Free Republic

It's ragged, ripped and unsteady, but you can call it the city's $4.5 million chair.  Former New York City Detective Anderson Alexander was sitting in it in Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct on Jan. 1, 2002, when his partner handed him his gun so the partner could interview a suspect.   Alexander leaned back to put the gun in his waistband, but the back of the chair gave way, his finger slipped and the 9-mm. Smith & Wesson fired a bullet into his left knee.   Now, despite the best efforts of city lawyers to portray the 11-year veteran as a klutz, a...

SOUTH KITSAP A 66-year-old man shot himself in both his legs Saturday afternoon while trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut with a 12-gauge shotgun. Kitsap County sheriff's deputies were called to the residence on the 10800 block of SE Olympiad Drive at 2:57 p.m. after the shooting was reported to 911 emergency dispatchers, said Deputy Scott Wilson, a sheriff's office spokesman. "Nobody else was there and he wasn't intoxicated," Wilson said. South Kitsap Fire and Rescue medics treated the man at the scene. He was taken to Tacoma General Hospital. Wilson said his injuries were "severe but not life-threatening."...