Free Republic

Sgt. Mike Gordon has kept a steady date with death for 23 years, prowling some of Charleston's darkest corners to solve a host of brutal and puzzling killings. The veteran detective has worked some 250 homicide cases in his career, witnessing firsthand the myriad ways humans can inflect pain and misery on one another. He's also seen the toll on the people left behind. That's one reason he's kept at the job so long, cracking cases and bringing closure to the grieving. "I always felt that I was working for the families, and that they deserved the best I had...

Jerry Lee Williams Jr. was, authorities say, the most sinister kind of rapist: He would rape and choke, rape and choke, and sometimes he would rape and kill. All told, there were six victims... Two are dead. And the state couldn't stop him, even after the Florida Department of Corrections forced him to wear an ankle monitor so it could keep tabs on him by satellite, the agency says. While wearing the ankle band after his release from prison, Williams attacked two women -- killing one... Both times, the satellite worked. It tracked his every move. But there was no...

Minneapolis police officers and Hennepin County sheriff's deputies have stepped in to help law enforcement in flood-ravaged Cedar Rapids, Iowa. By noon Sunday, Minneapolis Deputy Chief of Patrol Rob Allen along with 1 lieutenant, two sergeants and six officers were helping local police prevent theft and other crimes in areas of the Cedar Rapids where flood waters were beginning to recede and residents were being allowed to return to their homes on a limited basis, said Jesse Garcia, a Minneapolis Police Department spokesman. Minneapolis police personnel were joined by 10 deputies and supervisors from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. In...

EDINBURG -- The Rio Grande Valley will be the next place to implement a zero-tolerance policy credited with slashing illegal immigration rates by almost 70 percent in other parts of the state. Dubbed "Operation Streamline," the plan calls for the criminal prosecution of every migrant caught crossing the border without proper documentation, Border Patrol officials said...while the program has had dramatic results in rural parts of Texas and Arizona, it remains untested in more populous regions where the number of immigrants apprehended each year is higher. Skeptics fear prosecution of every illegal immigrant could overwhelm local federal courts, which already...

While Seattle worries about concealed weapons, a new fad in the West is to pack and carry you pistol for all to see...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former Chicago police officer charged with being part of a ring that falsely arrested and stole from drug dealers has detailed how the operation led to a plot to kill two colleagues, according to interview excerpts released on Friday The scandal in the elite Special Operations Section helped lead to a change in the Chicago police department with the appointment of a new superintendent, former FBI agent Jody Weis. In what was described as his first interview on the matter, FBI informant Keith Herrera told CBS' "60 Minutes" that pressure to get drug dealers and their...

One windy afternoon last week at the border fence, a construction platform carrying a crew of National Guard personnel moved slowly along the barrier, sparks flying from blowtorches as the guardsmen straightened and retrofitted the steel posts. For most of them, it would be their last task on the border. “I'll go wherever they want me to go,” said Staff Sgt. Dan McBride, 44, the crew's supervisor, a mail carrier from Fresno who plans to go back to his full-time job for a while before his likely deployment to Iraq in February. “But this has been sweet, San Diego.” After...

Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got a call from elected officials in Mission Viejo who wanted help cracking down on day laborers they said were a public nuisance. Brian DeMore, ICE's acting field office director for detention and removal in Southern California, told officials that federal agents focused on major, not petty crimes. But he suggested that local deputies could cite laborers who caused any trouble on a local violation and book them into the county jail, where their immigration status would be checked by ICE-trained personnel. That's precisely what anti-illegal immigration advocates wish law enforcement agencies would...

<p>Sean Bell's fiancée, her mother and the Rev. Al Sharpton were arrested today along with dozens of demonstrators who blocked traffic throughout Manhattan to protest the acquittals of three police officers in the fatal shooting of an unarmed groom just hours before his wedding.</p>

A Knoxville man shot and killed a Pittsburgh police dog Tuesday before the canine's handler returned fire, killing the man in what city police Chief Nate Harper called "an unfortunate" but justifiable action. The shooting outraged and angered the family of the 19-year-old man, Justin Jackson. He was pronounced dead by a passing paramedic almost immediately after the shooting that occurred at 6:53 p.m. in front of the UPMC facility on Arlington Avenue on the border of Knoxville and Mt. Oliver. Harper said the dog's handler ordered the canine -- a 6-year-old German shepherd named Aulf -- to attack after...

