Free Republic

Some residents at Danville Park Apartments are outraged over police firing at two dogs on the walkway outside their front doors. The residents said the shooting killed one animal, injured another and put the tenants in danger of gunfire that left bullet holes in doors, walls and a wooden deck around 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Witness accounts of the shootings contradict the reports of officers and a supervising sergeant. The shootings by officers Demetrius Hightower and Jarrod Birchfield are being reviewed by Decatur Police’s office of professional standards, police spokesman Lt. John Crouch said. Danville Park resident Steven...

CHESTER TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Pennsylvania State Police shot a family's fenced-in pet to death Tuesday. Troopers later admitted they weren't supposed to be in that yard in the first place. State troopers were in the neighborhood, trying to serve a warrant on someone. They sent a couple of extra troopers around to guard the back door. Those officers, however, cut through a neighbor's yard, and that's when they came across Sheeba, a very protective family dog, NBC 10's Tim Furlong reported. "She was doing her job. That's what she does, she protects us," said DiQuan Dill said. DiQuan and his...

VIRGINIA BEACH The city has reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve allegations that the math portion of the police entrance examination discriminates against blacks and Hispanics. [snip]Also, the city will offer to allow 124 applicants to resume participation in the hiring process. Those 124 failed the math test between 2002 and 2005, but would have passed under the new standards. The city also will create a $160,000 fund to compensate those applicants. Under the agreement, the city will eliminate the 70 percent passing score for the math part of the test. Under the new standards, an...

SEATTLE - A man apparently woken from a drunken stupor by Pierce County sheriff's deputies, repeatedly zapped with a stun gun and finally chewed by a police dog - all in front of a production crew from the TV show "Cops" - has sued the county and the officers, alleging brutality. The deputies, accompanied by a K-9 officer from the Tacoma Police Department, were looking for an armed suspect in a car break-in when they came upon Aaron Otto Hansen, 34, of Roy, early on July 10, 2004. Hansen, who did not commit the crime, was passed out drunk in...

OCALA, Fla. -- Two boys, ages 9 and 10, were charged with felonies and taken away from school in handcuffs, accused of making violent drawings of stick figures. The special education students used pencil and red crayon to draw primitive stick figure scenes on scrap paper that showed a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung, police said. "The officer found they were drawing these pictures for the sole purpose of intimidating and scaring the victim," said Ocala Police Sgt. Russ Kern. The boy depicted in the drawings told his teacher, who took the sketches and contacted the school dean, Marty...