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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks. An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store. However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department's response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks. Garvin is accused of saying, "If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we...

If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade. And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television. The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage...

A Tualatin man, a former U.S. Marine and an aspiring sheriff's deputy, was cleared Friday of all charges related to the fatal shooting of his wife Dec. 16, 2007. Ryan Michael Osbrink, 24, was practicing drawing an H & K model USP, .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol from a holster, and it discharged as his wife entered the room. Kimberly Osbrink, 23, was hit by a single bullet to the abdomen. According to the Washington County District Attorney's report on the incident, police found Kimberly conscious but in great pain. Officers reported her stating, "It was an accident. He didn't mean to...

Bryant returned to his seat, and says shortly afterward he watched a restaurant employee hand the officer a plastic bag before he left. Unfortunately for Officer Stensgaard, Bryant had recently passed the Oregon bar exam, and decided to pursue the matter further. "If he had acknowledged and corrected his error, we could have avoided this whole thing," says Bryant. "But instead, he kept watching basketball and told me he wasn't doing anything wrong." Now, using ORS 153.058, Bryant—as a private citizen—has initiated violation proceedings against Officer Stensgaard. Bryant alleges Stensgaard was in violation of state statutes on illegal parking, illegal...

This is a most unusual story and should make any lover of liberty's blood boil. Apparently a group of about 20 self-identified libertarians went to the Jefferson Memorial last night to mark the birthday of Thomas Jefferson. They did it in an unusual way. Using their I-Pods and headphones, they began to dance on the steps of the memorial. Nothng kinky or wild according to the several accounts that have appeared on the internet. They were going to dance for about 10 minutes and then leave. What happened next is astonishing: Courtney and I were about 10 minutes late, but...

Jay Dow HOBOKEN, N.J. (CBS) ― The racy photos of cops cavorting with Hooters waitresses rocked the Hoboken Police Department. Now, officers face disciplinary charges after a scathing report on their conduct was released. The photos embarrassed and brought unwanted attention to the Hoboken police. Officers of the disbanded SWAT team and their chief are seen in the photos having a ball during Mardi Gras, and with Hooters waitresses during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Retiring Hoboken patrolman John Camile told CBS 2 HD he's moving on with a bit of a heavy heart. "You feel that weight that people...

The Great Meat Fight of 2007 has been declared a draw. Criminal charges will not be filed against Vancouver Police Officer Roger Evans or Top Choice Meats owner Mike Brannan, a special prosecutor said Wednesday. The Dec. 21 altercation started when Evans, who went to the Orchards shop to pick up a venison order while off duty, became upset that market employees failed to add pepper flakes to his venison jerky. According to witnesses, Evans and Brannan had a lengthy, heated exchange that ended with Evans drawing his gun, customers ducking for cover and a flurry of calls to 911....

A US sheriff's deputy who dumped a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair has been charged with felony abuse. Charlette Marshall-Jones was booked at the same police station where the incident happened - in Tampa, Florida. She is accused of tipping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair onto the floor of the police station after he was arrested for a driving offence. Dep Marshall-Jones was charged with felony abuse of a disabled person and bailed for $3,500 (£1,800). The 29 January incident was caught on a CCTV camera at the jail in Hillsborough County, which incorporates Tampa, and the video...

A veteran Florida sheriff's deputy is in hot water after she was caught on video dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair while he was being booked on Jan. 29, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported. The video shows Brian Sterner, 32, out of his wheelchair and on the floor while Deputy Charlotte Marshall Jones is booking him into the Hillsborough County Jail, the Web site reported.

After Wednesday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals, the city of Lee's Summit could face paying a hefty sum of money to a man wrongfully convicted of child molestation nearly 10 years ago. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has sided with former Lee's Summit businessman Ted White Jr. in his civil rights case against a Lee's Summit police detective and his ex-wife, who is now married to the detective. White, whose 1999 conviction of molesting his step-daughter was overturned in 2005, filed a federal lawsuit against Lee's Summit Detective Richard McKinley and his wife Tina...

