Free Republic

US prosecutors have sent Poland extradition request for Polish-born filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is wanted in the United States on charges from 1977 for unlawful sex with a minor, an official said Wednesday. Poland has received the request because Polanski has been visiting Poland, preparing for his new movie “An Officer and a Spy”.

The 27-year-old man photographed in 2009 seemed to represent hope springing from Paris’s desperate suburbs. Part of a work-insertion program, he was about to meet then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was trying to combat high youth unemployment.... The man was Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed Friday after seizing hostages in a Jewish supermarket in Paris, an attack he claimed was in support of the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham. A close associate of Said and Chérif Kouachi, the two brothers who attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday, Coulibaly is a symbol of the huge challenges lying ahead...

A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term. The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper's director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the...

Thanks to staff writer Jerry Todd for sending this email along to Coach is Right Recently, the Chula Vista, California Police Department ran an e-mail forum with the local community (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, “Community Policing.” One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question: “I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?” From the “other side” (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied: “First of all, let me tell you this…it’s not...

There’s an old saying that it’s “better to be lucky than good,” but what if you are unlucky and bad? That would describe Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in the span of a few hours went from defiant to deflated. He started out crowing and ended up eating crow. The mayor emerged from hiding Monday to use the ­release of 2014 crime stats to heap more abuse on cops, saying a decline of 4.6 percent in major felonies meant he was right to demand both a “safe city” and a “fairer city.” He also blasted officers for turning their backs...

A member of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang, armed with a loaded .22 caliber handgun, walked into a Baltimore police station on Tuesday in order to test its security, police said. Baltimore police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts said the 29-year-old man walked into the Northeastern District station “fully armed and loaded with drugs on him,” The Baltimore Sun reported. “An organized gang in the city of Baltimore sent an armed suspect into our building to see our security, to test our security. That is alarming to us, to me. I am going to send a message that we are...

Update, Jan. 6: Davidson’s charge has been increased to aggravated assault on a public servant. That also means his bail amount for that offense has shot up to $125,000. In response to an inquiry, AT&T spokeswoman Gabriela Andersson suggested in an emailed statement that cash was not the primary issue. The incident happened at an AT&T store. “We accept cash from our customers,” she said. “However, we don’t discuss personal account details.” She said any other questions would have to be handled by Dallas police. Original post, Jan 5: Police say a 26-year-old Florida man beat an officer who tried...

When I was in prison, I used to work out with heavy weights constantly. But when I started to understand that my best chances of survival were actually centered on education, I focused more on that instead, and it has made all the difference in the kind of life I now have. When I was released, having a student aid package was what kept me from having to go back into the underground economy in order to survive. On Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a Correctional Education Guidance Package designed...

President Barack Obama hosted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto at the White House Tuesday, looking to his southern neighbor for help implementing changing policies on immigration and Cuba. Obama wants Pena Nieto to join him in pressuring Cuba to make democratic reforms now that the White House is moving to re-establish diplomatic and commercial ties. The U.S.-Cuba estrangement had been a point of friction with Latin American countries, including Mexico, which had normal ties with the communist island nation. Pena Nieto also has committed to help spread the word on how some immigrants can qualify for Obama's plan to defer...

A dog was found abandoned at a Scottish train station next to a suitcase filled with it's belongings and now the local animal welfare charity are looking for tips into who is the neglectful owner. The dog, a male shar-pei named Kai, was found sitting with a leash attached to a banister at the Ayr railway station on Jan. 2, according to the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "Kai is around two to three years old and is a lovely dog with a nice nature," Scottish SPCA Inspector Stewart Taylor said in the group's release. The group...

A 30-year-old man accused of killing his millionaire Manhattan father is a suspected arsonist and spoiled brat who may have murdered Daddy because the old man cut his allowance by a measly $200, sources said Monday. Thomas Gilbert Jr. was already hiding a dark past — including his status as the current prime suspect in a Hamptons arson targeting a wealthy rival — before allegedly killing his respected Wall Street father, Thomas Gilbert Sr., 70, sources told The Post. The pampered Princeton grad went on his alleged murderous rampage amid a months-long feud with his father over what he still...

Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said police officers who turned their backs on him during the funeral services for two murdered NYPD officers were disrespectful to the mourning families and the people of New York City. Mayor de Blasio said, “Those individuals who took certain actions this last week, or last two weeks, really, they were disrespectful to the families involved. That’s the bottom line. They were disrespectful to the families who had lost their loved ones. And I can’t understand why anyone would do such a thing in a context like that. I think it just...

For the third time, the cops of the NYPD have turned their backs on the mayor of New York. The first time was when Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived at Woodhull Hospital where mortally wounded officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu had been taken on Dec. 20. The second was when the mayor spoke at Ramos’ funeral. The third was at Liu’s service on Sunday. Detestation of de Blasio among the NYPD and the cops who came from across the country to stand in solidarity with their slain brothers is broad and deep. And, in a way, de Blasio served...

Two police officers were shot in the Bronx Monday night, the New York Police Department confirmed Monday night. Details of the shooting and the condition of the two cops were not immediately known, the department said. The incident occurred in the Fordham section of the Bronx at 184th and Teibout Avenue and police are still searching for a suspect. Local New York City television news outlets reported the officers were rushed to St. Barnabas Medical Center and that their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening....

Police report says Epstein had okayed deal in underage sex probe JULY 27--Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, now ensnared in a sleazy Palm Beach teenage sex/massage scandal, agreed earlier this year to plead guilty to an aggravated assault charge, serve five years probation, undergo "psychiatric/sexual evaluation," and have no unsupervised visits with minors, according to a police report. The details of the Epstein plea agreement--which was never finalized--are contained in an 87-page Palm Beach Police Department incident report, an excerpt of which you'll find below. According to an account by Detective Joseph Recarey, prosecutor Lana Belohlavek related to him the terms of...

The body of a three-week-old infant who was abducted from a Long Beach, Calif. home during a shooting was found in a suburban San Diego shopping center late Sunday. Long Beach police confirmed that Eliza Delacruz was found in a bag inside a dumpster behind a pizza shop in Imperial Beach. They had joined the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in investigating the baby's identity shortly after it was discovered. The exact cause of her death was not immediately disclosed. Eliza had been missing since late Saturday when her parents and uncle were shot in a home on the north...

A new proposal in Oklahoma would bar drunk drivers from buying or consuming alcohol -- and already is raising concerns over how it would be enforced. Fox 25 in Oklahoma City reports that state Sen. Patrick Anderson is proposing a bill that would allow a judge to enforce the alcohol restrictions on anyone with a DUI charge for a set period of time.

What kind of homicide investigation is this, anyway? It’s perfectly understandable when public officials closely guard information in a sensitive, ongoing case. However, certain aspects of the Jessica Chambers murder mystery in rural Courtland, Mississippi point to a shocking combination of incompetence, indifference, frustrating evasiveness, and plain old C.Y.A. lying by those in charge. It’s been almost a month since Jessica’s sudden and suspiciously gruesome death, yet despite an array of very shady characters and circumstances, no arrests have been made. District Attorney John Champion says they are expectantly awaiting results of forensic lab tests and subpoenas, while they go...

BuzzFeed News spoke to a protester who chanted for “dead cops” on Dec. 13, which was captured on video and has become a nationwide flashpoint. “We wanted to separate ourselves from people who just want to get a guy fired.”(VIDEO-AT-LINK) NEW YORK CITY — On Dec. 13, about 100 protesters splintered off from the #MillionsMarch in lower Manhattan — a huge, peaceful demonstration against police brutality — and headed up Sixth Avenue. They turned east on 32nd Street, and passed right under the window of Tom Dilello, a computer programer who works for a large bank. At about 4:41 p.m.,...

FOREST PARK, Ohio – Cheyanne Willis says she was beaten up, threatened and humiliated by her ex-boyfriend and several women while others took video on their cellphones and later posted it on Facebook. The 19-year-old said her attackers slapped her, cut her hair, wrote "I got my --- whooped" on her forehead in eyeliner and even signed their names. The video is disturbing, pierced by Willis' pleas and cries, muffled by others' angry shouts. Now Willis says she is in constant fear and she is frustrated because she filed a police report but her attackers are still out there bragging...