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On Aug. 14, at around 3 p.m. my wife stepped out of Target in El Centro. I stayed in Target to throw away the trash because we ate in the “Food Ave.” When I walked outside, my wife informed me that a guy in a four-door, silver-colored car sped down the parking lot and somewhat yielded as my daughter was crossing the parking lot intersection. As soon as the driver saw enough room to squeeze by the curve and my daughter, he accelerated fast enough to make the tires skid causing a burning rubber noise (also scared my daughter). He...

Armed with a battering ram and shotguns, Buffalo police looking for heroin broke down the door and stormed the lower apartment of a West Side family of eight. The problem is that the Wednesday evening raid should have occurred at an apartment upstairs. And, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, according to Schavon Pennyamon, who lives at the mistakenly raided apartment on Sherwood Street with her husband, Terrell, and six children. Pennyamon alleges that after wrongly breaking into her apartment, police proceeded to strike her epileptic husband in the head with the butt end of a shotgun and point...

Prince George's County police Chief Melvin C. High said yesterday that a suburban Washington mayor and his wife were "innocent victims of drug traffickers"....

‘Blake is having a seizure, and they’re hurting him’Blake Dwyer remembers pain: The agonizing burn of electrical shock. And shouting. And fear. “I thought a swarm of wasps was after me,” the 17-year-old Guyer High School athlete said. “I was trying to fight them off.” He doesn’t remember the epileptic seizure he suffered July 18, 2007, when he was 16. He doesn’t remember fighting to keep from being tied to a stretcher or hitting a paramedic. His brother, Travis Baker, 17, remembers all of it. He recalls screaming at Corinth police to stop shocking Blake with a Taser. His mother,...

PHILADELPHIA (May 7) - Fifteen police officers were taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked, punched and beaten after they were pulled out of a car during a traffic stop. "At a glance it does appear to be a bit beyond the pale," Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, said Wednesday. "Officers are not allowed to operate outside of the law." The police department identified the 15 officers who were involved in Monday night's arrests in the city's Hunting Park section, where police had been investigating a triple shooting, Oliver said....

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...

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, was tasered after he refused to provide ID and would not leave. He starts screaming "DON"T TOUCH ME! Don't touch-zzzzzzzzzzzt!" "Here's your Patriot Act! Here's your-zzzzzzzzzzt!" Lesson #1: When the police ask you to do something, do it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g7zlJx9u2E

LOS ANGELES - An FBI investigation prompted by video footage of a man being punched repeatedly in the face by police has demonstrated anew the power of the Internet sensation of the year, YouTube.com. In addition to being a monumental time-waster around the office, YouTube could also become a tool for keeping police honest, some say. This week, a clip on the post-it-yourself video Web site triggered a police-brutality investigation by the FBI. The footage shows the Aug. 11 arrest of alleged gang member William Cardenas, 24. Two Los Angeles officers can be seen holding him down on a Hollywood...

A Virginia sheriff covered up a scheme in which a dozen of his deputies sold seized guns and drugs to the public, a federal indictment alleges. The indictment names Henry County Sheriff Harold Franklin Cassell, known locally as "Frank," and 19 others. All but two of those indicted were taken into custody on Thursday morning, the Drug Enforcement Administration said. "It is disgraceful corruption," said U.S. Attorney John L. Brownlee. "These were drugs and guns that were seized as part of their law enforcement duties that were then stolen from the property room and put back out on the streets."......

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...

PLANTATION -- A Hollywood police officer is under investigation by Plantation police, accused of pointing a gun at a family of seven in an off-duty road rage incident, police records show. Officer Michael McCarty, 48, a 17-year veteran of the force with no documented disciplinary problems, is on paid leave pending the investigation. McCarty has not been charged with a crime. His attorney hadn't seen the allegations Thursday. "Anybody can make an accusation for any reason," said Coral Gables attorney Alberto Milian. "It's almost impossible to defend somebody when you don't even know what the accusation is or you haven't...

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...

A Stockbridge couple whose home was mistakenly raided by Henry County Police last year as they sought a drug suspect is seeking $8 million in damages from the incident. In a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court against county officials and police, Roy and Belinda Baker say they were roused out of bed by police who used a battering ram to knock down their door and threw concussive grenades into their home around 1 a.m. Sept. 30. “The Law Enforcement Defendants accosted the Bakers in the hallway to their bedroom, where they had been sleeping, and yelled at the...

ISSAQUAH - The Issaquah man who claims he shot a black bear in self-defense near his home Monday night is now under investigation by the Department of Fish and Wildlife for being a felon in possession of a firearm and for hunting a bear out of season. King County Sheriff's deputies, officers with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms served a search warrant Wednesday at Aaron Enright's home in the rural High Point neighborhood near Issaquah. They seized the 10-gauge shotgun he used to shoot the bear, a .22-caliber rifle...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- A deputy U.S. marshal was killed in a shootout with police officers who had stopped the agent for driving erratically early Sunday, authorities said.