Police ordered to stop treating criminal damage as a crime to improve performance figuresBy ANDREW LEVY - More by this author » Last updated at 18:01pm on 5th May 2008 Figure tweaking: a leaked memo reveals a Norfolk police force is pressuring officers not to classify incidents of smashed car windows as criminal damage if nothing is stolen Police officers are being told not to record criminal damage as crime.  Rank-and-file bobbies have been told that incidents such as car vandalism should not be classed as an offence when there is 'no idea how it happened'. The revelation has left...

Three undercover detectives involved with unleashing a 50-shot barrage that killed Sean Bell outside a strip club hours before he was to be married were found not guilty this morning on all charges by a Queens judge. Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were tried for manslaughter, felony assault and reckless endangerment in Bell's death near Club Kalua in Jamaica. Detective Marc Cooper was tried for reckless endangerment.

Functionaries at the US Department of Homeland security (DHS) have officially confirmed that the troubled first-generation Eye-o-Sauron™ huddled-mass tracking border protection system - aka Project 28 - is too useless even to use as a basis for future equipment. A just-accepted $20m pilot barrier in the Arizona desert will be binned completely, and future kit will start from a clean sheet. "It didn't meet expectations," said Kelly Good of the Secure Borders Initiative (SBI), speaking to AP. Under the SBInet initiative, the DHS plans to use various forms of crafty technology to stave off the continually-arriving foreign hordes determined to...

With Oakland citizens fearful and angry about crime, and some even fighting back against robbers and intruders, a top Oakland police official told city leaders Tuesday night that police alone can't solve the violence. "Right now, it's pretty clear we are in a time of increased crime," said Oakland police Deputy Chief Dave Kozicki, adding that crime nationwide is up due to the faltering economy. "But the bottom line is we believe we cannot arrest our way out of these problems." Oakland's crime problems are deeply rooted in economics and family values, and Kozicki called on the city's schools, families,...

The choice was clear: Either she comply or he would shoot her baby girl. Her attacker already had pulled a gun and forced her back into her car in the ...Wal-Mart parking lot. He reclined the front passenger seat and ordered her to lie facedown. He then raped her while she looked at her child in the car seat behind her. All the while, the victim said, he pressed a .25-caliber pistol against the 15-month-old toddler. ...he told her to sit in the driver's seat and dump the contents of her purse. He robbed her and ordered her to get...

By LTC(RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D.,author of “On Killing.” Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 One Vietnam veteran, an...

Seattle Police Department scheming to steal cops from the shrinking NYPD BY MICHAEL WHITE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Friday, April 4th 2008, 4:00 AM Roca/NewsBillboard for the Seattle Police went up on the West Side Highway a few days ago. The Seattle Police Department is scheming to steal cops from the shrinking NYPD - paying for a huge billboard along the West Side Highway and papering bus shelters with recruiting ads.The pitch is simple: Seattle pays its new hires nearly twice as much as the NYPD.And if that's not enough, they'll throw in another $5,000 to cover moving expenses."We...

Who’s in Charge? : Core duties of County Sheriff’s Office should be more clearly defined Clint Bolick, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 02, 2008 Did the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office recent use of Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) funds to send staff members to Honduras violate the law-enforcement purposes to which such funds are limited? Did the sheriff’s highly publicized “saturation patrols”—comprised of nearly 200 deputies and “posse” members—trespass the jurisdiction of the Phoenix Police Department? The feud between the Sheriff’s Office and local police departments, bereft of coordination or agreement over priorities, threatens to devolve into law...

BREWTON -- A supervisor at the Escambia County Jail was fired and charged with assault after Tasering another employee when the two argued on the job, Sheriff Grover Smith said Monday. Smith identified the supervisor on Monday as John Moncrease, and said there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest on assault charges.

