Free Republic

At the President’s 2009 address to Congress, Michelle Obama was seated next to a potentially very dangerous man (no, I’m not talking about Joe Biden). 27-year-old Richard DeCoatsworth, a former Philadelphia police officer hailed as a hero, has been arrested and charged with rape, sexual assault, and terroristic threats. He allegedly produced a gun and forced two women to use drugs and perform sexual acts. On Thursday around 2:00am, DeCoatsworth left a party with two 20-year-old females. The trio then went to the home of one of the women. This is where the episode involving a firearm, and “forced” sexual...

Daniele Perazzi, president of the Italian Perazzi Shotguns firm, was taken into custody yesterday by Adams County Deputies [see update, below] along with several prototype shotguns. The executive was picked up in the parking lot of the Denver Merchandise Mart, hosting the high-end Colorado Gun Collectors show this weekend, after a taxi driver, likely reacting to a suspicious activity reporting outreach program conducted by law enforcement, told authorities he thought he could be transporting an armed “foreign speaking” terror suspect. “He loaded prototype shotguns into the cab on the way to the Merchandise Mart,” gun rights activist and newly-elected National...

THE BRONX, NYC, NY -- After a year of public outrage and legal proceedings, a judge has simply thrown out the indictment of Officer Richard Haste, who gunned down an unarmed man inside his own home, without a warrant. Haste was facing manslaughter charges until the judge tossed the indictment. https://www.facebook.com/PoliceStateUSA In February 2012, police broke into the home of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham without a warrant, did not announce themselves as police, shoved guns in the faces of the residents and ultimately gunned down Graham for no reason.

The 21-year-old Hofstra student who was killed during a Long Island home invasion was shot dead by a police officer as the gunman had her in a headlock and was trying to drag her out of the house, officials said Saturday. Nassau County Police said at a news conference Andrea Rebello was killed by police, not by the armed gunman who was trying to rob the off-campus house where she was living with her twin sister, Jessica, and several others. Rebello, a Hofstra junior studying public relations, and suspect Dalton Smith, 30, were both shot and killed as he was...

An off-duty Costa Mesa police detective had been sending text messages after a night of drinking when he crashed into a concrete pillar, an accident that killed the veteran officer, according to authorities. Det. Mike Delgadillo, 57, died after his 2000 Mazda crashed in an underpass beneath the 55 Freeway near Newport Boulevard and Bristol Street on March 5, according to the Orange County coroner's report.

Federal accident investigators recommended Tuesday that states cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half, matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries. The National Transportation Safety Board said states should shrink the standard from the current .08 blood alcohol content to .05 as part of a series of recommendations aimed at reducing alcohol-related highway deaths. More than 100 countries have adopted the .05 alcohol content standard or lower, according to a report by the board's staff. In Europe, the share of traffic deaths attributable to drunken driving was reduced by more than half within...

A woman says that she warned police she was filming a fatal encounter between six of them and another man. She says police took her phone before she could post the video to the Web. There are now suggestions the footage was deleted. Cell phones seem to be causing the police increasing unease. It's quite easy for ordinary people to film officers in the line of duty, and sometimes that duty can seem to be excessively dutiful. This seems to be the view of Maria Melendez, who says she used her phone to film a case of what appeared to...

The YouTube channel Patriot News Organization on Thursday uploaded a training video from the Department of Homeland Security that depicts a fake news broadcast about a police SWAT team raiding an American house and arresting "extremist" members of a “local militia group” for possession of illegal firearms and planning to commit terrorist attacks. “Very disturbing video straight from DHS website - they use it to help train all of the deputized agencies during a crisis, even hospital administrators, media faces, everything and everyone that would be involved in such an event,” reads the Patriot News Organization’s description of the video....

How is it at all legal for the police to have coerced people from their homes during the house to house search that was conducted in Watertown MA last week? By 'coerced', I mean being told to leave their residence by police SWAT teams. When you have 10 police pointing rifles at you, yelling at your to get out of your house, I'd consider that coersion. These people were removed from their homes and forced to go someplace else. It appears that they were not 'allowed' back into their homes for hours. How is that possible in America? Were homeowners...

