Free Republic

The Black Lives Matter crusade against the police continued to cost lives and destroy civil peace in 2016. Two recent estimates of violent crime in the nation’s largest cities show that murders and shootings remained on an upward trajectory this year, as officers backed off of proactive policing. The Brennan Center for Justice projects that murders in the 30 largest cities will be 14 percent higher in 2016 compared with 2015, a stunning increase coming as it does on top of 2015’s already massive homicide rise, which was 14.5 percent in all cities with populations over 250,000 and 20 percent...

Protests in modern society are very different from even a decade ago President-elect Donald Trump will become the 45th U.S. president on Jan. 20, 2017. And his inauguration as with any presidential inauguration or similar event will bring with it a whole host of public safety challenges – even national security issues – that few Americans (outside of the various law enforcement communities) will even consider. This particular inauguration may also present a number of law-enforcement challenges not previously experienced.

Surely those women also deserve to be treated with sympathy, especially from a party now bragging about its nomination of the nation's first female presidential candidate? PHILADELPHIA—The Left’s crusade to include ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE in everything everywhere at all times without regard to public safety, appropriateness, decorum, or common decency is on display here at the Democratic National Convention in the Wells Fargo Center. In a case of obnoxious virtue-signaling, there are “all-gender” restrooms at the convention site. They don’t appear to be mandatory—yet.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH-03) ... touts a bill, H.R. 1217, which is titled "The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act", which she says "would expand the existing background check system to cover all commercial firearm sales." ... She then touts another bill, H.R. 1076, which is titled "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act", and is also known as "No Fly, No Buy". She says this bill "would allow the FBI to block gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list."... She then touts another bill, H.R. 3051, which is titled "Background Check Completion Act". She...

New York City’s cops say the town is in trouble – big trouble. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the City of New York commissioned a survey of 6000 of its members and their opinions are sharply at odds with the rosy picture being projected by Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio. In part its findings were, “The overall survey results show that members believe the relationship with the public and elected officials has worsened in the past few years, with a lack of support and respect for police officers the top reason cited. Members also expressed they personally feel 'less safe'...

With the news of the infection by Ebola of a health care worker in Texas this morning, I'm beginning to think that it's time for strong...and mean draconian...measures that may ensure the safety of the majority of Americans. In 1996, the late author Tom Clancy published a book entitled "Executive Orders". In it, the protagonist, Jack Ryan, had just become the President of the US after a successful kamikaze attack that destroyed Congress, the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Court, and, of course, the president. In the course of the book, certain forces attempted or accomplished several things to upset the...

With Congress opposed to even the most modest efforts at gun control, activists are pressing a sympathetic White House to make gun ownership a public health and safety issue, and they're lobbying the Obama administration to pour money into public information campaigns and gun research. Some groups contacted did not want to discuss details of their lobbying strategy. “As you might imagine, those are conversations that we aren't ready to speak to the media about,” said Erika Soto Lamb, spokeswoman for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group formed and funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But others,...

Kolkata: A group of organisations have launched a campaign against a move by UN Women, a United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, to decriminalise pimping, buying sex and brothel-keeping. "Such a move will fuel huge sex-trafficking as those who buy and sell women will get off scot free," Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking NGO, told reporters here today. More than 1,000 individuals and organisations representing victims and survivors, women and dalits have signed a petition that the NGO would submit to UN Women in Delhi on January 7. The...

Link is actually: www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/11/ex-cops-guide-not-getting-arrested/7491/ "When cops see four young males in a car, they immediately wonder if this is a crew of criminals out to do a job." If you're going to ride four deep, have one member of your car wear a highly visible item of clothing indicating what you do for a living. For instance, if you're all construction workers car-pooling on the way home from a job site, someone in the car should wear a hard hat. Seriously.

Police typically say that their top mission is to protect “public safety.” That’s the lingo. But the recently concluded manhunt for former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner, accused of murdering four people after releasing a manifesto decrying his 2008 firing from the force, suggests that concern about the public’s actual safety sometimes is fairly low on the list of police priorities.Last weekend, police opened fire on a 71-year-old newspaper carrier and her 47-year-old daughter who had the misfortune of driving a pick-up truck police thought might be Dorner’s. The Los Angeles police detectives who opened fire on them,...