CANTON -- Hope Steffey's night began with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, completely naked and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Steffey says Stark County sheriff's deputies used excessive force and assaulted her during a strip search 15 months ago, according to a federal lawsuit.

NEW YORK — A police detective and a woman forced a 13-year-old runaway to work as a prostitute at parties around the city, telling her that if she tried to escape the officer would make her sell herself on the streets, prosecutors said. Wayne Taylor, 35, and Zelika Brown, 29, were arrested on charges of kidnapping, promoting prostitution, assault and endangering the welfare of a child, the Queens district attorney's office said Wednesday. Taylor, a 14-year New York Police Department member assigned to the housing bureau, was suspended without pay, the department said. Both he and Brown pleaded not guilty...

Police to Public: Bug Us Too Often, Expect a BillTuesday, January 22, 2008 ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Anchorage police have begun sending bills to people if officers have to make more than eight trips per year to their homes. The first homeowner to be billed under a law that allows police to charge people got a tab for $23,000 last week. Police have been called to the home dozens of times since last summer and 10 times so far this year, they said. An ordinance that took effect in 2002 calls for taxpayers to pay for the first eight police responses...

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- A 75-year-old woman was arrested at a Clearwater McDonald's drive-thru, because police say she wouldn't pull her car forward. Authorities said Jean Merola, a grandmother of eight, was arrested for disorderly conduct after she refused an officer's orders to move her car while she waited for the coffee and fries she ordered at the drive-through window. Merola said the McDonald's employees told her to wait there for her food. Merola was handcuffed behind her back and put in the cruiser. Another officer arrived and took her to the Pinellas County Jail . Merola said she was searched,...

Utah Stun Gun Trooper Back on the Job The Associated Press Fri, Jan 11, 2008 The Utah trooper who used a stun gun on a motorist who was walking away from him in a confrontation widely viewed on YouTube is back on duty after taking a verbal communications course. Trooper Jon Gardner returned to work recently after internal investigators question the motorist in the Sept. 14 confrontation on U.S. 40 in eastern Utah, said Col. Lance Davenport, commander of the state highway patrol. The driver, Jared Massey, obtained the trooper's dashboard camera video through a public records request and posted...

World Net Daily reports: Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak. The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father told WND it was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves....

Cop indicted in road-rage incident during which other driver shot him in leg After being indicted Thursday for allegedly making terroristic threats during a road-rage incident last summer in Coon Rapids, a Robbinsdale police officer gave his side of what happened in the confrontation that left him with a gunshot wound to the leg. [...] A 19-year-old Anoka woman said she saw the man later identified as Beard driving next to another vehicle and leaning out his window as he repeatedly swore and threatened to kill the other driver, adding, "I don't care about jail." Several witnesses said they saw...

Video has surfaced of a Daytona Beach police officer using a TASER on a woman in a store. According to our partners at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Elizabeth Beeland was shopping at a Best Buy in Daytona Beach last month. Before she checked out, she got an upsetting phone call about her child and stepped outside to take the call. According to the police report, the clerk said Beeland was suspicious and flagged down Daytona Beach police officer Claudia Wright, who was in the store. When Officer Wright confronted Beeland, she yelled at her. When they came back in the...

Coon Rapids man charged with shooting officer in road rage The Anoka County courthouse revealed documents Wednesday that charge 35-year-old Martin Scott Treptow with the shooting of a Robbinsdale Police officer. Treptow, of Coon Rapids, claims Officer Landen Beard was not wearing a uniform at the time he forced Treptow off of the road on June 7. Beard supposedly was driving an unmarked car. When the two men confronted each other, Treptow claimed Beard pointed a gun at his wife. "We were about three feet away from each other and he pointed the gun at my wife. It was a...