Bill would let tribal police arrest non-Indians   Richard Roesler Staff writer February 27, 2008OLYMPIA – A bill that would expand some tribal police officers’ power to arrest non-Indian criminals on reservations is moving quickly in the Legislature.Proponents say the bill would speed up police response on reservations, which some say are in danger of becoming “havens” for non-Indian criminals who feel they have little to fear. The House of Representatives has approved House Bill 2476 and it’s expected to be approved by a Senate committee before a key deadline Friday.“Right now we have citizens in the state of...

      Cops snub hero for being white     Star visit ... Ben poses with Ross Kemp during filming of Sky One show       By BRIAN FLYNN Published: Today     A SOLDIER who saw nine comrades killed in Afghanistan told yesterday how he was stopped from becoming a cop — because he is the wrong colour.  Brave Lance Cpl Ben Mayer, a regimental police officer with the Royal Anglians, was shown capturing Taliban terrorists on a telly documentary screened last week.   Rejected ... Ben with his letter  But when he quit the Army...

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

A exegesis of the Philadelphia Police policy and crime in general. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19254884&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=623508&rfi=6

Sitz! British bobbies learn German to bark orders at Alsatian police dogsLast updated at 11:02am on 11th January 2008  Auf wiedersehen pet: Police dog handlers are learning to speak German so the foreign animals can understand them Dogs from Germany have been brought to the UK to work with police because they are more obedient than British breeds.  A shortage of highly-trained dogs in Britain has forced police forces to look elsewhere, and Alsatians from Germany seem to be the pick of the bunch. Handlers believe they are more obedient and responsive to orders such as "bissen" for bite...

MILAN - The New York State Police have filed a lawsuit against Milan Town Justice Frank Christensen, alleging he exceeded his authority by reducing a speeding ticket to a lesser charge. The suit, formally an Article 78 proceeding, was filed recently filed in state Supreme Court in Poughkeepsie. It becomes the fifth lawsuit pending against the town. The issue dates to March 2007, when Carol Sussman was driving on the Taconic State Parkway in Milan. She was ticketed by a state trooper for driving "in excess of the 55-mph speed limit," according to court documents. Sussman's attorney, Douglas Wicks of...

CATONSVILLE, Md. — Baltimore County police have identified a Catonsville man fatally shot by an officer after he used pepper spray on another officer and charged at both of them with a machete. Around 9:20 p.m. on Saturday, two officers responded to a report that 25-year-old Jason William Leary was violently beating his wife at his home in the 6100 block of Edmonson Avenue in Catonsville.

I have been fully behind Fred Thompson for president, because he seemed the most viable and pretty much stood for everything I believed in. Then I started hearing more spin from the Huckabee side and considered him. Huckabee really started taking off last month, man I thought Huckabee might be a better choice than Thompson. But the more your in the limelight the more scruntity descends on you and that is what is happening to Huckabee. Huckabee’s tenure as Governor of Arkansas is not very impressive. It really bothered me about him pushing for the children of Illegal Immigrants to...

New Iowa Leader Criticized by for Indecision on Federal Student Aid. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who backed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, hedged Sunday on whether illegal immigrants who have gone to school in the United States should become eligible for federal student aid such as Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans. "I'm not sure that I would support that," Huckabee told ABC News, "it was a different program in Arkansas." Huckabee's failure to take a clear position on federal student aid while appearing on ABC News' "This Week with George...

They showed the response to Thompson's answer and the expert said that it was as close to PERFECT as he's ever seen! Thompson said that we should ENFORCE enforce our borders. And Fox says that Thompson is on the side of America on this issue

The Editors on Fred Thompson & 2008 on National Review Online It’s obvious why conservatives see something to like in Thompson. He has offered clear, conservative ideas on fixing Social Security, policing immigration, and expanding the military. We encourage the other candidates to follow his lead. Read the whole thing. Really. Read it all.

A group has pledged to spend about $1,000 to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures in an effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas. The Arizonans for the U.S. Constitution and Recall of Joe Arpaio, filed paperwork Oct. 29 to recall the county's top law enforcement officials, according to county records. According the documents, the group has pledged to spend less than $500 on each of the two recalls - a small amount money considering size of the task. The organization will have to collect 283,300 valid signatures from registered voters in Maricopa County...