Driving in the early morning hours to his job at a metal shop in Buda, Miguel Montanez at first thought the approaching lights were a school bus or a tow truck. But Montanez says it was a Hays County SWAT truck that rammed his car head-on. As they collided, another police vehicle pinned him from behind, he says. He heard a shot. “I saw my windshield crack, and I ducked down as low as possible,” Montanez said. “I really thought I was going to die.” Seconds later, he says, three deputies were pointing assault rifles at him. “That’s when I...

Sgt. Nathan Hutchinson of the Weber County (Utah) Sheriff's Office had no idea he and his narcotics strike force team would be shot at when they arrived to search for a pot growing operation in January 2012. Hutchinson braved gunfire to move two injured team members out of harm's way. He suffered four gunshot wounds and endured a lengthy recovery to return to duty. For his actions he has been selected as the March 2013 Officer of the Month by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. On the night of Jan. 4, 2012, Sgt. Hutchinson led a team from...

DACONO, Colo. — A Dacono family is demanding answers from police, after their support dog was shot when he got loose and ran toward a neighbor’s yard Sunday night. Mongo, a 3-year-old pit bull puppy, is recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest, as his owner, James Vester, is hoping for an apology from Dacono Police. “I didn’t think I would see that again. You see it in Iraq — and then you see your best friend here get shot,” said Vester, a Marine Corp. sniper, who says he got Mongo, a certified emotional support dog, to alleviate stress...

TAMPA BAY, Florida (WTSP) -- A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida's rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines. The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state's policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs). While yellow light times...

Show us the data. That’s the message behind a joint lawsuit seeking to force the Los Angeles law enforcement authorities to release a massive trove of information collected by ubiquitous cameras that read license plates and can thus track the movements of millions of motorists not suspected of any crime. The cameras, called automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), are on fixed locations, including stop lights, street signs and in squad cars. Each camera can record as many as 1,800 plates per minute, and more than 160 million "data points" have been collected in Los Angeles County, according to one report....

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The Minnesota State Patrol had to put down two horses after they got away from their Faribault farm early Monday morning. They’d been trying to get the horses back onto their property when they say the situation just became too unsafe. But, as can be imagined, the horses’ owner is very upset — and has to foot the bill. Suzette Clemens didn’t even realize her quarter horses, Roper and Frenchie, had escaped when a tree fell on her electric fence, until a Rice County deputy showed up at her door in the middle of the night. He...

From people upset at being kept awake by explosions and helicopters to conspiracy-minded theorists with their own explanations, Tinley Park citizens were outspoken on the Defense Department's urban training exercises. Read what they had to say. (TWEETS-AT-LINK) The U.S. Department of Defense's two-night stint of urban training exercises on the grounds of the closed Tinley Park Mental Health Center ended early Thursday. The highlight of the final night, which began Wednesday, April 24, and went until about 1 a.m. Thursday, April 25, were numerous flyovers from military helicopters using the village's helipad. And even though the drills were being staged...

DALLAS — The Dallas Police Department is looking at another possible breakdown in the city's 911 phone system.A store owner called police just before 11 p.m. Sunday to say he had just been robbed and shots were fired, but it took Dallas police nearly 90 minutes to respond.Four robbers, armed with rifles, walked into Pepe’s Grocery Store in the 4800 block of Bernal Dr. Sunday night. The store owner said they demanded money, so he fired his .38 caliber revolver. Then he called 911.He would only talk to News 8 off-camera, because he said he is afraid of retaliation."I called...

Miami cop fired 8 times could make it 9 By Claudine Zap | The Sideshow – 1 hr 58 mins ago....Email 0Share 0Tweet174Share0Print......For one police officer, will the ninth strike mean he's out? This time around, Sgt. German Bosque—who has been fired eight times from three different police departments—has been charged with leaving his assault weapon with his girlfriend’s father, a trained security guard, while on an eight-day leave, according to CBS4 Miami. That’s a no-no, says the Opa-locka Police Department, which presented its case to dismiss him in front of an arbitration officer on Wednesday.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California may speed up the release of some inmates while allowing other inmates with a violent history to become firefighters, under a proposal to cut crowding in state prisons filed by Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday night. Brown filed the plan "under protest," said Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard. Brown warned that the options he presented to the court would undermine public safety, and Beard reiterated that the state plans to appeal in an attempt to avoid going through with the measures. The governor's plan calls for increasing early release credits for inmates and paroling elderly and incapacitated prisoners, while...