S.J. OFFICER'S RUSE BECAME EVIDENCE By Leslie Griffy Mercury News Article Launched: 12/16/2007 01:37:24 AM PST There was one major problem with the Santa Clara County crime lab report that implicated a San Jose man of sexual assault: It wasn't true. The document was a fake, created by a San Jose police detective. The crime lab analyst who purportedly prepared the document doesn't exist. The number used to identify it was false. Even so, detective Matthew Christian testified as though the phony report were authentic. The case unraveled when the defense attorney sought the résumé of the lab analyst, only...

Police blamed bad information for sending a SWAT team into a north Minneapolis house early Sunday morning in a raid that ended with shots exchanged between police -- who were struck by bullets -- and the resident, who said he was just defending his family. The homeowner, who does not speak English, told his brother that he thought the police were the "bad guys" after they broke through the back door of the house, where he lives with his wife and six children. He fired and hit two police officers, who were not injured thanks to their bullet-proof vests and...

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is pushing to close San Francisco's cannabis clubs by turning its guns on their landlords - warning them that renting to pot dispensaries could cost them their buildings. The agency intends to send letters by week's end to 80 owners of buildings housing medical marijuana clubs, similar to notices it fired off recently to landlords in Los Angeles and Sacramento, according law enforcement sources. "By this notice, you have been made aware of the purposes for which the property is being used," said a copy of the letter sent to Sacramento landlords, signed by the...

KEVIN FOX SUIT | Dad says harsh questioning made him confess to killing Riley amid harsh questioning Kevin Fox was ready to crack. He was hungry. He had failed a polygraph. He was led to believe his wife had abandoned him, his son had implicated him and his father told Will County investigators to "do what you want with him." » Click to enlarge image Kevin Fox enters the Federal Building on Tuesday to testify in his lawsuit against Will County authorities. Fox was charged with killing his 3-year-old daughter Riley, but charges were later dropped. (Brian Jackson/Sun-Times) RELATED STORIES•...

Alarmed by recent incidents? Wait'll you see what the company is planning for 2008 The Taser is going wireless. Until now, the electric-shock gun consisted of two barbed darts attached to wires that shoot out and strike the victim, immobilizing the person with 50,000 volts of electricity, causing severe pain and intense muscle contraction. But the wires could only extend a few metres. With the new "extended range electronic projectile," or XREP, the Taser has been turned into a kind of self-contained shotgun shell and can be fired, wire-free, from a standard shotgun, which police typically have in their arsenal...

Donnell Williams had just gotten out of the bath tub, wearing only a towel around his waist, when he turned the corner to see guns pointing right at him. "I ain't never been so scared," says Williams. Police forced entry into Williams home while responding to a shooting, but it turned out to be a false call. They had no idea at the time the call wasn't real and that Williams is hearing impaired. Without his hearing aid he is basically deaf. "I kept going to my ear yelling that I was scared. I can't hear! I can't hear!" Officers...

Driver tasered for not getting his paperwork fast enough

BOSTON -- A 36-year veteran of the Massachusetts State Police has been charged with selling cocaine. Federal prosecutors say 62-year-old John Foley of Saugus is assigned to the Revere barracks and has been a member of the department since October 1971.

Local cops were in hot pursuit of breakfast early Saturday morning as a tipsy thief tried but failed to make off with treats from the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Co. Those "hot doughnuts now" were really hot when Warren G. WhiteLightning, 36, Crandon, climbed behind the wheel of the delivery truck as it sat in the lot of an Open Pantry convenience store at 2216 University Ave. about 3 a.m. Saturday morning. When the truck driver noticed his truck of goodies was gone, he phoned police, with University of Wisconsin and city of Madison squads in hot pursuit. WhiteLightning tried to...

Cops wrecked her door, nerves in botched raid The cops were at the right spot, but at the wrong time. A SWAT team from the Milwaukee Police Department burst into Denise Berndsen's apartment and turned the place upside down looking for evidence of child porn. Oops. The man they were targeting had moved out five weeks earlier. Instead they roughed up Berndsen, who had returned home from back surgery that day, her 74-year-old father, and a man she had just started dating and who for a few terrifying minutes wondered what he got himself into. Pray you don't follow any...

LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. -- A SWAT team raids the wrong home in Lawrenceburg, Ind., now the homeowner wants some answers. Police said they were led to the Village Apartments on the trail of fugitive Sean Deaton. Convinced he was inside apartment 407G, the Lawrenceburg SWAT unit surrounded the building. "It looked like they were ready to go to war," one neighbor said. "Some of the ones out here had AR15's and shotguns." Neighbors said police spent hours, ordering Deaton to surrender. But when that didn't work, they responded with tear gas and forced entry. "It looked like my apartment was on...

Boston Police to Search Kids' Bedrooms for Guns Saturday, November 17, 2007 Coming soon to Boston: Police in your children’s bedrooms. Police are starting a program to search homes in high-crime areas, without a warrant, for weapons in children’s bedrooms, the Boston Globe reports. Click here to read the full story in the Boston Globe.The teenagers found to be in possession of guns will only face charges if the weapon is linked to a shooting or homicide, and parents are given the right to deny the detectives access to their homes.

MEMPHIS - A Memphis police sergeant who was named Tennessee Narcotics Officer of the Year for 2006 was charged with selling illegal anabolic steroids and tipping off drug dealers about surveillance and investigations. Sgt. Brady Valentine, 36, a police officer since 1994, was indicted Friday and relieved of duty after a federal complaint was unsealed. The complaint was based on information from informants, wire taps and taped conversations. Valentine was assigned to the West Tennessee Violent Crimes and Drug Task Force, a multi-agency team that regularly lands some of the biggest drug busts in the state. He was honored by...

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...

No good deed goes unpunished. At least that's how Muir Beach resident Sigward Moser felt Friday after he says he was threatened with a Taser gun, forced to the ground and handcuffed by a National Park Service ranger for refusing to stop cleaning up the oily beach beneath his home.

57. Have you, your spouse, any members of your family, or any members of your spouse’s family ever been associated with gangs or subversive groups (Minutemen, Aryan Brotherhood, etc.) “ YES “ NO IF YES, EXPLAIN IN SEPARATE STATEMENT.

A Fairfax County Sheriff's Deputy has resigned after he was caught up in an online child porn sting. Forty-four-year-old Master Deputy Sheriff Robert A. Romero Jr. was arrested and charged with possession and receipt of child pornography. The FBI says an undercover agent caught Romero in an online sting and investigators discovered more than 1000 images of child pornography and 100 videos on his computer. Neighbors were understandably shocked by the allegations. "He would always wave and say 'Hi.' He coached, I guess the football team, for the youth league and would talk to me about recruiting my (six-year-old) son...

Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's former police commissioner Bernard Kerik is expected to be indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday, the Daily News has learned. The charges include Kerik's alleged attempt to get a city official to influence the outcome of an investigation into mob-linked Interstate Industrial Co., according to two sources familiar with the matter. Other charges accuse Kerik of allegedly making false statements when he was nominated to be Homeland Security director by President Bush, the sources say. Kerik and his lawyers are negotiating the terms of his surrender to federal authorities Friday morning in Manhattan Federal...

Chicago cop's actions against mentally ill woman probed Unless an 82-year-old grandmother is holding a loaded gun, there's no excuse for police officers to use a Taser. None. But that's what happened Oct. 29 when Chicago Police officers went to a West Side home to make a "well-being" check. The officers were responding to a request from the city's Department of Aging. Apparently, the department had received an anonymous tip that Lillian Fletcher, who has a history of mental illness, was home alone and in need of assistance. When Fletcher refused to open her door, police were called. Although Fletcher...

Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who was swinging a hammer when police arrived. Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to Lillian Fletcher's home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check, and called police when they saw Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer back and forth, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday. Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher one of them used their Taser, Bond said. The department is trying to determine if the officer violated department policy regarding the use of stun...

