Free Republic

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 They had reportedly been given outdated information given to...

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Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has announced a new policy that will limit the types of charges pressed against protesters in Portland. Schmidt announced at a Tuesday press conference that he is only pressing charges against protesters arrested for assault, theft, or property damage. That means he'll be dropping lesser charges that the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) often arrests protesters for, such as rioting, disorderly conduct, and "interfering with a peace officer"—a catch-all term for not following orders or bothering a cop. The policy will apply to all protest charges dating back ...

A Gallup poll released on Wednesday shows that 81 percent of black Americans want the police presence to remain the same or increase in their neighborhood or area. According to the poll, “67 percent of all U.S. adults” also prefer the “status quo” when it comes to local police presence. “Most Black Americans want the police to spend at least as much time in their area as they currently do, indicating that they value the need for the service that police provide,” the poll concludes. Eighty-three percent of Hispanic Americans and 88 percent of white Americans share similar attitudes. In...

We can ban police chokeholds in all 50 states—but the pervasive chokehold in America today is the “woke chokehold.” A majority of Americans feel frozen by fear—and are metaphorically choking—overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. 62 percent of Americans are afraid to speak their minds, according to a new CATO poll. America’s largest police departments—Los Angeles in 1982, New York in 1993, Chicago in 2012, and Minneapolis in 2020— have banned the use of chokeholds by officers. Crime, however, is soaring in these cities. For example, even as the radical Minneapolis City Council works to eliminate police, robberies are up 37percent.A...

Officials, organizations release open letter to Lightfoot, Dart urging non-cooperation with federal agencies Published 1 day ago FOX 32 Chicago CHICAGO - Following the announcement of federal law enforcement agents descending upon Chicago in the upcoming days, 31 elected officials and 24 community and labor organizations have released an open letter to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, urging non-cooperation with federal agencies. The full letter can be found below: "Dear Mayor Lightfoot and Sheriff Dart, We are writing to you to ask that the City of Chicago and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office cease cooperation...

Officer Jakhary Jackson has experienced the vitriol of Portland's white woke protesters, who engage in white saviorism and destroy minority communities while claiming to champion racial equality. In one black Portland police officer’s frontline experience, the Black Lives Matter protests in his city are not about helping black people attain better lives. What this officer sees is privileged white kids infiltrating communities that don’t belong to them to burn stuff, break things, cause trouble, incite violence, and tell black people what they should do.This officer, Jakhary Jackson, is a nine-year veteran of the Portland Bureau of Police. After working for...

East Room 2:14 P.M.  EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Great to have you here.  Nice group.  Some familiar faces.  So thank you all very much for being at the White House.  Very special house.  Very special place.  I’m grateful to be joined by citizens whose lives have been saved by law enforcement heroes.  And that’s what they are: They’re heroes.  And they’re being very unfairly treated over the last long period of time, but over the last few years.  It’s terrible what’s happening.We’re also joined by two amazing officers: South Carolina Deputy Sheriff William Kimbro.  Where’s William?  William?  William?  What happened to...

PHOENIX, Ariz. – The Department of Justice today announced nearly $400 million in grant funding through the Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) COPS Hiring Program (CHP). The Attorney General announced funding awards to 596 law enforcement agencies across the nation, which allows those agencies to hire 2,732 additional full-time law enforcement professionals. The awards announced today are inclusive of the $51 million announced in May as part of Operation Relentless Pursuit.In Arizona, grants were awarded to nine law enforcement agencies around the state:• Apache Junction Police Department, receiving $1 million to hire 8 officers;• Camp Verde Marshal,...

Clips from this video started showing up on Twitter this afternoon under the #chop hashtag. The link above is the full video that was first posted to instagram on Jun 29 but not circulated. GRAPHIC

Lunch always tastes better with a friend.A photo of a Florida sheriff’s deputy and homeless man eating Chick-fil-A for lunch together has gone viral on social media with thousands of shares.Brownie Lyons and her husband were driving around Lake City on July 2 when they saw Corporal Shane Foote of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office exit his patrol vehicle and remove a chair, WCJB reported on Wednesday. A photo of a Florida sheriff’s deputy and homeless man eating Chick-fil-A for lunch together has gone viral on Facebook. (Brownie Lyons) “We were wondering if he was going to talk to the...

