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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...