Two North Braddock police officers won't face criminal charges for Tasering a man who was asleep at home. But the FBI will review the incident for possible civil rights violations. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. says county police determined Officers Gerard Kraly and Lukas Laeuricia (loo-REE'-see-uh) didn't commit a crime when they Tasered Shawn Hicks, who was sleeping on his couch. Police came to Hicks home because they were alerted by a silent security alarm at his home about 2 a.m. Hicks says the officers Tasered him again after he woke up and showed them ID to prove...

Sheriff Mike Carona and his wife Debbie, both in handcuffs, were ordered to pay $20,000 bail and will be released later today from federal lockup...

A former ranger at Elephant Butte State Park will spend a year on electronic monitoring for fatally shooting a man who refused to pay his permit fee. District Attorney Scot Key says that Clyde Woods was sentenced Wednesday in state district court in Truth or Consequences to six years for voluntary manslaughter and given a seventh year for because of a firearm enhancement. Key says, though, that all but one year was suspended. Woods will spend the remaining year under house arrest with an ankle bracelet and GPS locator. Woods was charged with shooting Bruce Teschner on the evening of...

The first of 20 former law officers to be sentenced as part of a state and federal investigation into corruption at the Robeson County Sheriff's Office will spend more than 20 years in prison. The judge Tuesday sentenced Ferguson to 130 months for conspiring to kidnap two Virginia drug dealers and trying to rob them, and 120 months for using a gun during that felony.

A police sergeant whose berating of a driver was captured on videotape has been fired.

ST. GEORGE — A police officer who was recorded berating a motorist earlier this month has lost his job. The board of aldermen voted 5-0, with one member absent, to fire Sgt. James Kuehnlein on Monday. The vote was cast in a session closed to the public and wasn't announced until Wednesday, when a notice was posted at the City Hall of this tiny south St. Louis County community. In a video that got wide viewership on the Internet, Kuehnlein taunts and threatens motorist Brett Darrow, 20, sometimes shouting and using profanity, after questioning him in a commuter lot near...

Trevor Putnam knew the gun laws. The officer who stopped him didn’t. “When I told him that I hadn’t done anything, he said he’d find a reason to put me in jail,” said Putnam, 24, who works with guns every day as vice president of Coal Creek Armory in West Knoxville. “It’s not that I have a problem with police officers. I deal with police officers nationwide from Arizona to Maine every day. But I lost my confidence in a legal right that I knew I had.” Knoxville police officers will get a refresher course on the state’s gun permit...

"Sheriff's deputies have been competing in organized contests to see who could make the most arrests, who could impound the most cars and who could question the most gang members." "The contests were meant to boost morale and motivate deputies, but some observers are crying foul, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday." "One of the competitions, outlined in an internal Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department e-mail, was "Operation Any Booking." The object of the contest was to see who could arrest the most people in a 24-hour period." "It's just a friendly competition to have a little fun out here,"...

Four men who say Portland police ran roughshod over their constitutional rights are taking their cases to court. Monday their attorneys called for independent investigators to review complaints against police and for the mayor and chief to curb what they called officers' "dirty tactics." Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said he couldn't comment on pending litigation. One of the four cases is documented by the videotape which is at the heart of the complaint: Frank Waterhouse is suing for unlawful seizure with excessive force, alleging that police fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him on May...

It's a True Crime post and we've got a story guaranteed to make you man. For the cops didn't have to shoot the pet dog…they only needed to tell the owner to take it inside. Plus updates on all the ongoing trials and new True Crimes. Since when is our congress authorized to excoriate citizens for having an opinion? The Democrats chose a formidable enemy this time but click in because while I love the guy I think Rush Limbaugh could end up silenced under Hillary's wrath.

CASSELBERRY - In January, 1-year-old Joey Cosmillo wandered into the backyard and fell into the family pool. When his mother hauled him out, he wasn't breathing. Rescuers were able to bring him back to life, but he suffered severe brain damage and cannot walk, talk or even swallow. Now, his family faces another burden: One of the rescuers, Casselberry police Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn, is suing, alleging the family left a puddle of water on the floor that afternoon, causing her to slip and fall. The boy's grandparents, named in the suit, are mystified and angry. "The loss we've suffered, and...