Free Republic

A state trooper checks the cargo hold of a bus Wednesday at the San Angelo Coliseum, where some children and parents from the Yearning for Zion Ranch are being temporarily housed.TONY GUITIERREZ: ASSOCIATED PRESS CHILDREN OF ELDORADORaid on compound triggered by hoax? Calls to authorities came from phone owned by woman with a history of making false reports By JANET ELLIOTT and GARY SCHARRER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau AUSTIN — The frantic, whispered calls that triggered the removal of more than 400 children from a West Texas polygamist sect came from a phone linked to a Colorado Springs...

MIAMI -- Officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives barged into a South Florida home Wednesday only to discover they had the wrong address. The ATF agents were supposed to conduct a raid at a home in the 2600 block of Northwest 49th Terrace in northwest Miami-Dade County, but they were off by one block. They entered a house on Northwest 49th Street instead. A mother and her 2-year-old boy were among the innocent people inside the home when the agents came in

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military OperationsPosted by Kurt Opsahl What Could It Mean for Warrantless Domestic Surveillance?Update: Click here to read the AP article on the Yoo memo and the Fourth Amendment.Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, "Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States" (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday. Balkinization has commentary on the very troubling opinion. While the newly released memo focuses on "asserting that federal laws prohibiting...

Missouri police officer fined $18,000 for arresting firefighter on emergency call 03:59 PM MST on Friday, February 15, 2008 (KMOV) -- A police officer in Hazelwood will have to pay thousands of dollars for getting into it with a firefighter while he was trying to help an accident victim. News 4 obtained police video that shows the Hazelwood police officer arresting a fire captain while he's trying to move an injured driver. It happened on Interstate 270 back in May of 2003. Officer Todd Greeves wanted a fire truck moved to open up another lane of traffic. The Robertson Fire...

Mother warns community about 'Nazi' home invasion Officers told her 'rights' were 'only in the movies' Posted: January 10, 2008 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily.com The mother of an 11-year-old boy abducted by SWAT team members and taken to a hospital after he was bruised while horsing around is warning members of her community of the "Nazi" tactics she endured, including a statement from the officers that her "rights" were "only in the movies." The case involves Jon Shiflett, who injured himself while trying to grab the handle of a door on a car his sister...

A Shreveport police officer was suspended after being caught on camera tasing a man in a clearly unprovoked incident. Surveillance video from outside a downtown riverfront nightclub shows Carnado Brown getting tased from behind by Officer Ryan Robinson this past summer. Brown was talking on the cell phone when he was zapped with the weapon, which is supposed to be used as a non-lethal way to immobilize a combative person. Robinson was suspended without pay for 45 days but no criminal charges were filed against him. A Police Department spokeswoman on Thursday refused to discuss the incident, saying it was...

The Colorado sheriff who dispatched a SWAT team to break into a family's home, hold them at gunpoint and take custody of an 11-year-old boy for a medical exam sought by Social Services is defending the actions, saying the boy's father told officers to "bring an army" if they returned.

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....

The other day I posted a thread regarding an incident that occurred with an MHP officer at a traffic scene. I finally posted the video on YouTube I tried to be respectful. I know that the officer was trying to be diplomatic despite being in the wrong. At the end of it all, the traffic scene was really boring and I would have stopped filming on my own, but it gets my neck hairs up when told to stop doing a constitutionally protect activity -- especially one so important to ensuring accuracy. Anyhow - I sent a letter to the...

While coming home from my son's friend's house I heard on the scanner that there was an accident 1 block past my house. I had my camera with me so I decided to stop and take pictures. I am a budding independent citizen journalist. While filming the accident scene I also film a gal on the sidewalk that claims she hurt her neck. Her friend is holding her neck and shoulders as some kind of c-spine protection. A MHP officer comes over and asks her questions and then asks me if I saw the accident. No, I answer I only...

TEMECULA ---- A special team of police officers who are supposed to target the more serious crimes and criminals in the city has been temporarily disbanded and an internal investigation into their actions is under way, Police Chief Jerry Williams confirmed Friday. While Williams said he could not discuss specifics, he did confirm that a raid conducted by the Street Enforcement Team last week ---- which ended up at the wrong Temecula house ---- is part of the administrative investigation. "We received several allegations (involving the team) and I felt it was necessary to initiate this investigation," said Williams, who...

