Free Republic

A police officer in Virginia has been fired after pointing a gun at, and pepper spraying, a black US army lieutenant during a traffic stop. Army Second Lieutenant Caron Nazario is wearing his uniform in bodycam footage of the incident, filmed in December.

The shopping malls of America will be among the next major terrorist targets. Malls make such obvious high-value targets that it's difficult to grasp why they haven't been hit up until now. Shopping malls are America's marketplaces, constantly packed with people, with uncontrolled entry, and openly vulnerable to any given form of attack. We need only consider the darkest days of the Iraqi terror campaign of 2006-2007 to grasp how the jihadis view marketplaces. Scarcely a week went by without another Iraqi marketplace bombing, with casualties largely consisting of women and children, mounting from the dozens to the hundreds. We...

SNIPPET: "Shopping malls stepped up security measures and terrorism awareness training after 9/11, but it’s unlikely they could prevent a shooting rampage by a terrorist hell-bent on killing, according to industry experts. Malls lack access control, and their civilian security officers usually are unarmed, making them much more vulnerable to an attack such as the one suspect Tarek Mehanna allegedly suggested, although they are less likely terrorism targets than more high-profile, class-A office buildings, other iconic centers or power facilities.

If you've ever arrived home safely from a shopping spree, thank a mall cop. Tom Walton of AlliedBarton Security Services, one of the nation's largest providers of mall security professionals, complains that his people aren't getting any respect from Hollywood filmmakers who increasingly portray them as dorks, slackers and wannabe police officers. "These hard-working, highly trained men and women are our country's first responders who have a wide range of skills — from the sensitivity to deal with lost children to the ability to address criminal activity," Walton wrote in an article carried in several publications. As if malls didn't...