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in the kitchen in front of his typewriter with the word "counselor" typed in the center of the page, according to sheriff's reports. The word was typed on stationery from the Fourth Amendment Foundation, which was started to defend victims of unwarranted search and seizure, according to reports released Tuesday. It was not immediately known what, if any, significance the word had to the founder of "gonzo" journalism or to his family. Juan Thompson found his father dead Feb. 20 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the...

Joe Biden doesn’t understand the risks and dangers involved in policing. Police have a tough and dangerous job, and armored military vehicles, shields and military-grade body armor can save officers’ lives. During an online interview with Ady Barkan, Biden announced that he wanted to return to Obama’s ban on supplying surplus military equipment to police.“Surplus military equipment for law enforcement? They don’t need that,” Biden claimed. “The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into the neighborhood. It is like the military invading — they don’t know anybody, they become the enemy. They’re supposed to be protecting these...

Yesterday, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice held a hearing on community trust and respect for law enforcement. The hearing was conducted via teleconference and featured expert witnesses who provided testimony and answered questions from the commissioners.On Wednesday, July 8, 2020, the commission received testimony from Brian Marvel, President of the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC); Dr. Paul Lilly, Judge, Brown County, Texas; Mick McHale, President of the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO); and Lieutenant Christopher Cook, Arlington (Texas) Police Department.The hearing focused on community trust and respect for law enforcement....

Following a comprehensive investigation, the Justice Department announced today that it has found reasonable cause to believe the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Police Department (SPD) engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The investigation was conducted pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and was announced on April 13, 2018.The Department of Justice found that the Narcotics Bureau’s pattern or practice of excessive force is directly attributable to systemic deficiencies in policies, which fail to require detailed and consistent use-of-force reporting, and accountability...

The Department of Justice today announced $2.2 million in grant funding to law enforcement agencies and stakeholders through the Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) Community Policing Development (CPD) Microgrants Program.  COPS Office Director Phil Keith announced 29 awards with award amounts ranging from $15,090 to $100,000. “The CPD Microgrants Program is a critical resource to advance innovative community policing projects across the country,” said Director Keith.  “These strategic investments from the COPS Office pay huge dividends to state and local law enforcement agencies and the communities that they serve.”CPD Microgrants Program funds are used to develop...

Last week, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice continued its series of hearings on community engagement and held a hearing on accreditation. The hearings were conducted via teleconference and featured expert witnesses who provided testimony and answered questions from the commissioners.On Tuesday, June 30, 2020, the commission received testimony from Dean Register, Director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Walton County (Fla.) Sheriff Michael Adkinson; Brentwood (Tenn.) Police Chief Jeff Hughes; Tim Bourgeois, Executive Director of the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards; and Colorado Springs (Colo.) Police Chief Vince Niski.The panelists discussed...

Protesters say America’s criminal justice system is unfair. It is. Courts are so jammed that innocent people plead guilty to avoid waiting years for a trial. Lawyers help rich people get special treatment. A jail stay is just as likely to teach you crime as it is to help you get a new start. Overcrowded prisons cost a fortune and increase suffering for both prisoners and guards. There’s one simple solution to most of these problems: End the war on drugs. Our government has spent trillions of dollars trying to stop drug use. It hasn’t worked. More people now use...

What do George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Father Junipero Serra and Christopher Columbus have in common? None were Confederate generals, and yet all have had their statues torn down by mobs in the last few days -- or, in the case of Roosevelt, had New York's Museum of Natural History announce that a Roosevelt statue at the museum's entrance will soon be removed. The mobs ripped down statues in Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and several other cities without any fear of police interference. The police might as well have been defunded, for all they did...

First Person Video Interview "The worst feeling as a parent is seeing my kid laying out in an open field with bullets flying and not being able to get to him"