The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office arrested activists Mark and Deborah Kuhn in West Asheville Wednesday morning after a complaint that the couple was desecrating an American flag. They say a deputy invaded their home and used excessive force. [The photo at right, taken by a neighbor, shows Mark on the ground, with Deborah standing by, during the arrest.] The flag was hung upside down as an act of protest and had several statements pinned to it, including a picture of President Bush with the words “Out Now” upon it and one explaining the meaning of the upside down flag, a...

'He really abused me,' resident says after arrest by Orem police officer OREM - Two days after Independence Day, 70-year-old Betty Perry experienced an ordeal she said shouldn't be happening in America. The retired military and U.S. government employee answered the door at her home Friday morning to talk with a police officer about her bone-dry lawn and ended up getting arrested and suffering a bloody nose. "What have I done?" she asked. "I'm old now. I can't believe this." The Orem police officer, as yet unnamed by city officials, cited Perry for violating a city ordinance with her "sadly...

4:06 PM PDT, June 28, 2007 A San Bernardino County jury today acquitted a former sheriff's deputy of attempted voluntary manslaughter for opening fire on an unarmed, off-duty Air Force police officer after a high-speed chase last year, a brutal shooting videotaped by a bystander and aired nationwide. Ivory John Webb Jr., 46, the son of a former Compton police chief, was the first law enforcement officer ever to face criminal charges for an on-duty shooting in San Bernardino County. Webb, who also was also acquitted of assault with a deadly firearm, faced up to an 18-year prison sentence.

SAN BERNARDINO - Jurors will probably begin deliberating today in the trial of a former sheriff's deputy who faces criminal charges for shooting an unarmed suspect at the end of a car chase in Chino. During closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of Ivory J. Webb Jr., the prosecutor said Webb was angry and out of control when he fired three shots into Elio Carrion just seconds after ordering Carrion to get up off the ground. Other reasonable law-enforcement officers in a similar situation wouldn't have shot, the prosecutor said. "The evidence shows that Mr. Webb is guilty, and so...

A Bradenton man is facing assault charges after police say he pointed his finger and yelled at an off-duty sheriff’s deputy Two things ray miller says you should know about him. One, he hates Muscovy Ducks. “Our parking garage is littered with their feces. It’s like little bombs through there,” and two, he's a law-abiding citizen. He has no criminal record at least until now. Miller says it started when he and his wife saw someone feeding the ducks. They asked the woman to stop, but she ignored them. When she finally replied, miller says she told him "I’m a...

Closing arguments are scheduled to be made today in the trial of an ex-lawman charged with wounding a drunken off-duty military policeman after a car chase and videotaped confrontation in Chino. When the arguments end, the case will be given to the jury for verdict deliberations. Former San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Ivory Webb Jr. could be imprisoned for nearly 20 years if convicted, as charged, of attempted voluntary manslaughter and other firearms-related offenses. Air Force military policeman Elio Carrion was wounded three times during the January 2006 shooting. The prosecution claims Webb was emotionally out-of-control and fired in panic...

Eighteen-year old Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pennsylvania is facing a felony charge and a possible 7-year prison sentence for videotaping police as they issued a traffic ticket to the driver of the pick-up truck in which he was a passenger. Kelly is charged under a Pennsylvania “privacy” law that bars the recording of anyone's oral conversation without that person’s consent. Carlisle Police Chief Stephen Margeson defended the officer’s actions. “We already videotape our officers,” Margeson said. “There’s no need for others to duplicate these efforts. Multiple tapes of the same incident could lead to different interpretations and cause confusion. It’s...

SAN BERNARDINO - Although he insists an ex-lawman violated police procedures throughout a car chase and the wounding of the car's passenger, a key prosecution expert says he would withdraw his criticism of the shooting if there is evidence that the officer was under attack. The final decision on whether an attack occurred is for the ex-officer's jury to decide, police procedures expert Joe Callanan acknowledged Tuesday. But he testified that he sees no evidence of an attack on former San Bernardino County Deputy Ivory Webb Jr. in a videotape of the January 2006 shooting. Webb, 46, is on trial...