In a state facing over $34 billion in debt, Gov. Jerry Brown signs a bill spending $24 million on literally going after guns bought legally by people who later entered a status that the government thinks should bar them from a key tool for the basic human right of self-defense. The Los Angeles Times reports: The state will send dozens of new agents into California neighborhoods this summer to confiscate nearly 40,000 handguns and assault rifles from people barred by law from owning firearms, officials said Wednesday. The plan received the green light Wednesday, when Gov.Jerry Brown signed legislation providing...

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating after a Volusia County deputy shot a woman in the shoulder outside her Volusia County home Thursday evening. The deputy was dispatched to the home on Eloise Circle near Ormond Beach about 6:10 when a woman called and reported that someone was trying to break into her house, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said. When deputies arrived, a woman was outside pointing something that "appeared to be a weapon" at them, sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught said. Deputy Omar Bello, 28, fired a single shot. Deputies think the woman who was shot is...

lorida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf. Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch “prevention intervention” units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed. The goal will be avoiding crime — and making sure law enforcement knows about...

A dozen Cleveland police supervisors face internal discipline charges stemming from a chase that saw officers fire 137 shots and kill a fleeing driver and his passenger, the city's police chief said Tuesday. The supervisors failed to take control of the 19-mile chase that began outside police headquarters and wound through neighborhoods before ending in a barrage of gunfire, Chief Michael McGrath said. An internal police review showed that both officers and supervisors broke department policies. The chief said a review is continuing into whether any officers will be disciplined. The supervisors facing internal discipline are a police captain, a...

ames Eades of Augusta is charged with obstruction of a police officer, stemming from an incident during Operation Thunder, but he says there is much more to the story than that. Eades says that he and a friend were driving down Alexander Drive early Friday morning when they came to an Operation Thunder Checkpoint on River Watch Parkway. What happened during that stop lead to Eades getting arrested... and he says it's all because he didn't roll down his window all the way "We saw what appeared to be an accident scene. A couple of police cars with blue lights,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8Published on Apr 20, 2013 WATERTOWN, MA -- On Friday, April 19, 2013, during a manhunt for a bombing suspect, police and federal agents spent the day storming people's homes and performing illegal searches. While it was unclear initially if the home searches were voluntary, it is now crystal clear that they were absolutely NOT voluntary. Police were filmed ripping people from their homes at gunpoint, marching the residents out with their hands raised in submission, and then storming the homes to perform their illegal searches. https://www.facebook.com/PoliceStateUSAThis was part of a larger operation that involved total lockdown of the suburban...

A young Russian couple living in California is struggling to understand the events of the past few weeks, which began with a trip to the hospital and continued days later with police forcing entry into the couple’s home to take their child. Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex brought their five-month-old boy Sammy to Sacramento’s Sutter Memorial Hospital after he began exhibiting flu symptoms. He had been diagnosed with a heart murmur at birth, according to News 10, a local ABC affiliate. Sammy was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, at which point his mother witnessed a nurse administering...

Even realizing that he was going to immediately be labeled as a Right wing conspiracy theorist by the Left, Congressman Jason Chaffetz posed a rather pesky question to the Department of Homeland Security this week which is sure to get a lot of tongues wagging. Why do they need to purchase huge stockpiles of ammunition? Far more, in fact, than the Army buys on a per capita basis. Homeland Security’s procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer. Who or what are they shooting...

Now that the man who tried to kill him is off to prison, Greenbrae resident Jay Leone wants his guns and valuables back. But it could take anywhere from a couple of months to several years. Leone's gun collection, bullets, watches and jewelry are being kept in evidence while the convicted attacker, Samuel Cutrufelli, contemplates an appeal. Cutrufelli, who received a life sentence last week, has 60 days to file a notice of appeal, and the appeal itself could take years. Leone, 91, was unpleasantly surprised to learn that his belongings would not be returned to him immediately. "Those guns...

BALTIMORE CITY, MD — A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people — including 13 women working as corrections officers — who face racketeering, drug and money laundering charges. It alleges that Tavon White, an inmate known as “Bulldog,” took control of the prison gang soon after his arrival in 2009 on an attempted murder charge.

