Free Republic

A former state trooper who was seeking election to the Precinct 1 constable’s seat was arrested Monday on money laundering charges after law enforcement officers found more than $1 million packed inside suitcases stored in his car’s trunk.

A Montara man walking two lapdogs off leash was hit with an electric-shock gun by a National Park Service ranger after allegedly giving a false name and trying to walk away, authorities said Monday. The park ranger encountered Gary Hesterberg with his two small dogs Sunday afternoon at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which was recently incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said Howard Levitt, a spokesman for the park service. Hesterberg, who said he didn't have identification with him, allegedly gave the ranger a false name, Levitt said. The ranger, who wasn't identified, asked Hesterberg to remain at...

Not an actual photo ​Every once in a while, amid the stacks of semi-literate, pro se habeas corpus petitions, trademark suits and product liability complaints, there comes a federal filing so disturbing, so completely awful, that it leaves the reader with nothing but questions. This week, it's Danny Cantu v. The City of Dallas and a whole passel of named and unnamed police officers. According to the complaint, which made its way to Courthouse News yesterday, Cantu, a diesel mechanic, was making his lunch January 22, 2010, when he saw a few cops streaking across his yard. A deafening...

Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2FAbUZd3zoMSynopsis Excerpt: A Melbourne, Florida cop turned off his audio and video equipment before beating a 66-year-old man suffering from dementia "for no apparent reason," WFTV reports. The officer turned off his video and audio equipment before the beating. The department was able to extract the video from the hard drive, but not the audio. The only disciplinary record the officer received for the incident was a written reprimand for turning off the recording equipment. Flowers was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. "It's ridiculous. Clearly from this video there was no assault on...

Seton Hall Constitutional L.J. 2001, 685 ARE COPS CONSTITUTIONAL? Roger Roots* ABSTRACT Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ "textualist" and "originalist" methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution's ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with...

Seattle has a brilliant solution to their many police problems — refuse to release police dash-cam footage, then sue the person requesting said footage.

Police officers consider K-9 partners members of the force. So it was with great sadness that the West Hartford Police Department learned one of its own, Kora, a police dog, was being put down Monday. The 11-year-old was retired over the summer, after serving in the Department since 2003 with her handler, Officer Eric Rocheleau, according to Lt. David Dubiel. Kora had developed cancerous tumors common with old age, and had to be euthanized Monday, Dubiel said. But Kora got one last chance at being a police dog. Rocheleau took Kora to the vet Monday, and after some tests, was...

Praying for their full recovery.

People often criticize the media for what they perceive to be an obsession with bad news; That sort of “if it bleeds it leads” credo that keeps many viewers away from their 6′oclock’s because “it’s just going to make me angry.” We’ve all heard it. So here’s a piece of good and uplifting news for you: This past Saturday while we were all getting fabulous for our New Years Eve shenanigans, former police officer Chris Willden came upon an accident along the U.S. 89 in Logan Canyon, Utah where a Honda Accord had slid off the road and plummeted into...

When Pompton Lakes police seized Darren Richardson’s car on a rainy September afternoon, they told him it was headed for an impound lot. When they returned it three weeks later, he says, the 2004 BMW belonged in a junk yard. The instrument cluster and leather dashboard were gone. The caramel-colored seats were torn up. The gear shift was ripped out and stray wires hung limp everywhere. Geico, Richardson’s insurance company estimated the damage at $12,636.42 — more than he paid for the car — and declared the vehicle a "total loss." According to police reports, the damage to the black...

An off-duty police officer has been charged with executing a man in a sports bar - after an argument over a game of darts. Riverside County sheriff's deputy Dayle Long, 42, allegedly shot Samuel Vanettes, 36, three times, leaving him to die on the floor of the bar in Murrieta, California. SNIP An altercation allegedly broke out after the police officer told one of the friends 'I’m better at darts than you are', Chris Hull, 39, told Patch.com. 'My buddy says, "Aw, you suck at darts". (The man) says, "That’s why I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want...