NEW HAVEN City officials urged federal authorities Monday to suspend any more raids looking for illegal immigrants, saying an operation last week violated the law. New Haven Mayor John DeStefano said he is filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over a raid Wednesday that led to about 30 arrests, including many in immigrants' homes. He said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents failed to notify local authorities of the operation and lacked search warrants. "They pushed into homes without warrants," DeStefano said. "This was just very aggressive intervention." The city plans to forward witness statements to federal...

LET'S BEGIN with the big lie—that Elian Gonzalez was separated from his father by his Cuban-American relatives living in Miami, and that father and son were reunited by Janet Reno's INS storm troopers. (What else can you call them, given their pre-dawn assault on a private home to snatch a child who was not a hostage, at gunpoint?) The entire premise of the Elian drama—that the Miami relatives have kept the boy from his father—is false. Elian was separated from his father not by Lazaro Gonzalez and company, but by Fidel Castro: the world's longest surviving and most sadistic dictator,...

Weapons, Racist Talk Worried Residents Of Alabama Town BY CHALLEN STEPHENS   Rebel flag outside the trailer of Raymond Kirk Dillard in Collinsville, Ala. (Photo by Robin Conn)     COLLINSVILLE, Ala. — Joanne Gunnin refused to pay for the military uniforms he had left at her home unsolicited. Instead, she called the sheriff three times to ask about the armed man squatting in a camper on her property. But police found no record of the man because Raymond Kirk Dillard used many names. And it was as former U.S. Marine Jeff Osborne that he first talked his way onto...

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Three Atlanta police officers were indicted Thursday -- two on felony murder charges -- in the shooting death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid on Thanksgiving eve. Fulton County Superior Court documents show Officer Gregg Junnier was indicted by a local grand jury on charges of three counts of felony murder, two counts of burglary and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Officer Jason Smith was charged with four counts of felony murder, two counts of false statements, two counts of burglary and one count of aggravated assault with a...

NAHANT - The Nahant Public Library wants to sell one of its most valuable possessions: a German machine gun captured by Army Sgt. Alvin C. York during World War I.

Angel Rodriguez told NBC 10 that he needs crutches to get around because at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, police beat him and broke his ankle. "I was right here looking down right in front of the house," Rodriguez said. Rodriguez said police were on his block making a drug arrest, but then he started videotaping what he thought turned into police brutality. "There was like five cops on each person. They had the one lady on the floor they was kicking her and the other guy they had handcuffed against the car and they were beating him with the sticks,"...

Florida: City to Seize Homes Over a $5 Parking Ticket Brooksville, Florida proposes to foreclose homes and seize cars over less than $20 in parking tickets. The city council in Brooksville, Florida voted this week to advance a proposal granting city officials the authority to place liens and foreclose on the homes of motorists accused of failing to pay a single $5 parking ticket. Non-homeowners face having their vehicles seized if accused of not paying three parking offenses. According to the proposed ordinance, a vehicle owner must pay a parking fine within 72 hours if a meter maid claims his...

$50 Football Pool Leads To Illegal Gambling Charges A volunteer waitress and a widowed great-grandmother who tends bar at the Lake Elsinore Elks Lodge are due in court later this month after pleading not guilty to misdemeanor charges of operating an illegal gambling operation. Margaret Hamblin, 73, and 39-year-old Cari Gardner, who donates her time as a waitress at the lodge, face up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine for allegedly running a $50 football pool at the facility, the Press-Enterprise reported. The charges stem from a Nov. 20 investigation by state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control...

nbc4.tv $50 Football Pool Leads To Illegal Gambling Charges A volunteer waitress and a widowed great-grandmother who tends bar at the Lake Elsinore Elks Lodge are due in court later this month after pleading not guilty to misdemeanor charges of operating an illegal gambling operation. Video Margaret Hamblin, 73, and 39-year-old Cari Gardner, who donates her time as a waitress at the lodge, face up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine for allegedly running a $50 football pool at the facility, the Press-Enterprise reported. The charges stem from a Nov. 20 investigation by state Department of Alcoholic...

