Free Republic

When a pushy 7-foot alligator tried to break through a chain-link fence onto the Clermont Middle School campus on Thursday, Lake County mom Jessica McGregor took charge. McGregor, who’s also a Lake County deputy, didn’t want to wait nearly two hours for a distant trapper to show up and cart the offending party off to his destiny as an expensive purse. Especially when the final bell of the school day was ringing and parents were picking up students. “I’ve lived in Lake County my whole life. Back in the day, you had these things come up on your land, and...

FLORENCE, Texas -- The Vybiral family are dog lovers; considering their four-legged companions members of their family. It started with Sassy, a six year old Rhodesian Ridgeback. Now this family is mourning, Sassy is dead. "She's crying, she's hysterical. 'There's blood mom. She's shooting guns.'" Louise Vybiral describes the phone call she received from her daughter Caren Friday afternoon. Caren says she was watching a movie with her two year old daughter Lilly when gunshots rang out. She thought they were coming from across the street. "Thought maybe Chevron was being robbed or something. I didn't have any idea what...

Charlie Mitchener is a 61-year-old general building contractor with an office near Patrick Lane and Fort Apache Road in Las Vegas. He holds permits allowing him to legally carry concealed weapons in Nevada, Florida and Utah. Over the past three years, his office has been broken into five times. "Three of those occasions involved me interacting with Metro," he wrote to me recently. "Each of the occasions began the same: my introduction, my presentation of my Nevada drivers license and my concealed firearms permit. Prior to today, each Metro officer simply replied thank you, proceeded with his work and then...

The Minnesota State Patrol announced today that it has disciplined a state trooper for using her squad car to ram the van driven by a Hudson, Wis., man during a traffic stop in St. Paul on New Year's Eve. A review board established by the Patrol concluded that while the trooper, Carrie Rindal, had reason for a heightened level of concern, her decision to ram the van was not justified. The board also found that the driver, Sam Salter, 40, was not "actively intending to flee." Rindal arrested Salter at gunpoint for fleeing police, and took him to the Ramsey...

A city cop shot and killed a man in a Brooklyn church parking lot Thursday after he threatened to bash her with a folding chair. "Drop the chair! Drop the chair!" Officer Dawn Ortiz yelled in English and then in Spanish. "Stop!" But he wouldn't drop the chair or stop, police and witnesses said. And when he was practically on her, the officer fired once - hitting him in the chest, said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Shawnee Co. sheriff criticized over man who died after shocks * Shawnee County Sheriff's Department TOPEKA, Kan. - The local sheriff's department says it might not know for weeks whether a deputy's Taser shocks killed a man in a brief confrontation, but it continues to face criticism over the incident. Walter E. Haake Jr., a 59-year-old Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. worker, died early Sunday after an ambulance and two deputies responded to a report that he was having a medical emergency. Haake was in his car at Goodyear's north Topeka plant, and the deputies asked him to get out....

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police. The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report. In April 2006, officers with the police department said they were called to a disturbance at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street just before 5 p.m. In a 911 call made to the Green Cove Springs, Delafield can be heard telling a...