The number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13 percent in 2011 compared with the year before - and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the increase as “a devastating and unacceptable trend” that he blamed on illegal firearms. The number of deceased law enforcement officers rose to 173 killed in the line of duty this year, from 153 in 2010, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund announced Wednesday. This year’s figure is 23 percent higher than the 122 killed in the line of duty in 2009.

Officer Daniel Harless is still receiving paid time off, even after running out of sick days by Chad D. Baus The Canton Repository reported recently that a hearing for Officer Daniel Harless, the Canton police officer who was caught on dash cam video berating an Ohio concealed handgun license-holder and threatening to execute him, has been postponed yet again. The article also reveals that Harless continues to receive sick pay, even though he is out of paid time off, thanks to a special clause in his union contract. From the article: A disciplinary hearing for Daniel Harless, the police officer...

BLACKSBURG, Va. – DEVELOPING: A police officer was reportedly shot to death Thursday on Virginia Tech's campus. The university's Collegiate Times newspaper reported the fatality at about 1:30 p.m. A potential second victim has been reported at a campus parking lot, the university announced on its website. The suspect, according to the posting, is described as a white male wearing gray sweatpants and a gray hat with a neon green brim. He was believed to traveling on foot near McComas Hall, a campus gym. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/08/shots-fired-at-virginia-techs-campus-gunman-sought/?test=latestnews#ixzz1fyIBeaLv

TUCSON - The family of a Tucson man killed by a Pima County SWAT team filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Jose Guereña died May 5th, during a raid at his southwest side home, reportedly after he pointed a rifle at officers. The team fired 71-shots in all, nearly two dozen hit the former marine. Weeks later court documents tied Guereña to a drug trafficking ring; something the family's attorney said isn't true. Originally the Guerena family filed an intent to sue hoping to get a $20-million settlement. That never happened so the official lawsuit was filed by their attorney and...

HIDALGO COUNTY - The sheriff says the shooting involving a Hidalgo County sheriff deputy has a cartel connection. Sheriff Lupe Trevino says Sunday’s shooting can be linked to the death of Samuel Borrego Torres, also known as “Metro Tres,” of the Gulf Cartel. Trevino says Daniel Gonzalez Perez from Rio Bravo, a known member of a gang called Partido Revolutionaro, is the man who opened fire on his deputies. The sheriff says this gang was contracted to find a lost load of marijuana for the Gulf Cartel when Metro Tres was killed. Hidalgo deputies rolled up on Perez and three...

In September 2009, 28-year-old Jonathan Ayers pulled into a gas station in Stephens County, Georgia, to withdraw money from an ATM. Ayers, a pastor, had just given $23, all the cash he had in his pocket, to Johanna Barrett, a drug addict alleged to be a prostitute to whom Ayers had been ministering. His purpose was to help Barrett pay rent at the motel where she was living with her boyfriend. According to friends and family members, it wasn’t unusual for Ayers to give the money he was carrying to help those to whom he was ministering get out of...

Both the protesters and the police are at fault for the violence yesterday. I'm not clear on what happened in Oakland last night, except that it was bad. The police are saying that they had to deploy beanbags and maybe tear-gas because people started throwing bottles, plates, and rocks when they tried to clear out the encampment at Occupy Oakland. I don't find this entirely implausible. The protesters are saying that when their authority was challenged, the police reacted with overwhelming and inappropriate force, which I also don't find entirely implausible. Since the police and the protesters seem, to date,...

A Somerset man led area police departments on a 15-mile chase during the noon hour Monday down busy U.S. 31W, striking a police car along the way. The chase ended when 33-year-old Dale C. Brown was subdued with a Taser, police said. He is charged with wanton endangerment, driving under the influence and receiving stolen property. The pursuit started in Muldraugh and ended at the Ring Road-Dixie Avenue intersection in Elizabethtown. Brown was driving a Ford pickup truck bearing an Orkin logo. Police say the truck had been reported stolen. According to a Kentucky State Police news release, the truck...

RAIFORD— A Florida man convicted of shooting a police officer to death during a traffic stop in 1978 is scheduled to be executed Wednesday. Barring an 11th-hour stay, Manuel Valle, 61, is set to become the first prisoner to die from the state's newly revised mix of lethal drugs. The concoction has been challenged, twice delaying the death sentence.

