Free Republic

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships. Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act. Christian campaigners have expressed alarm that the Public Order Act, introduced in 1986 to tackle violent rioters and football hooligans, is being used to curb religious free speech.

US prosecutors have released video footage of a sheriff's deputy striking a 15-year-old girl and throwing her onto a cell floor. The video is evidence in the case against Washington state Deputy Paul Schene, accused of using excessive force against the girl in November. The incident began after the girl was arrested in a car theft inquiry. Footage shows the deputy lunge at the girl after she kicks one of her shoes towards him at SeaTac City Hall. "We believe this case is beyond just police misconduct, it's criminal misconduct," King County Prosecutor Daniel Satterberg said. "This is clearly excessive...

"You put that camera away! You put that camera away!" What started out as a peaceful protest in front of a church in Newark ends with an officer taking a news crew down.

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras. That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints. "I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner. "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives." The new technology streams to i-Phones and global positioning system devices, sounding off...

<p>A Chicago police officer avoided jail time today for pummeling a woman who was tending bar, even though prosecutors produced a previously unseen video showing him beating someone else at the bar hours earlier.</p> <p>Anthony Abbate was sentenced to two years probation for beating Karolina Obrycka in February of 2007. He could have gotten up to five years for the attack, which was captured by the bar's security camera and shown around the world.</p>

Among the likely choices for Obama's running mate, Joe Biden was not the person reformers were hoping to see on the democratic ticket. Radley Balko sums up Biden's drug war credentials: …from a policy perspective, it’s a disaster. Biden has sponsored more damaging drug war legislation than any Democrat in Congress. Hate the way federal prosecutors use RICO laws to take aim at drug offenders? Thank Biden. How about the abomination that is federal asset forfeiture laws? Thank Biden. Think federal prosecutors have too much power in drug cases? Thank Biden. Think the title of a “Drug Czar” is sanctimonious...

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Family members are angry and speaking out after Dayton police used a stun gun on a woman who is blind and suffering from cancer. Police said they were looking for a suspect when they knocked on Denise Harris's door Thursday morning. But according to both police and witnesses, things quickly got out of hand and Harris was tased. "She was able to force herself down on to the floor and not be cooperative, grabbing on to the detective. A taser was dry stunned onto her arm to control her hand movement, then she was cuffed," said...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The director of the FBI is not happy with the Supreme Court's recent handgun ruling. Robert Mueller said he tends to believe that "weapons harm people, and more often than not they harm the people carrying them." Mueller said the high court's decision, which threw out a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., "does throw a lot of things up in the air." Last week, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns by a 5-4 vote. It was the first major pronouncement on gun rights in history. Mueller said communities now will...

AURORA, Illinois, December 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A YouTube video shows police monitoring a peaceful protest in a Chicago suburb who threatened to arrest a man that was not part of the protest because he was praying while walking his baby in a stroller on the sidewalk near a huge Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Aurora resident Roger Earl was walking his baby and praying from a prayer book on November 17 when police confronted him and told him he couldn't be there. "I wasn't planning to be part of the protest today," said Earl. "I didn't realize that I was...

The city and its police department must take back an officer fired last fall amid accusations that he had used a stun gun on a handcuffed prisoner, an arbitrator ruled Monday. The reinstatement of Patrolman Daniel Bozsoki was to be immediate and with full seniority, though he would not receive any back pay and could be fired again for breaking any department rule, according to the decision from arbitrator James Mancini. Bozsoki, a second-year officer, was dismissed October 10 after internal investigators concluded that he violated department rules, including using unnecessary violence and inhumane treatment toward a prisoner. At that...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A prostitute forced repeatedly into having sex with a Boston policeman said she feared the abuse would never stop -- until she stole his badge. When the officer, Michael LoPriore, telephoned her to get it back, the FBI was tuning in to their conversation, the 19-year-old's lawyer, John Swomley, said on Wednesday. LoPriore, 37, was charged in federal court on Tuesday with depriving the woman of her rights by using his position as a police officer to force her to perform sex in his car in September 2004. Under a plea agreement, the 12-year veteran of Boston's...