Boston’s top cop wants drones hovering over next year’s marathon, but getting his hands on one may be easier said than done. More than 30 states, including Massachusetts, are rushing to restrict the use of drones by law enforcement, with some seeking to ban it in all but the most extreme circumstances. Even if unmanned aerial systems could have shortened the search for the terrorists who wreaked havoc on Boston last week, many people are deeply skeptical about giving authorities carte blanche to use potentially dangerous technology. “It’s not surprising that you have law enforcement agencies rushing out to use...

Orange County supervisors have unanimously approved a proposed settlement in a federal wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Manuel Loggins Jr., an unarmed Marine sergeant who was shot to death by a sheriff’s deputy in a darkend high school parking lot. The suit, which also names the county and the Sheriff's Department, said that Loggins didn't pose a threat to Sandberg in the early morning incident in 2012. Loggins, described by friends as a disciplined and religious career Marine, had recently begun taking his family on prayer walks at the field. His two daughters were in the SUV...

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door. The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay. “They need to get rid of those men, boys with toys,” said Adams’ 70-year-old widow, Loraine. John Adams was watching television when his wife heard pounding on the door. Police...

The terrorist attack in Boston and ensuing events in Watertown had everyone on edge, but shocking new home video from Massachusetts show law enforcement officers trampling over the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution – which guarantees “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures… and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” A video recently uploaded to YouTube by residents whose home was searched...

Apparently some female officers were unable to resist the animal magnetism of their imprisoned wards within a Baltimore city jail. A "federal grand jury indicted 25 people -- including 13 state correctional officers -- on accusations that they conspired to run operations of the Black Guerilla Family gang inside correctional facilities," and U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said "correctional officers were in bed with BGF inmates, in violation of the first principle of prison management" as reported by WBAL. Reputed BGF leader Tavon White apparently admitted over a wiretapped cellphone that "I make every final call in this jail," and while...

A New Orleans police officer was arrested and booked with forcible rape of a 15 year-old girl, authorities said. Desmond Pratt, 42, a former homicide detective and now a 6th District cop, remained in jail Thursday morning, according to police spokeswoman Remi Braden. According to an arrest warrant filed in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, detectives with NOPD's child abuse unit received a complaint regarding the aggravated rape of 15-year-old girl on Wednesday (April 17). When police learned that the man accused in the crime was an NOPD officer, the record states, investigators notified the department's Public Integrity Bureau and...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 Linda explains how the shootout transpired in Watertown during the early morning hours. She saw the first suspect mortally wounded and police beginning the manhunt for the second suspect.

The entire city of Boston and most of its surrounding neighborhoods are on lockdown. Authorities have been all but begging residents to stay home and businesses to stay closed. And yet reports started to creep up that there was an exception: Dunkin' Donuts. The chain is an institution in the Boston area (it was founded 10 miles away), and Buzzfeed has now confirmed that four of its locations are open in Watertown, the area police are most heavily searching for bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Around noon, the chain released a statement explaining itself: "At the direction of authorities, select Dunkin'...

(CN) - San Diego County and a sheriff's detective might be liable for using excessive force and conspiring against a deputy's ex-girlfriend with a "SWAT-like" raid of her home, the 9th Circuit ruled Tuesday. The federal appeals panel in Pasadena, Calif., revived Michelle Cameron's excessive force and conspiracy claims against San Diego County and Sheriff's Detective Michelle Craig. Cameron, a yoga instructor, started dating one of her students, Sheriff's Deputy David Buether, in 2004. The two eventually moved in together and had two children. Their relationship soured in 2008, when Cameron learned that Buether was sleeping with other women, according...

Anne Arundel County police said Tuesday that no criminal charges will be filed against an officer who placed a camera in a boys' restroom at Glen Burnie High School. But the officer involved in the incident, who was not identified, remains on administrative leave. In a statement, police said they had conducted an investigation in conjunction with the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office, and "based upon the evidence, no criminal laws have been violated, and therefore the officer involved in this incident will not be criminally charged." On March 20, a student found what appeared to be a camera...