50 criminals in Belltown arrested over 2,700 times By Bob Larson 97.3 KIRO FM Editor The Belltown neighborhood has a recurring problem. The same group of criminals keeps causing trouble. (97.3 KIRO FM/file) zoom The Belltown neighborhood has a recurring problem. The same group of criminals keep causing trouble.The same group of about 50 people have been arrested over 2,700 times."We have a pair of beat officers down there in Belltown and Third Ave., that area, we asked them to identify the 50 most problematic individuals they deal with, and then we ran the analysis on them," says Seattle Mayor...

'It's Over': After Three Torturous Hours Strapped To The Chair Troy Davis Has Been Executed Davis finally died at 11.08pm All nine Supreme Court justices voted to deny the stay after taking more than four hours to come to their decision Appeal had challenged ballistics linking Davis to the crime, and eyewitness testimony identifying Davis as the killer Davis convicted of killing off duty police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 Defence lawyers say there is still 'lingering doubt' of Davis' guilt By HANNAH ROBERTS 22nd September 2011 Mental torture: The convicted murderer was sedated and strapped to the chair in...

A defense lawyer says a police officer has been charged with murder in the death of a mentally ill homeless man in Southern California. Attorney John Barnett says his client, Fullerton police Officer Manuel Ramos, surrendered to authorities Wednesday and was being charged with second-degree murder. The Orange County district attorney's office was set to announce the charge in the death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas after a violent confrontation on July 5 with Fullerton officers. Six officers were placed on paid administrative leave after the incident that occurred while police were investigating reported vehicle break-ins at a transit hub. Thomas...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A major NewsChannel 5 investigation has uncovered serious questions about Tennessee's war on drugs. Among the questions: are some police agencies more concerned about making money off the drugs, than stopping them? At the center of this months-long investigation are laws that let officers pull driver over looking for cash. Those officers do not even have to file criminal charges against a person to take his/her money. It turns out, those kind of stops are now happening almost every day in Middle Tennessee. Case in point: a 2009 stop where a tractor trailer was stopped for a...

The front page of last Tuesday's Times-Dispatch carried a startling photo: Richmond police officers taking a suspect into custody. What was startling was the display of force. The officers, accompanied by a robot and decked out in full riot gear with shield and combat helmets, could have been mistaken for American soldiers on patrol in Iraq. Yet they were going up against a single man — and they were not even sure was armed. Regrettably, this is not a new development. In recent years police forces across the country have become increasingly militarized. To a small degree, that trend represents...

A Concord man giving away lemonade at a farmer's market was threatened with wiretapping charges last Saturday when he refused to stop filming a police officer and a fellow vendor. Garret Ean didn't have a permit to sell lemonade, which drew the ire of the president of the Concord Farmer's Market. Ean filmed the confrontation, and continued to film when a Concord cop showed up and threatened to arrest him for wiretapping. Photojournalist Carlos Miller (who we interviewed for the November issue of Reason about the war on photography) has the story: The man, whom Ean identified as Steve Blasdell,...

SHERWOOD, AR – Officers from the Sherwood Police Department are on the scene of a home invasion where a burglar has been shot dead. Officer Josh Adams tells Fox16 that police responded to 1300 Maelstorm Circle where a burglar was shot dead by an off-duty Arkansas State Police Trooper in an attempted home invasion.

Organized crime cannot exist without public corruption, and there's no freakin' way the Mexican drug cartels can move $50 billion in bulk product and bundled cash each year throughout the United States without a little help from well-placed friends. Indeed, in the last sixteen months nine South Texas lawmen have been charged with "using their badges to sneak drugs or guns through the U.S.-Mexico border region from Laredo to Brownsville" as reported by Dane Schiller for the Houston Chronicle: Interviews and court records and testimony show the South Texas cases often involve one officer at a time pulled to the...

The embattled Fullerton Police Department acknowledged Wednesday that police arrested the wrong man for allegedly attacking an officer last year. The department has launched an internal investigation into how the mistake occurred. snip The video shows a different version of events than police described in their reports and testimony.