A federal jury on Friday awarded $2.25 million to a Virginia man who claimed a police investigator fabricated a rape and murder confession that sent him to death row. Earl Washington Jr., who came within nine days of being executed, had sued the estate of the state police investigator, Curtis Reese Wilmore, who died in 1994. Jurors awarded Washington damages upon finding that Wilmore deliberately fabricated evidence that led to his conviction and death sentence. "I feel great - and happy," a smiling Washington said after the verdict. Washington spent nearly 18 years in prison. He was pardoned in 2000...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A local school employee said a rough run-in with a couple of Homeland Security officers has left him with a strong sense of insecurity. Leander Pickett Leander Pickett says he was handcuffed, roughed up and humiliated by two Homeland Security officers who refused to move their car from the path of waiting school buses. Leander Pickett, a teacher's assistant at Englewood Elementary, said he was manhandled and handcuffed by two plain clothed Homeland Security officers in front of the school Tuesday for no reason at all. "I would like to treat people the way I would want...

Raid Settlement Gets Initial OK Goose Creek, SC -- The morning of Nov. 5, 2003, Maurice Harris was a skinny ninth-grader at Stratford High School, standing in a stairwell, getting ready for classes. Suddenly, he heard a loud boom and saw police pour into a hallway, shouting and waving guns. One officer pointed a gun at his face, and the image of that gun barrel stayed with him long afterward, filling him with anger. Now 17 and a junior at Stratford, Harris found himself inside a federal courtroom Wednesday, listening to a judge give preliminary approval to settlement of a...

TALLAHASSEE — A black Delray Beach family trumpeted their faith in God and the U.S. legal system after a jury awarded them $2 million in damages Thursday upon deciding that five white North Florida sheriff's deputies had violated their civil rights. "I am happy that I came and did what I had to do," 20-year-old Cynthia McCloud said. "It's been really hard to sit and listen to everything again. I got through it because my mom and my family were here supporting me." McCloud was 15 when she and her family — her mother, Arnetta; her father, Freddy; and cousin...

WASHOUGAL, Wash. - A woman who was shocked a dozen times with a Taser for refusing to sign a dog nuisance complaint has settled a lawsuit against the city of Washougal for $200,000. Olga Rybak had sued the city for more than $2.5 million for the incident in August of 2003 that left red burn marks on her body. A Russian immigrant with limited English, she had refused to sign the dog nuisance complaint and asked for an interpreter. An officer then attempted to arrest her and she fought back. The officer was demoted from sergeant to patrolman for poor...

HOMER -- A Minnesota fugitive wanted on drug charges pulled a handgun during an attempted arrest at the Homer airport Wednesday, touching off a gunfight that left him dead in the parking lot, Alaska State Troopers said. His two-year-old son remained in critical condition Thursday night from a bullet through the head. Troopers are investigating the shootout involving U.S. marshals and Homer police outside the airport terminal, which was crowded with high-schoolers and their parents. Jason Karlo Jacob Anderson, 31, of Duluth, Minn., had been living under an alias in Alaska with his girlfriend and their two small children for...

An Air Force Police Officer on leave from Iraq remains in critical condition Tuesday after he was shot by a San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy in an incident that is now under investigation.

Police: Officer Zaps Partner After Soda Dispute POSTED: 7:19 am EST December 8, 2005 HAMTRAMCK, Mich. -- Authorities said a police officer in Michigan used a Taser stun gun on his partner during an argument about stopping for a soft drink. The suspect was fired after the Nov. 3 incident and is charged with assault. Ronald Dupuis, 32, could get up to 93 days in jail if convicted. Authorities said Dupuis asked partner Prema Graham to stop at a store for a soft drink, but she refused and instead kept driving back to headquarters. Authorities said the partners struggled over...

DALLAS- A Peruvian citizen living in North Texas died Friday morning, two weeks after a struggle with two Allen police officers who the department said used pepper spray when the man resisted arrest. Edgar Vera, 45, had been on life support in a McKinney hospital, which had orders from his relatives not to resuscitate him, said family attorney Steve Salazar of Dallas. Salazar said no lawsuit has been filed against Allen police. He plans to await autopsy results and medical records from the incident. A cousin, Luis Pacchioni, said once the Collin County Medical Examiner's Office completes its autopsy, the...

BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) -- Two hurricane relief workers from Manatee County, Florida, say they witnessed the beating of a man on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that's been all over television news programs for the last couple days. And they say one of them was manhandled as well. Calvin Briles, a consultant for the Volunteer Center of Manatee County, says when law enforcement officers tried to get him and other passers-by out of the area, Briles said that he would tell somebody about what was going on. Briles says that's when a man in a U.S. Customs vest grabbed him...