Radley Balko, who has tirelessly publicized the problems created by the promiscuous use of SWAT teams, reports that federal police in Atlanta have used a SWAT team to help the recording industry enforce copyright law. Even worse, the target wasn't even a commercial piracy operation: Last night, a federal SWAT team assisted the RIAA in a raid on the studio of Atlanta musician DJ Drama. This local news report says the locally famous mixtape DJ is under investigation for piracy. But Drama's supporters say the DJ is a mix artist, not a bootlegger. They say news footage of the raid...

A distinguished British historian claims he was knocked to the ground by an American policeman before being arrested and spending eight hours in jail — because he crossed the road in the wrong place. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto said he had been the victim of "terrible, terrible violence" after he inadvertently committed the offence of "jaywalking" in Atlanta, Georgia, last week and failed to realise the man telling him to stop was an officer. The slight, bespectacled professor claimed that five burly officers pinned him to the ground after Kevin Leonpacher kicked his legs from under him as he hesitated to show...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Police shot a man's dog in front of his daughter on Wednesday night. Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Jamie Roth reported Hartford police officers shot a St. Bernard by the front door of Glen Harris' home. ... Harris claimed it all began when officers unexpectedly showed up in the yard. ... "They didn't knock. They ignored the sign, the dog sees or hears (and) protects my daughter, so he ran toward him -- not growling, not foaming at the mouth, not anything," Harris said. Police told Eyewitness News the officers were investigating a complaint about guns when...

<p>Two agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were shot serving an arrest warrant early Friday at an apartment complex near Atlanta, authorities said.</p>

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- A murder charge was dismissed Tuesday against a sheriff's deputy accused of shooting an unarmed teenager after a grand jury foreman said he had checked the wrong box on the indictment paperwork.

The State Bureau of Investigation is examining the case and three deputy sheriffs on the team are on paid leave, New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey said Sunday. Peyton Strickland, 18, was killed Friday night at a home he shared with three roommates. His German shepherd dog, Blaze, also was shot to death. The deputies were helping police for the University of North Carolina at Wilmington serve an arrest warrant that charged Strickland with armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and breaking and entering a vehicle. Causey declined to identify the suspended deputies — members of an elite emergency...

Atlanta, GA (AHN) - An unidentified police informant is in protective custody following a television interview in which he said officers had told him to lie about buying narcotics at a home where an elderly woman was shot and killed during a drug raid. Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said at a press conference Monday, that the informant's comments contradicted statements made by officers who were at the scene when 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston was gunned down by plain-clothes officers. "The officers are saying one thing, the confidential informant is saying something else," said Pennington, in his first public comments about...

NYPD bullet kills groom on wedding day NEW YORK - A bachelor party at a strip club ended early Saturday with police opening fire on a group of men leaving the establishment, killing a groom on his wedding day and wounding two others, one critically. There was no immediate explanation for what sparked the shooting, which drew angry protests from family members and the Rev. Al Sharpton. The New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, declined to comment. As many as eight officers may have been involved in the shooting near the Kalua Cabaret in Queens, said Sgt. Mike...

LOS ANGELES A camera phone captured a UCLA student being shot with a stun gun by a police officer after he allegedly refused repeated requests to show his student identification and would not leave a campus library, university police said Wednesday. The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student ID at the Powell Library computer lab. "This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after...

FAYETTEVILLE — A Fayetteville militia member was arrested Wednesday by teams of special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other federal and state agencies and local police in connection with illegal firearms. Fayetteville police Lt. Mike Reynolds said 14 search warrants were executed Wednesday in Fort Smith and Fayetteville and one of the warrants was for a lieutenant commander of the Militia of Washington County, Hollis “Wayne” Fincher, of 16085 East Black Oak Road. “We assisted ATF and several other agencies in arresting Fincher. I don’t believe he has a criminal history with us. That’s...

The video you will see on this web site is horrifying. The crimes committed against law-abiding gun owners are beyond comprehension. The arrogance of anti-gun politicians and government officials and their hate of freedom will churn your stomach. The law is the law, the Constitution is the Constitution. If ONE local mayor or police chief can decide what the Second Amendment means, it opens the door to tyranny—where ANY mayor or police chief can say what the Second Amendment means.