<p>STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. (WJBK) - Drug Enforcement Agency Officers bust into a home in Sterling Heights, armed with a search warrant. The only problem? The guy they were looking for doesn't live there. Fox 2 talked to the man who opened the door, and was stunned by what happened next.</p>

As a captain in the Marine Corps Reserves, Jeremy Henwood deployed to one of the most dangerous regions in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters use roadside bombs and snipers to kill or maim as many American troops as possible. Snip His tour of duty on a relatively tranquil home front came to a tragic end early Sunday, when he died of wounds from a point-blank shotgun blast the day before.

The Renton City Prosecutor wants to send a cartoonist to jail for mocking the police department in a series of animated Internet videos. The "South-Park"-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications. While the city wants to criminalize the cartoons, First Amendment rights advocates say the move is an "extreme abuse of power." Only KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne holds a key document that really lays bare the city’s intent. The document was quietly filed in King County Superior Court last week. It’s a search warrant accusing an...

Six police officers in California were placed on leave Wednesday after surveillance video surfaced showing witnesses describe how cops fatally beat a mentally ill homeless man. Kelly Thomas, 37, died July 10, five days after a confrontation with Fullerton police investigating reports of an attempted car burglary. Surveillance video taken on an Orange County Transportation Authority bus showed passengers describing the alleged assault. "They beat him up, and then all the cops came and they hogtied him, and he was like, 'Please God, Please Dad!'" said one witness. Another video, taken by a bystander on his cell phone, shows the...

FULLERTON – Surveillance video surfaced Monday of two witnesses describing a fatal confrontation between a homeless man and six police officers. The video from an Orange County Transportation Authority bus shows a woman and a man getting on the bus shortly after the July 5 incident between the officers and Kelly Thomas, 37, a homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia. The woman, who appears agitated, gets on the bus at the Fullerton Transportation Center and tells the driver "the cops are kicking this poor guy over there. ... He's almost halfway dead." The male witness tells the driver that...

<p>A shocking video has been released allegedly showing police officers tasering and beating a homeless man to death who they claim was resisting arrest. Though the video is not clear, eye witnesses say the homeless man - Kelly Thomas, 37 - was unable to put up any resistance and was lying on the ground on his front when the attack took place on July 5. His screams and cries for his father can be heard amid the tasering noises.</p>

Several readers have sent me a dashcam video of the Canton, OH Polizei stopping a concealed carry permit holder. I was going to hold off on posting anything on Examiner until I finished my story-gathering for tomorrow's War on Guns radio show, but the video made me so angry I thought I'd best dash something off now or it would bug me until I did. See the sidebar video player. Be warned, the language on the part of the "public servant" treating citizens like inferiors to be insulted and threatened is graphic and vulgar. It's also enraging and absolutely inexcusable....

Fairfax County Police are investigating after a 34-year-old man with a gun was shot and killed in front of his Centreville, Va., home. The incident happened shortly after 1:30 a.m. in the 6100 block of Kendra Way. Fairfax County Police were called to the home for a disturbance Once at the scene, Fairfax County Police said the suspect approached them from his ground level garage armed with a gun. They say they told him to drop the weapon, but he refused and shots were fired.

Ohio’s concealed-carry law requires anyone stopped by police to immediately notify the officer if they are armed. Failure to do so is a first-class misdemeanor that can result in a six-month jail term and a thousand-dollar fine, as well as losing the license to carry. It’s usually not considered a death penalty offense, unless one gets pulled over in Beachwood Canton, Ohio, in a case highlighted today by Ohioans for Concealed Carry: "William pulled his car to the side of the road to let out two passengers, but only the female occupant managed to exit before the police pulled up...

MS Police Officer Shoots Chained Dog Six Times March 23, 2011 In Gulfport, MS, police were called to a subdivision to investigate a possible break-in. During the course of the investigation, an officer went into the backyard of a neighbor’s home where she encountered the owner’s chained dog. The owner, who was just coming outside to get his dog, says the officer was standing approximately 30 feet from the end of the dog’s chain when she put half a dozen bullets in the dog. Samuel Lovato rushed his beloved pet – named Melmo – to the vet but the injuries...