NEAR LA JOYA — A Texas Department of Public Safety sharpshooter opened fire on an evading vehicle loaded with suspected illegal immigrants, leaving at least two people dead. A Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden attempted to pull over a vehicle suspected of smuggling immigrants Thursday afternoon along Farm-to-Market Road 2221. A DPS helicopter was called in to assist in the pursuit and a sharpshooter opened fire on the evading vehicle — a policy permitted by the agency. Once the smuggler's vehicle stopped along FM 2221 near Mile 7 Road, troopers found three people shot inside, DPS spokeswoman Katherine...

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy — hailed as a “Braveheart”-like folk hero after getting out on the streets and leading his troops during the NATO Summit protests in May — is on the hot seat. His key strategy — doing away with mobile strike forces, which formerly were sent out to crime hot spots, and putting more cops back on the beat — has been called a failure by some. Now, McCarthy is preparing to roll out a new tactic. Social scientists who have studied murder say they’ve gotten to a point where they can predict who is most likely to...

Back in mid-June came The Big Announcement: The Dallas Police & Fire Pension System was ponying up the $200 million needed to build the long-stalled-out Museum Tower high-rise in the Arts District. That same day, you may recall, we revisited a blast from the past -- the system's $27-mil investment in Arizona, which, as of last summer, was worth close to nada. Then, just last month, the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System's name came up yet again -- this time, as an investor in Jack Matthews and NYLO's boutique hotel in the Cedars, next to the South Side. In...

A Swedish night shift nurse has been fired from a Gothenburg hospital for being high on cannabis and failing to notice a patient's rapidly deteriorating condition. "You can't be stoned while on the job," Anne Skånberg of the human resources department of Sahlgrenska Hospital told The Local. Staff at the hospital first noticed signs that the nurse, who had worked at the hospital for nearly a decade, may have been drugged after his questionable behavior in response to a patient's worsening condition. The patient had previously been taken from intensive care to the regular ward, but when the patient’s symptoms...

SAN FRANCISCO -An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers' safety from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute? The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cell phone service for a few hours at some stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police. Two days later, the...

Public safety is non-negotiable. That’s the message signaled Tuesday by lawyers defending the Big Apple's fire department from race-based bullying by the U.S. Justice Department. Justice is trying to make the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) hire more minorities even though FDNY has taken extraordinary steps to recruit in black and Hispanic communities. The Obama administration, still unsatisfied, ramped up the pressure by demanding admissions quotas for interim hires and extremely low standards on fire-academy entrance exams..... City attorneys haven’t rolled over. In Tuesday’s answer to the administration’s proposed schedule, they sent notice that the order setting such low...

Police officers in Bay City, Mich., are being called domestic terrorists after renting billboard space to trumpet that the layoffs of five police officers in the town could lead to more shootings, stabbings, robberies and beatings. The police say they paid for the two billboards that went up last week to bring attention to the impasse in negotiations between its union and city officials, who are seeking a 10.8 percent reduction in labor costs from eight unions to tackle a $1.66 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that began July 1. The billboards also spotlight the city's decision to...

Making a list, not checking it twice: 1. Being killed by someone who is in the country illegally. 2. Being kidnapped by someone who is in the country illegally. 3. Having drugs sold at your kids school by illegal immigrant drug dealers. 4. Being in a building or outside in the US and being shot at by someone just across the border. 5. Losing your job because the company has decided to go with illegals. 6. Being denied school admission because illegals were admitted ahead of you. 7. Having a family member killed by an illegal who is driving drunk...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-national-broadband-plan Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 16, 2010 Statement from the President on the National Broadband Plan America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy. Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental...

BOSTON -- Gay men should be allowed to donate blood and laws banning them from doing so are discriminatory and outdated, according to Sen. John Kerry and several of his Senate colleagues. "Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” Kerry said. “A law that was once considered medically justified is today simply outdated and needs to end." Kerry was one of 16 U.S. Senators who in a letter on Thursday asked the Food and Drug Administration to lift the ban on gay men donating blood. The ban was put in place in 1983, at the height of...