In politics, the surest path to irrelevance and powerlessness is to be taken for granted by one party and written off by another. That's the road Latinos are on, thanks to major blunders by the Republicans campaigning for president. In June, all but California's Duncan Hunter blew off an invitation to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In September, a debate on Spanish-language television had to be postponed after all but Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to commit. After taking criticism for the snub, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney have committed to taking part...

Sitting at a computer keyboard, posing as 14-year-old girls, law officers have been going after child predators for several years. Now they’re using their high-tech methods with a new target in sight: child pornographers. Authorities say a growing number of people are creating, distributing and possessing pornographic photos of children. Child pornography has become easy to get on the Internet, with children as young as 3 and 4 years old being photographed. “Way back when, you had to know someone who knew someone” to obtain child pornography, said Sgt. Mike Pfannenstiel of the Johnson County sheriff’s office. “And now it’s...

The ACLU and three other organizations have filed lawsuits against the sheriff's department in Otero County, N.M., for violating the civil rights of Latinos during immigration sweeps in September. They claim the officers raided homes without search warrants and interrogated families without evidence of criminal activity. "Otero County sheriffs broke a basic bond of trust with the community" in the town of Chaparral, ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson told Cybercast News Service on Thursday. "We need to restore policing to its proper mission so citizens and immigrants alike can trust that someone is watching out for their safety." "The enforcement...

If you are a Law Enforceement officer, or if you know someone who is.. please have them vote in this LEO poll.. TOWARD VICTORY ! David http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75168

Feds reveal most descriptive details for a border wall, triggering another uproar in deep South Texas For the past year, South Texas officials and residents have seethed over federal plans to build a wall along the Rio Grande and the U.S. border with Mexico in 2008. They also complained that federal officials were keeping locals in the dark about exactly where the fencing would go and its design. Last week, the government removed the veil of uncertainty, disclosing the most detailed descriptions to date about the fence's design, proposed locations, construction schedule and potential environmental impact. According to documents posted...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Members of the Orange County anti-crime unit will carry automatic submachine guns to combat heavily armed criminals roaming Central Florida streets. Sheriff's deputies who patrol areas around South Orange Blossom Trail have the same stories to tell, going up against criminals with powerful guns almost every night, Local 6 reported. "(It's) a simple concept: Where there's drugs, there's going to be guns," Orange County sheriff's Cmdr. Al Rollins said. An officer told Local 6 that Holden Heights and the Silver Star Corridor have become violent crime areas. "(There was an incident with) an AK-47 and another firearm,"...

SALISBURY, N.C. — The party ended when a group of teenage boys shouted the name of their gang over the sound system: “Westside!” Across the dance floor another clutch of youths responded in kind: “Eastside!”

Hollywood star Bill Murray has spoken out about the events that led to him leaving a blood sample at a Stockholm police station last month. While speaking to the press at the Venice Film Festival, Murray was asked by a Swedish journalist to explain just what he was doing driving around Stockholm city centre in a golf cart. "A friend of mine, Jesper Parnevik, invited me to play in a pro-am golf tournament in Stockholm. I was driven to a party celebrating the event in a golf cart," Murray said. "After the party, the people that drove in the golf...

Former "blogging pedophile" Jack McClellan has been released from jail, following his arrest last week for violating a restraining order in California. His release follows the prediction of observers in law enforcement, child advocacy, and the judicial system who think it will be difficult to take effective or even constitutional steps against McClellan to protect children. The 45-year-old self-professed pedophile was arrested August 13 for violating a three-year restraining order that required him to stay 30 feet away from all children. He was being held in jail with a $150,000 bail bond. But according to Associated Press, he was released...

Bergen County Jail inmates who want to brush up on their legal defense can do so now from their cells, a move that officials say is a first nationwide.  Jail officials have begun rolling out the first batch of 80 laptops – each about the size and heft of a large hardcover novel – to some of the 1,000 inmates who occupy the near-capacity lockup. About $100,000 has been spent so far from an account funded by profits from items purchased from inmates, such as toothpaste and candy bars, to buy the $1,200 notebooks and install the necessary wireless...