Raleigh, N.C. — The North Carolina State Highway Patrol on Friday released its findings that clears a state trooper of wrongdoing following a Raleigh woman's claims that she was harassed and intimidated during a traffic stop in Wilmington last month.

A Seattle police officer has been charged with fourth-degree assault in connection with a December 2010 fight outside a bar. But the police union president said not only was the officer a victim of a brutal attack, but the victim of a hate crime.(edit)"The Seattle Police Officers Guild is outraged by the decision of the city Attorney Peter Holmes to charge Seattle Police Officer Garth Haynes with assault. The whole story has yet to be told regarding this incident," said police guild president Rich O'Neill.(edit)Haynes faces a maximum of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted of...

This is an incident that happened in Wilmington to a couple of Raleigh attorneys. This totally reeks of a patrolman looking for sexual favors from a beautiful woman traveling alone….. but I can promise you, he has picked on the wrong person. I expect to see other victims of this patrolman coming forward soon – unless they were intimidated to the point that they will stay in the shadows. This is an outrage and I am so glad that the Tesseners will not let this drop. The word is, they will file suit if this patrolman is not removed from...

Next month the Broward County Police Benevolent Association is holding a "Party to Leave the Party" -- an event coordinated with the Supervisor of Elections where police officers and the general public can switch their voter registrations from Republican to Democratic or Independent...So here are the details: On Saturday, July 16, from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. behind the PBA headquarters on SW 26th Terrace in Fort Lauderdale, the union will have elections officials standing by to register new voters or switch party registrations for anyone with a valid Florida ID.

To honor local sanctuary policies the top law enforcement official in a major U.S. county is releasing jailed illegal immigrants, including those flagged by federal authorities for deportation. San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey began freeing illegal alien prisoners a few weeks ago to protest against a federal program (Secure Communities) that requires local authorities to check the immigration status of arrestees. The idea is to deport dangerous criminals, many of whom have fallen through the cracks over the years. Last month Hennessey, California’s longest-serving sheriff, announced that he would ignore federal detainer orders on illegal immigrants arrested for low-level crimes...

The SWAT team that gunned down a former Marine in his Tucson, Ariz., home was cleared today of any wrongdoing in the incident. Jose Guerena, 26, was killed in a hail of bullets from the SWAT team, which broke down the door to his home on May 5 while trying to serve a search warrant as part of a home invasion probe. Guerena did not fire a single shot in the incident, but Pima County Chief Criminal Deputy Attorney David Berkman said in the report issued today that the five SWAT team members were justified in using deadly force because...

“He [a federal agent] had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there.”--Anthony Wright, victim of a Dept. of Education SWAT team raid The militarization of American police--no doubt a blowback effect of the military empire--has become an unfortunate part of American life. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units. Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department...

David Sedmak, a Rice University police officer, heard on his scanner, "Officer down, officer down!" As fast as he could, he responded to the call and learned that two Houston Police Department officers had been shot. After aiding his fellow officers, possibly saving their lives, Mr. Sedmak was greeted with this message from his University: you're fired. Their reason: "dereliction of duty." Specifically, the University reasoned, "Sedmak left his post when only two other officers were on duty and failed to notify his supervisor of his whereabouts for nearly an hour, which could have endangered the safety of our students...

VIDEO AT LINK • Eyewitness says he removed memory card from phone and put it in his mouth before police took the device Police officers crushed a man’s phone and held a gun to his head in an effort to destroy a recording he made of a fatal shootout, he claims. Narces Benoit saw the officers shoot dead Raymond Herisse, 22, in Miami Beach, Florida, last week after the suspect sped off and drove recklessly . Mr Benoit was nearby with girlfriend Ericka Davis when one of the officers allegedly put a gun to his head, handcuffed him and smashed...

A grieving Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol approached a podium outside his department's office in Oriskany Tuesday morning, flanked by fellow law enforcement and county officials, delivering the grim news that one of his deputies had been shot and killed while responding to a domestic dispute Monday night.

The highly anticipated video that shows Miami Beach police pointing a gun at a man who had just recorded them shooting another man has been posted on Youtube. And it confirms what we've already reported.That police were ready to kill a man for recording them on Memorial Day.