A Sugar Land woman says police went too far when they burst into her home and arrested her boyfriend and son on drug charges. The raid left her dog dead and caused thousands of dollars in damage. "It was bang, bang, bang, then there was a boom as they broke the door in, threw the fire grenade, and then shot the dog," said homeowner Margot Allen. "This all happened in anywhere from five to fifteen seconds." That's how Allen's son and boyfriend describe what happened that day. Sugar Land police acted on a tip. They say they found traces of...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A prostitute forced repeatedly into having sex with a Boston policeman said she feared the abuse would never stop -- until she stole his badge. When the officer, Michael LoPriore, telephoned her to get it back, the FBI was tuning in to their conversation, the 19-year-old's lawyer, John Swomley, said on Wednesday. LoPriore, 37, was charged in federal court on Tuesday with depriving the woman of her rights by using his position as a police officer to force her to perform sex in his car in September 2004. Under a plea agreement, the 12-year veteran of Boston's...

Two men traveling south on Interstate 85 southwest of Lexington Tuesday told Davidson County sheriff's deputies that the $88,000 in cash they had hidden in their car was to buy a house in Atlanta. Officers with the sheriff office's Interstate Criminal Enforcement unit didn't believe the story after a drug-sniffing dog found a strong odor of narcotics inside the car. No drugs were found, and the two men weren't charged with a crime, but officers did keep the money, citing a federal drug assets seizure and forfeiture law. Deputies first stopped the car for following too closely to another vehicle,...

Columbia Police Chief Barry Crotzer talked about the death of a 30-year-old mentally-deficient man for the first time in six days on Wednesday with some details of the events leading to the man’s arrest and death in police custody. Ashley George Benny, 30, affectionately known by his friends as “John,” died after police arrested him

What was supposed to be a typical drive through a peaceful Shadyside neighborhood, turned into a standoff with a police officer threatening the life of a 7-year old girl, according one local mother. Pamela Lawton of the Hill District said on Aug. 26, she was on her way to Homewood for a Pee Wee League football game with her two daughters, 7-year old Joshalyn, 8-year old Jasmine, and two other children ages 2 and 3. She said she was driving her green, 1998 Ford Windstar and was approaching the intersection at Kentucky Street and Negley Avenue when a Pittsburgh Police...

Discover the truth about the 1993 WACO incident through never-before-seen transcripts of FBI negotiations, tapes, bugged conversations from an undercover agent and rare interviews with some of the few Waco and Branch Davidian survivors.

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US. In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public....

ALERT FROM JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization September 12, 2006 JPFO ALERT: With "Friends" Like These ... We're in Trouble The US House of Representatives will soon vote on HR 5092 ( www.jpfo.org/HR5092.pdf ), the "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) Modernization and Reform Act of 2006". Many are hailing this bill as a positive step toward reform of the BATFE. But is it really? - Unlike HR 1603 -- which is bottled up in committee -- HR 5092 does not require the videotaping of BATFE firearm tests, which would ensure...

Dundalk, Md. - The SWAT team shooting death of Dundalk mother Cheryl Noel is part of a national increase in overly aggressive home invasion tactics by police officers, according to a recent study by the Cato Institute. “It’s troubling,” said Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato, a libertarian nonprofit public policy research think tank. “When you give domestic police officers military equipment, train them in military tactics and then tell them they’re fighting a War on Drugs, it’s not surprising that they behave like they’re in the military.” Noel’s family last week filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2292911 Video at link above shows a women holding up a sign protesting the police when one of the police shoots her with a rubber bullet in the back of the leg.She then turns around and gets shot in the forehead(wich can and does kill people) then the video cuts to the police gathering around after the protests and laughing about shooting her and talking about giving out trophys for it

Two men have been charged with harboring more than 100 illegal weapons, including more than 50 assault rifles, in their West Islip and Bayside homes, the Suffolk district attorney's office said Thursday. Acting on tips from informants and electronic surveillance, District Attorney Thomas Spota said authorities searched the homes of Gregory Brozski, 56, of 65-32 223rd Place, Bayside, and John Acompora, 46, of 59 Penney St., West Islip, and .confiscated the weapons: four AK-47 assault rifles, submachine guns, a grenade launcher, .ammunition, and others. The firearms were insecurely stored in sheds and garages -- posing a threat to anyone who...