Free Republic

An Alabama man who planted flowers on the gravesite of his fiancee and was arrested at the direction of the woman’s disapproving father was found guilty of littering this week. About a month after Winston “Winchester” Hagans got engaged, his fiancee, Hannah Ford, was killed in a three-car crash in January 2021 that shattered what was supposed to be the happiest time of their lives. To honor the 27-year-old, Hagans placed a planter box full of fresh flowers and photos of the two of them on her grave in Auburn, Ala. But earlier this year, Hagans was arrested on a...

"I feel guilty man, 'cause I couldn’t stop" Ramos, Briseno told NBC. "He was shooting at the windows, and I didn’t have my gun on me." He said the memory was refreshed with every grave he dug for a victim -- one of them for his own cousin. "It always plays in my head," he told NBC

Prokupecz asked Arredondo why he had ordered his officers to wait outside the school while Salvador Ramos, 18, was inside killing 19 kids and two teachers. Arredondo deflected Prokupecz's questions, repeatedly saying that there would be answers once the parents of victims were done grieving. Shortly after confronting the chief, Prokupecz was confronted by a group of Uvalde ISD officers who told him that cops from the Uvalde Police Department were on the way, and that he and his crew would be charged with trespassing if they were still present when they arrived.

UVALDE, Tex. — Pedro “Pete” Arredondo sat before the Uvalde school board last year and let members know what the school system police force needed to be ready to face an active shooter. The pandemic had cut into trainings for his six-member department, the chief said, and while officers had completed a program the previous summer, they needed more — as many as possible. “It’s just like golf, if you play once a year, in six months you’re just not all that great,” Arredondo said, according to a video posted on YouTube of the March 2021 meeting. He stressed that...

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District in Texas has its own police department, complete with four officers, a detective and security staff who patrol the campus and its entrances. This didn’t prevent a gunman from killing 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School last week. “The research is clear that more police and hardening schools doesn’t work,” said Patrick Bresette, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund of Texas. This debate over school police isn’t new, though. Organizers have long pointed out the negative impacts of police in schools: Black and Latino children are more likely to be...