A high-ranking police official at a Massachusetts hospital and a former high-school librarian were charged on Monday in a plot to kidnap, torture and kill women and children, federal prosecutors said. Richard Meltz, the 65-year-old chief of police for the Bedford Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts, and Robert Christopher Asch, a former librarian at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, were held without bail after appearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and charged with conspiracy to kidnap, torture, rape and kill women and children—including the wife and children of a cooperating witness. Peter Brill, an attorney for Mr. Meltz,...

When we write about customer disputes at fast food joints, it usually involves the cops showing up to put an end to things. But here’s a tale of an impatient police officer who has been accused of pulling his gun on the car in front of him at the McDonald’s drive-thru. WXIA-TV reports that the incident occurred on April 9 in Forsyth County, GA. The officer, a detective with the DeKalb County Police, pulled into the drive-thru and ended up behind a truck. “[W]e were waiting on them to cook the food,” says the driver, who happens to work at...

NYPD Raid Elderly Couple ............ MARIANNE GARVEY and ZACH HABERMAN Courtesy of New York Post April 2, 2004 -- An 84-year-old Brooklyn man says he and his wife - who uses a walker - were terrorized by cops who invaded the wrong apartment looking for a drug dealer. As a result of their terrifying two-hour ordeal, Martin Goldberg said he has facial bruises and his 82-year-old wife, Leona, is in the hospital with an irregular heartbeat. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the cops went to the right apartment in the wrong building of the Sheepshead Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay....

... Forsyth County investigators say 48-year-old Scott Biumi, a sergeant with the DeKalb County Police Department, got upset with 18-year-old Ryan Mash, who is a senior at Lambert High School. They say Biumi got out of his car and the two exchanged words before Biumi drew his weapon and pointed it at Mash. "I'm just like, 'I don't want to die. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean for any of this to happen,'" Mash recalled. ... Mash said Biumi told him, "You don't want to mess with me," before putting his hand on Mash's shoulder and pulling out his gun....

The wife of a former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace was taken into custody early Wednesday morning and charged with capital murder in relation to the deaths of Mike and Cynthia McLelland and Mark Hasse. Kim Lene Williams was arrested just before 3:00 a.m. and is now being held on a $10 million bond. Her husband, Eric Williams, was arrested on Saturday morning for allegedly making terroristic threats against city officials. He is being held behind bars on a $3 million bond. Sources told CBS 11 News that Williams is also expected to be charged with capital murder in...

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC: Congressman briefly, do you think that this will lead to more cameras? I know it's controversial, there are privacy issues. Boston does have a lot of cameras. European cities, led by London, have the most. Are Americans going to have to get used to more surveillance on a daily basis?

The family of a man fatally shot by Oxnard police last fall after officers mistook him for a suspect has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the police department. It was the second federal suit in less than a month regarding deadly incidents last year involving Oxnard officers. The latest case concerns Alfonso Limon Jr., 21, who was killed the night of Oct. 13 while walking home with his brother through the Colonia neighborhood after the pair had reportedly gone jogging. The a.inline_topic:hover { background-color: #EAEAEA; } Oxnard Police Department has admitted multiple officers shot Limon after mistaking...

Portland Police Officer Dane Reister should lose his job for suddenly firing a beanbag shotgun that he mistakenly loaded with lethal rounds at a man obviously suffering from a mental illness, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday says. The attorney for William Kyle Monroe, wounded by Reister on June 30, 2011, accuses the officer, Police Chief Mike Reese and the city of Portland of violating Monroe's civil rights through false arrest, assault and negligence. The suit seeks more than $11 million in damages. Monroe, who was 20 at the time and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, narrowly escaped bleeding to death only...

An off-duty officer opened fire this morning, killing her husband and 1-year-old son in an apparent murder-suicide in Brooklyn this morning, sources said. Police and EMS responded to a 911 call of a man shot inside of a building at East 56th Street and Farragut Road about 8:30 a.m., the FDNY said.

The parents of a western New York man killed in a car crash are suing county officials after the coroner there took a piece of their son's body for use in a dog-training exercise. Roger Dunn, 32, died April 13, 2012, in an auto wreck in Cambria. After his death, Niagara County Coroner Russell Jackman gave some tissue from the crash scene to a volunteer fire chief who was training a dog to sniff out human remains. Both men later resigned and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors over their conduct. They also apologized.