Officers taped beating man arrested for public intoxication plead not guilty. A television producer recorded as New Orleans police officers arrested and beat Robert Davis, believing he was intoxicated in public. Davis' lawyer denies his client was drunk. Updated: 7:50 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2005 NEW ORLEANS - A 64-year-old man who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape was not drunk, as police have alleged, and put up no resistance as he was being pummeled, his lawyer said Monday. The man, a retired elementary school teacher, had returned to New Orleans only...

Family members watching from both sides of a Rockville courtroom remained still and silent yesterday as a Montgomery County judge handed a 15-year sentence to a former U.S. marshal convicted in the shooting death of a Navy seaman. Arthur L. Lloyd, 54, who sat beside his lawyers in a green prison jumpsuit, showed little emotion as Circuit Judge Ann S. Harrington sentenced him to 25 years, then suspended 10. "I have to process it so I can deal with it," Lloyd's sister Beryl Stanley said of the decision as she stood outside the courtroom looking dazed. During their testimony, members...

A nursing mother was separated from her baby, handcuffed, and abruptly taken to jail and now, the state patrol and the Lakewood Police Department are investigating. The mother told 7NEWS' John Ferrugia that she was terrified and humiliated by police mistakes. It all began when the woman and her husband were pulled over during a routine traffic stop. "I doubled up kids in the back seat in belts. So they were restrained, but not properly. But ... it was my fault for not having them in there properly," said father Ricky Archuleta. Ricky expected a ticket but was surprised when...

A special moment in Dayton Ohio

NEWARK, N.J. -- Federal and state authorities are trying to determine how armed officers raided the wrong house, smashing doors and frightening residents earlier this week, a state police spokesman said Thursday. We are investigating what went wrong," said Sgt. Gerald Lewis Jr. "For some reason, whether it was erroneous information or supervision, we actually hit the wrong house." He said the address on the state search warrant was correct, but that the team of state police SWAT officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents went to the wrong street and raided a home with the same number on Tuesday. An...

LONDON, Aug. 22 -- Scotland Yard acknowledged Monday that Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a suicide bomber, had done nothing unusual before he was shot after entering the London subway last month. Police said Menezes used a ticket to enter and had not jumped a turnstile, and they said he was not wearing a padded jacket that could have concealed a bomb. That version of events, recounted by police in a written statement, was significant because it was similar to a widely publicized report leaked last week about the killing of Menezes, 27. The report, which...

WHY would anyone want to become a police officer when even self- defense is now deemed "excessive force" and "racist?" Those charges have been hurled at Los Angeles police officers, who, on July 10, shot to death 19-month-old Suzie Marie Pena -- because her father Jose Raul Pena held the child as a human shield as he fired a stolen semiautomatic handgun toward police. Pena had wounded one officer during a 2 1/2-hour standoff. What's more, police had managed to rescue Suzie Marie's 17-year-old sister, who had called the police because Pena was threatening her, and he did fire his...

SUNRISE -- Police seized 2 ounces of marijuana at the home of Anthony Diotaiuto after shooting him 10 times, according to information on the drug raid released Tuesday. Also Tuesday, while many friends and relatives of the 23-year-old bartender and student mourned him at a Davie funeral home, others appeared at a Sunrise City Commission meeting to demand an explanation for the fatal raid "Do 2 ounces of marijuana constitute a death warrant?" asked Sunrise resident William de Larm, a friend of Diotaiuto's.

TAVARES -- A father who accused a Mount Dora policeman last year of dumping out his infant daughter's cremated remains sued the city and the officer Monday. Filed in Lake Circuit Court, the lawsuit accuses the city and Officer Brad Cline of illegally stopping and searching Jason Burnham, 34, as he was walking home after Hurricane Charley. During the stop, Burnham's suit says, Cline emptied the ashes from a cross-shaped pendant worn by Burnham, suspecting it contained cocaine. "This is probably the most mean-spirited violation of a person's civil rights that I have seen in many years,"

LOS ANGELES (AP) Coroner's officials in Los Angeles say a 19-month-old girl killed by police as her father held her hostage had trace amounts of cocaine in her system. Suzie Pena was shot by police after her father opened fire on officers who cornered him in his Watts auto repair business July tenth after a three-hour confrontation. Thirty-four-year-old Jose Pena was holding the toddler as he fired a nine-millimeter handgun, wounding one officer. The officers returned fire, killing Pena and the girl. Police found traces of cocaine and a partly empty tequila bottle in the office where Pena had tried...

