Free Republic

A former Colorado jail officer has been arrested and charged with murdering his wife, three years after local detectives allegedly covered up evidence of his crime and ruled her death a suicide - even though she was shot in the back of the head.  Ashley Fallis' family never believed the 28-year-old mother of three had killed herself and they campaigned for three years for police in Evans, Colorado, to reopen the case and investigate whether her husband, Tom Fallis, was responsible for the New Years Day 2012 shooting.  Fallis, 34, was arrested today in Bloomington, Indiana, where he had been...

In the corridors of no-mans land between the advancing and retreating armies, writes Roland Oliphant, the evidence of a desperate, panicked, rapid retreat can be found everywhere...

TALLAHASSEE (CN) - Florida sheriff's officers falsely arrested and imprisoned a woman with allergies for buying two boxes of Sudafed at a drug store, she claims in Federal Court.      Mickey Lynn Goodson claims she bought the two boxes of the over-the-counter drug because the pharmacist recommended it. She sued Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young and the two officers who arrested her, Rodney Moore and William Buckhalt.      Charges of possession of a controlled substance were eventually dropped, Goodson says in the July 18 complaint.      In July 2010, Goodson says, she went to a Winn-Dixie store to get Sudafed "because she has...

The seven-minute clip posted Saturday on YouTube shows an apparently lifeless Eric Garner, whose head droops to the side as at least eight cops stand nearby. “C’mon, guy,” one cop says to Garner, the only thing on the video that suggests any of the officers was trying to help the Staten Island man. “Breathe in, breathe out.” But Garner, on his side with his eyes closed, doesn’t move at all — even when the officer slaps him on the shoulder. The side of his head remains flat against the concrete, and his eyes never open. At one point, another officer...

A North Carolina police chief has officially barred officers from making up phony 911 calls in order to gain access to private residences without a search warrant. Several officers with the Durham Police Department lied about 911 hang-up calls to convince residents to consent to searches of their homes, an officer said under oath in late May, a local ABC affiliate reported. The allegations prompted Police Chief Jose Lopez to send out an internal memo barring the practice.“It has recently been brought to my attention that some officers have informed citizens that there has been a 911 hang-up call from their residence in order to...

"When Ukrainians kill Ukrainians I believe this is as close to a civil war as you can get," Lavrov said in an interview with Bloomberg television. Columbia University's Timothy Frye and Greylock Capital's Andrey Popel have debated whether Ukraine is really on the verge. Video source: Bloomberg

Talks to end the crisis in Ukraine have begun in Kiev, brokered by international monitors, but pro-Russian rebels are not represented. Ukraine's interim leaders and other public figures are at the talks, which are part of an OSCE roadmap plan. The "national unity round table" was meant to be as inclusive as possible. The interim government has said the annexation of Crimea by Russia this year cost Ukraine at least 1tn hryvnya (£49.3bn; $83bn; 60.5bn euros). A day earlier, Ukraine's military suffered its heaviest losses to the rebels so far in the fighting in the east, where rebels control a...

Russia Gazprom still untouched but economic measures target those seen as close to President Vladimir Putin The economic sanctions that Western nations and Japan have brought against Russia over Ukraine have targeted people and businesses, with travel bans and asset freezes hitting individuals who are considered to be close financially or politically to Russian President Vladimir Putin.World leaders have also dangled the prospect of harsher actions in economically sensitive areas such as energy if Russia disrupts elections to choose a successor to ousted Ukranian President Victor Yanukovych on May 25.

A lawyer on Reeves' defense team filed the petition this week asking the 2nd District Court of Appeal to allow Reeves to be released until trial on second-degree murder and aggravated battery charges. "Because (Reeves) has wrongfully been denied pretrial release, he is being illegally detained," attorney Frances Martinez wrote.Reeves, 71, has been in the Pasco County jail since Jan. 13, when authorities say he shot fellow theater patron Chad Oulson, 43, of Land O'Lakes at the Grove Cobb Theatre in Wesley Chapel.The bullet hit Oulson in the chest and grazed the left ring finger of his wife, Nicole. Authorities...

LAS VEGAS -- The son of a rural Nevada cattle rancher has been freed from federal custody, a day after his arrest by agents working to remove cattle from disputed grazing areas northeast of Las Vegas. A U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman in Las Vegas said Monday that 37-year-old Dave Bundy is accused of refusing to disperse and resisting officers.Bundy's mother, Carol Bundy, says U.S. Bureau of Land Management agents arrested her son Sunday in a parked car on State Route 170 near Bunkerville. Pictures obtained by the 8 News NOW I-Team show where David Bundy had parked his car to take...