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US. In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public....

A Chicago Police officer roughed up a parking ticket supervisor last week, the supervisor alleged, arresting her and throwing her into a police wagon when she refused to void a ticket on an officer's car. The alleged victim, Jackie Fegan of the city's Traffic Management Authority, plans to sue the city, her lawyer said. She wept Friday as she described the incident, in which four officers allegedly took part. "They were hurting me. They wouldn't stop," Fegan said. "It's unreal. One minute I'm working, and the next minute I'm being hauled off and hurt and thrown into a paddy wagon."

It started as a swearing in ceremony to put badly needed cops back on Detroit streets, but it turned into a swearing out ceremony when Chief Ella Bully-Cummings decided to stop the event at the very last moment. The 25 police academy students were ordered back to class after one of the students failed a pop quiz by Chief Bully-Cummings. According to Richard Weaver, Detroit Police Officers Association, the chief asked one of the students for her assistant chief’s job description. When the student didn’t know, Weaver said the chief was "highly upset," had their badges stripped and sent all...

A San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy who shot a 21-year-old Air Force security officer in an incident captured by a video camera appears to have violated accepted police tactics and may have committed a criminal offense, experts in the use of force by police said Wednesday.~snip~ San Bernardino County sheriff's officials have refused to release the name of the deputy, although state law makes the identity of law enforcement officers involved in shootings a matter of public record. A source close to the investigation confirmed the identity of the deputy as Ivory J. Webb IV, 45. Answering the front door...

CNN) -- If the results of a recent poll pan out, voters will see two big names from the Big Apple on the ballot in November 2008. Those names are Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Thursday indicated Clinton and Giuliani were the early favorites to win their respective party's nomination. But those polled said they believe the former first lady would have a smoother path to the nomination than her GOP counterpart. Conducted December 9-11, the telephone poll asked 393 registered voters who described themselves as...

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the Empire State want a former New York City mayor to run for president in 2008, according to a poll by Strategic Vision. 62 per cent of respondents say they would like Rudy Giuliani to launch a White House bid.Giuliani—a Republican—garnered national and international attention in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The former mayor currently heads Giuliani Partners, LLC—a consulting firm.Last week, Newsday reproduced the comments of John Dennehy—a strategist during the 2000 presidential run by Republican Arizona senator John McCain—on Giuliani’s possible presidential bid. Dennehy declared, "In my humble...

Hudson- It was bad enough that police officer David Devore got stuck in the mud in his cruiser. But he got really mad when a resident took a picture of him. So Devore took the memory card from the man's digital camera and erased the images. For that action, he was suspended for a day and sued. John Bell III filed the lawsuit Friday in Summit County Common Pleas Court against Devore and the city, claiming his civil rights were violated because he was stopped without probable cause, wrongfully detained, verbally abused and deprived of his property. Jody Roberts, the...

APR 26--When 14-year-old Irma Perez of Belmont, California, took a single ecstasy pill one evening last April, she had no idea she would become one of the 26,000 people who die every year from drugs.1 Irma took ecstasy with two of her 14-year-old friends in her home. Soon after taking the tiny blue pill, Irma complained of feeling awful and said she felt like she was "going to die." Instead of seeking medical care, her friends called the 17-year-old dealer who supplied the pills and asked for advice. The friends tried to get Irma to smoke marijuana, but when she...

PAMPA, Tex., Feb. 9 - No one prosecuted the war on drugs in the Texas Panhandle more zealously than Richard James Roach. As the blustery and hot-tempered Republican district attorney for five counties overrun with methamphetamines, he had eked out an election victory in 2000 vowing a crackdown and was soon gleefully reeling off the harsh sentences he had wrung from juries: 36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said. He had barely missed...