Witnesses: Tasered boy posed no threat July 31, 2005 BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter A 14-year-old boy who went into cardiac arrest after he was zapped by a Chicago Police stun gun had not threatened police or anyone else before he was shocked, four eyewitnesses to the February incident say. The developmentally delayed boy was sitting on a couch in a juvenile home and was not attempting to harm anyone, the witnesses claim in sworn court depositions obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. After the boy went into convulsions and fell to the floor, the officer who used the Taser allegedly...

A family says on a quiet May evening members of the Utah County SWAT team erroneously invaded their Springville home and roughed them up without cause. The next day, the Chidester family, including Lawrence, his wife Emily and their adult son Larry, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Utah County and six SWAT team members. According to court documents, the Chidesters say the SWAT team arrived on the street outside their home May 25 at approximately 10:30 p.m. They say the officers then proceeded to man-handle them in the execution of a search warrant -- albeit for the wrong...

Loving Big Brother by William Norman Grigg July 26, 2005   The killing of Jean Charles de Meneze by London police, who wrongly suspected Meneze of being a suicide bomber, demonstrated the folly of giving police a license to kill on the basis of suspicion. Yet some neoconservatives "love" this and other Big Brother policies. The July 22 shooting death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes at the hands of plainclothes London police left Fox News commentator John Gibson swooning with admiration."I love the way the Brits have 10 million cameras sticking up the nose of every citizen...

Man who was shot by deputies during a Harbor Gateway shootout gets $70,000 for his injuries. A roofer mistakenly shot by sheriff's deputies during a chaotic gunbattle in Harbor Gateway last year has been awarded $70,000. The county Claims Board approved the settlement on Monday for Ricardo Oliva, who was holding a mop while working atop a building. Deputies suspected he might be a sniper preparing to shoot them. "He was very lucky and gives daily blessings to himself and his family that his life was spared," said Oliva's attorney, Steven Lerman. "He is a good guy and was basically...

Robert Guerrero may have died because he wouldn’t come out of a closet.The small-time crook had been looking to steal some electricity. When he tried to illegally reconnect a neighbor’s electrical meter at the North View apartment complex near the Fort Worth Stockyards last November, someone called the cops. And when the officers arrived, someone else pointed them to the closet in Apartment M where he was hiding.Guerrero, 21, wasn’t a violent criminal. His rap sheet was littered with convictions for things like misdemeanor theft and burglary of a coin-operated machine. Normally, theft of electricity won’t even get you arrested...

An Aurora Police officer is facing disciplinary action after an incident in which he pulled his gun on another motorist during an off-duty altercation on the highway. It started with a lane change on I-225. That's the part everyone agrees on. What everybody doesn't agree on is whether or not the officer - who was off-duty, out of uniform and driving his personal car - should have pulled his gun on the other driver. "I put my signal on and started to merge lanes when my fiancee tells me that there's car over there," said Parker Bell. Bell admits he...

Letter To Editor Criticized Use Of Tasers, Sheriff's WeightORLANDO, Fla. -- Orange County's sheriff may have broken the law when he used driver's license records to track down a woman who wrote a newspaper to criticize his staff's use of Taser stun guns and described him as too fat for basic police work, critics say.Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary had his aides use the records to get the address of Alice Gawronski so he could send her a scathing letter, which some say violated federal privacy law. It is illegal to access a driver's license database to obtain personal information,...

NEW YORK -- A Long Island man was ticketed in Brooklyn for selling Girl Scout cookies with his 13-year-old daughter. Hoi Louis was in Williamsburg delivering the cookies with his daughter over the weekend. Louis said it was his old neighborhood, before he moved to Bethpage, and he and his daughter have been selling Girl Scout cookies there since his daughter was in first grade. At 4:50 p.m. Saturday a police captain and a uniformed officer pulled up to their van as they were unloading cookies. Louis said the captain from the 94th Precinct ticketed him for selling cookies without...

By Tony Plohetski AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, March 05, 2005 Four dispatchers suspended in addition to five officers. At 7:09 p.m. on Feb. 18, Austin police officer John Lengefeld heard a radio transmission that a Northeast Austin nightclub was on fire. The seven-year department veteran, according to documents released Friday, said he immediately thought of the song "Disco Inferno" and sent a message from his patrol car to fellow officer Josue Martinez that said "burn baby burn." Martinez replied 37 seconds later: "Hey ... LOL (laughing out loud). Those were my exact thoughts." So began more than two hours of computer...

AURORA, Colo. -- Aurora police are reviewing a weekend incident in which a man accused of stealing salad from a Chuck E. Cheese salad bar was hit with a stun gun twice by officers. The incident began at 4:05 p.m. Sunday when officers were called to the restaurant at 145005 East Exposition on a report of a larceny in progress. Police talked to the Chuck E. Cheese manager who told them that a customer had refused to show proof that he had paid for food. The manager said the man was seen "loading" his plate at the salad bar. The...