Riot police in Ukraine fell to their knees to ask for forgiveness for their colleagues who shot and beat antigovernment protesters in the recent Kiev massacre.The extraordinary scenes in Lviv involved the Berkut elite anti-riot force whose members had returned from duty in the capital.They apologised on a stage in front of pro-Europe protesters.

Snip: ... "Unlike those on the Maidan, no one is prepared to die for the regime of Viktor Yanukovych regime. There will not be a civil war; claims to the contrary are attempts by eastern and Crimean political and economic elites to manipulate the situation to preserve their wealth and local feudal power. Most Ukrainians see this as a war between a dictatorial president and his people... (snip) ....The Maidan, therefore, has not spawned a civil war, but the birth of an authentic Ukrainian civil society. It is the culmination of an agonizing 20-year process of de-Sovietization of Ukrainian society,...

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — Attendees to Super Bowl XLVIII will witness yet another exposé of excessive security and infringements of civil rights.Fans entering MetLife Stadium will be stopped at checkpoints, searched, put through metal detectors, and filmed.  Their vehicles may be inspected and their possessions will be limited to what they can fit into a single clear plastic baggie.  This treatment has become the norm for the NFL.The New Jersey State Police Department blog describes the process of entering the stadium on game day:Fan screenings begin at 2 p.m. on game day. Fans will enter heated welcome pavilions at MetLife Stadium,...

BEND, Ore. -A former Bend police lieutenant who served as the agency’s public information officer for over a year has resigned after an investigation found he had sexual contact with four women while on duty, officials confirmed Tuesday... The investigation said Carney acknowledged having sex on and off duty, in the police department storage room, in the women’s restroom, at the department’s east substation, in his office and in his patrol car in areas open to the public, which is a crime.

An Orange County jury has begun deliberating the fates of two former Fullerton police officers accused of killing a schizophrenic homeless man during a violent encounter at a city bus depot in 2011. Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli are charged with striking Kelly Thomas with a baton and a stun gun in a beating that left the homeless man comatose. He died five days after the altercation. The case went to the jury following Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas' rebuttal after three days of closing arguments... Rackauckas told jurors that the former officers had abused their authority on the...

Jurors in the trial of two former Fullerton police officers accused of beating a mentally ill homeless man to death will probably be told to disregard the opinions of witnesses who said the two acted within department policy.The admonition is expected to be part of jury instructions that are still being negotiated by attorneys in the trial over the beating death of Kelly Thomas.“You are ordered to disregard those opinions,” a draft of the admonition says. “It is up to you to determine whether the defendants used excessive or unreasonable force based on all the evidence that has been presented...

SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. -- A recent college graduate is waiting to hear the words “I’m sorry” from two Spokane County Sheriff's deputies. Conner Guerrero said the deputies were sneaking around his house, forced him on his knees on his lawn, and handcuffed him in front of his neighbors. But deputies had the wrong house and the wrong guy. "Just trying to enjoy my evening.  All the sudden, I see a flashlight shining through my doors…” said Guerrero.  “I'm thinking this could be a dangerous situation for me.” Guerrero said he assumed the two men outside his house were burglars.“I come...

Oregonians have the freedoms of speech, the press and to carry concealed handguns. Their governor has the right to schedule or not schedule press conferences and interviews. And voters have the right to hold elected officials accountable for failed state Obamacare exchanges and their treatment of the press. But does dispatching a state police bodyguard to prevent a citizen journalist from traversing a public street in this way go too far?

- An airport security officer lay helplessly bleeding after a gunman opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport as paramedics waited 150 yards away because police had not declared the terminal safe to enter, according to two law enforcement officials.It would be 33 minutes before Transportation Security Administration Officer Gerardo Hernandez, who was about 20 feet from an exit, would be wheeled out by police to an ambulance, said the officials, who were briefed on the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe was still ongoing into the Nov. 1 shooting.For all but five of those minutes,...

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to sue a suburban Chicago school district for denying a Muslim middle school female teacher three weeks of unpaid leave to abandon her students and make a pilgrimage to Mecca. The teacher wanted to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia which every adult Muslim is supposed to make at least once in a lifetime if he or she is able to do so. Ironically, the Obama administration is suing over a practice that discriminates against women. Under Islamic law, a woman is not allowed to perform Hajj alone and must...