A well-built man was forced to take a drugs test in Stockholm recently after a police officer assumed that muscles like his could only have been developed with the help of illegal substances. The female assistant police officer got into a conversation with Tomislav Boduljak and his friend late at night in central Stockholm. According to Boduljak, 27, the police officer was pleasant at first, but changed her attitude when he said he worked out. Saying his muscles were 'abnormal', she said he must have used drugs. "I asked if she didn't think it possible that I work out a...

Richard Lee McNair is a crafty escape artist and a smooth-talking con-man who's been spotted again and again since his April 2006 prsion escape, but he always slips away. On April 5, 2006, Richard Lee McNair escaped a federal penitentiary in Pollock, La. Later that same day, running along the railroad tracks, he managed to convince a Ball, La. police officer that although he had no ID and seemed to match the physical description of an escaped convict he was really Robert Jones, out for a 12 mile jog -- from a hotel to a roofing job. Even when he...

CHICAGO - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized President Bush for not spending enough on law enforcement and said police officers were "invisible" to him. At a meeting of the National Association of Police Organizations, the New York senator promised more spending on police programs, including an anti-drug initiative and bulletproof vest program. "Honestly, it is like the police officers of our country, along with your families, who stand with you every single day in the dangerous and difficult work you do, are invisible to the president," she said. Clinton chastised Bush for a 2008 budget that...

Maria Rivera sits in the Cobb County Jail, facing deportation after a traffic stop. If the Mableton mother of three, who is here illegally from Mexico, had been pulled over in any other county in Georgia, she likely would have bailed out and gone on with her life. But Cobb County's jail is at the forefront of local enforcement of immigration laws, going a step further than many states and further than a new Georgia law requires. Cobb has trained some sheriff's deputies to determine the legal status of all foreign born inmates at the jail, no matter how minor...

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, a friend of W, is making the rounds defending every aspect of his case against Ramos and Compean. He's got an answer for every question. The only problem is that when he's finished answering the questions and demeaning the character of these two agents in every way imaginable, his official actions still reek of rank injustice. He doesn't understand that. Bush doesn't get it. But the American people, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, look at what he did in the case candidly, honestly and objectively and conclude it was wrong – just plain wrong....

A blog written by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and posted on MichaelMoore.com criticizes Charlotte police for allowing counter-protesters to "try to intimidate us" during Sheehan's antiwar rally Tuesday in Bryant Park. But in a memo to top police administrators, one captain said officers had no issues during the two-hour event and expressed surprise at the complaints. "At the School of the Assassins in Columbus, GA, and in Charlotte, NC, we ran into similar problems: police presence that seemed to be there to foster violence. At both places the neo-Nazi, pro-war fascist group "Gathering of Eagles" came out to mostly try...

Merchants, visitors, residents and workers in downtown Oslo are becoming downright annoyed over open drug-dealing and prostitution on several city streets. Some offenders have taken to having sex in a downtown park, just behind the venerable Akershus Fortress and Castle. A prostitute and her customer didn't seem to be bothered by passing cars or even a photographer from Aftenposten. "It's not very nice that it looks like a bordello in the park and on the side streets," Jan Bredesen told newspaper Aften. He works as a waiter at nearby Gamle Logen, a stately old mansion now used for concerts and...

More than half of the region's police departments have no written policies on how officers should handle issues concerning illegal aliens or immigration enforcement, according to information obtained by The Washington Times .. Nearly all of the departments with written policies prohibit officers from asking people about their immigration status in most if not all cases. Municipalities such as Prince William and Loudoun counties, frustrated by the federal government's inability to enact immigration reform, are trying to reverse the trend through ordinances and enforcement policies... Officials from 13 police departments told The Times they do not have an official departmental...

Kalamazoo's usually stoic city manager fought his emotions Monday night as he pronounced his city at a crossroads between ``civility and peace'' and ``full-scale gang activity.'' With Kalamazoo Public Safety still investigating 2007's second gun-related slaying of a city teenager, Kenneth Collard said Monday Kalamazoo must mobilize now or face more loss of life, including the possible death of police officers. On Monday, Collard said he directed Public Safety Chief Dan Weston to ``convene neighborhood and community leaders to review the issues of drugs, guns, assaults and escalating youth violence as soon as practical.'' City officials acknowledged that renewed efforts...