free-speech rally scheduled for Saturday. A group of youths approached Chapman, telling him and his cameraman to leave. One man got in Chapman’s face, challenging him to fight. Chapman then punched his aggressor in the face. As he swung, another member of the group hit Chapman with a skateboard.

CHESTERTON, IN — An innocent man was arrested in an early morning raid and jailed for 10 days because he had the same first and last name as a drug suspect.  The ordeal caused him to lose his job, rack up bills, and nearly get evicted from his home. Steven M. Thompson, a service technician at Arcelor-Mittal Steel, received an “early morning visit” from the Porter County Drug Task Force (PCDTF) on on May 5th.  He was taken from his teenage daughter in handcuffs. Mr. Thompson had done nothing wrong.  He assumed the misunderstanding would be easily cleared up once...

I, Monika E. Gasztonyi, longtime resident of Painesville, Ohio am of sound Mind, Body and Spirit. I am not in any way, shape or form suicidal. I have no desires, no notions, no thoughts, no feelings, and no plans to kill myself. So if the Painesville city police department and/or the Lake county sheriff's department tells the Local Press that I committed suicide, know in an instant that I was murdered by some very stupid person(s). Most likely someone in the so-called "law enforcement" community. Furthermore, I have no desire, no inclination, no feelings and no plans to cause bodily...

Friday August 13, 2010 D.C. Admits Planned Parenthood 'Private Property' Sign was False By James Tillman WASHINGTON, August 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Washington city officials have admitted that the sidewalk outside of a Planned Parenthood abortuary is in fact public property, not private property as Planned Parenthood had claimed.  The city has therefore retreated from its threat to arrest as a trespasser anyone who prays on the sidewalk. “Now that Planned Parenthood’s lie has been exposed, it is time for the City to demand that the signs that falsely claim the public land as private property be removed,” said...

ANTA -- An Atlanta man claims he was arrested for catching an on-duty officer chatting on Facebook. Chandler Brown told Channel 2 Action News reporter Erin Coleman that he has since filed a formal complaint with the Atlanta Police Department and the mayor's office. Coleman obtained a copy of that complaint, which makes startling accusations about the officer allegedly chatting on Facebook when he was on the job. “It was Thanksgiving night … my friend called me and said, ‘I’ve been in an accident,’” said Brown. Brown said he immediately hailed a cab and went to the scene on Interstate...

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on. As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me." Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men...

ALBANY -- As the story goes, Lisa Shutter went shopping on Central Avenue on Dec. 22, got lost picking up a friend and was eventually stopped by police in West Hill. That's where an officer reached into her underpants and touched her genitals during a cavity search on a city street, she told internal investigators on Christmas Eve.

A Hempfield Area High School sophomore spent 12 days in juvenile detention after authorities in Westmoreland County mistakenly charged him with making a March 11 bomb threat, in part because the district had not changed its clocks to reflect daylight-saving time.

San Francisco resident Matthew Shinnick tried to sell a pair of mountain bikes on Craigslist late last year. He attracted a buyer, received a check in the mail -- and ended up handcuffed by police in a downtown Bank of America branch and jailed for almost 12 hours. BofA calls the bizarre episode "an unfortunate series of events" and says that "clearly and without equivocation, Bank of America regrets what occurred." But the bank says it was only doing its duty by notifying the cops when a bad check surfaced. It also says Shinnick has no grounds to sue for...