Free Republic

President Barack Obama is opening a new front in the gun control debate, readying a big push for so-called smart gun technology — an initiative that the gun lobby and law enforcement rank and file is already mobilizing against. As early as Friday, Obama is set to formally release findings from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security Departments on ways to spur the development of guns that can be fired only by their owner, according to industry and gun control sources. Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett is slated to preview the announcement for stakeholders on Thursday afternoon. It’s an intensification of...

Here's my debut broadcast. The fun continues.

Hillsborough is not over! In the longest running inquest in British legal history and possibly the biggest policing cover up ever, a Coroner’s Jury found retired Police Superintendent David Duckenfield and other senior commanders responsible for the unlawful killing of 96 soccer fans. The unlawful killing finding was the key component of the 14 counts and now invites criminal manslaughter charges to be filed. That decision will be taken by Assistant Police Commissioner John Stoddart, appointed directly by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 to run Operation Resolve. It is the official investigation that would then refer evidence to the...

Despite new Michigan laws that begin to limit the ability of law enforcement agencies to take property from a person who has not been convicted of a crime, civil liberties activists say that the practice, known as "civil asset forfeiture," is still a problem. Their plan of action? Work at the local level to ban it. “We need to put police back in the role of being protectors of society rather than glorified armed robbers, which is what they’ve become under civil asset forfeiture,” said Shane Trejo, who is organizing petition drives in Oakland County. Trejo became involved through his...

If you find yourself in an emergency situation in Green Mountain Falls, Colo., don’t bother calling police. In this scenic western hamlet, they no longer exist. All four members of the 700-person town’s police force — Tim Bradley, the police chief, and three volunteer reserve officers — resigned April 14 because of an alleged policy dispute with the municipality’s newly elected mayor, according to Fox affiliate KXRM-TV. Residents told the station that they weren’t exactly sure why the resignations occurred. “Our marshal and three deputies quit, and that’s about all they said,” Ann Pinell said. “We’ve had our hometown marshal...

'A record number of people have applied to join the French police force over the past year. Many new recruits say the recent attacks in Paris inspired them to sign up. It also seems that the shootings have made the country rethink its attitude towards the police.'

THE THIN BLUE LINE Monday was the annual day of self-congratulation for traditional journalists – the announcement of the Pulitzer Prize winners. 2016’s awards (and finalists) recognized a parade of journalists whose work was overtly hostile to law enforcement. The award for national reporting went to the Washington Post for (to quote the Pulitzer committee) “its revelatory initiative in creating and using a national database to illustrate how often and why the police shoot to kill and who the victims are most likely to be.” The award for “explanatory reporting” went to ProPublica for a “startling examination and exposé of...

Cellphone video shows members of a crowd jostling a police officer in Tennessee on Tuesday as he attempted to arrest a man suspected of assaulting a woman, authorities said. Shortly after 6 p.m., Officer Matthew Cammarn witnessed the alleged assault by 22-year-old Brian Shannon near the intersection of South 7th and Sylvan Streets, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. The suspect “aggressively walked up to the officer,” who told him to put his hands behind his back and attempted to take him into custody, the statement said. Shannon allegedly pulled away, grabbed Cammarn and pulled him...

Luis Valenzuela Rodriguez, 60, died of natural causes Thursday He was serving life sentence for murder of Officers William M. Freeman, Roy P. Blecher Rodriguez was incarcerated in San Diego at time of death

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – A frustrated protester told reporters at a union-sponsored Black Lives Matter event that he thinks “It is time for people to really rise up against this injustice that’s been going on for too long” and that “All of these peaceful protests are soon going to end. We are not going to continue these peaceful protests while you murder our children.”

Gallatin Police Department officials have released body cam and dash cam video of a fatal officer involved shooting. The shooting happened Wednesday morning. Gallatin officers were responding to a call from assistance from Sumner County Deputies.

There is outrage after Chicago police shot and killed a 16-year-old boy.

‘Textalyzer’ phone scanners that tell cops whether drivers were texting at the time of an accident could be deployed in New York state if proposed legislation passes. However, the scanners, which would harness mobile forensic technology, have already attracted fierce criticism from civil liberties activists. Similar in concept to a ‘breathalyzer’ used to catch drunk drivers, the ‘textalyzer’ would let cops examine phones at accident sites for evidence of distracted driving. If implemented, the technology would be the first of its type used by police in the U.S. Developed with New York state law enforcement, the scanners would not access...

Karen Winters knows how easily boys are drawn to a life of violence in the Homan Square neighborhood. But she still can't understand how her 16-year-old nephew ended up shot to death after allegedly confronting a Chicago police officer with a gun Monday evening. "Once again, we're looking at environment, this community. How some of these young boys are just plagued with certain influences," Winters said Tuesday. "But not to this extent, by no means." Police say the officer shot Pierre Loury after stopping a car suspected of being connected to an earlier shooting. Officers pulled the car over around...

Here we go… The US Army now has its first female infantry recruit, a police officer in Louisiana. According to Fox News: Tammy Barnett said she figures her new job will be a lot like her old one. With one notable exception: She’ll be the first female to do it. The 25-year-old Louisiana police officer is set to report to basic training as the Army’s first female infantry recruit, The Army Times reported. Barnett will serve in one of the military occupational specialties opened to women on April 1. She made her initial visit to recruiters in November, took her...

Truncated title. Full title: Matt Palumbo: Cleveland Cops Forced to Give Up Vacation to Babysit Soros’ ‘Dream Team of Protesters’ at GOP Convention Cleveland resident and conservative marketing and fundraising strategist Matt Palumbo thinks his city has made great strides in development over the past two decades, but he told Breitbart News Daily host Stephen K. Bannon that Cleveland is going to have its hands full when George Soros “rolls in his dream team of protesters,” including Black Lives Matter and others, during the Republican Convention in July. On top of this, Palumbo explained that “the City of Cleveland is...

Police hunt two Brazilian bank robbers who wrapped themselves head-to-toe in TINFOIL in successful bid to beat alarm systemPolice in Brazil are hunting two bank robbers who wrapped themselves up in tin foil in a bizarre attempt to fool its alarm system. The daring ruse worked and the alarm didn't sound - but an armed police response unit was mobilised after they were picked up moving around inside the bank in their odd disguises on a central CCTV monitoring system. An accomplice believed to have been acting as a lookout was arrested - but the two men whose faces were...

Authorities dropped charges Thursday on six high school students involved in a brutal assault of a commuter and police officer on the Washington D.C. metro. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said he could not comment on the case and why the charges were abruptly dropped, but he suggested there is not enough hard video evidence to identify the teens charged and prove they were involved in the January assault, reports NBC Washington. The teens were commuting to Woodrow Wilson High School when the fight broke out. Police say a teen punched a 35 year old man on the red line,...

The former Navy SEAL who says he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden was arrested Friday on a drunken driving charge after police found him asleep in a car parked at a convenience store in his Montana hometown. Customers at the store in Butte called police to report a sleeping man behind the wheel of the running car around 2:30 a.m., Butte-Silver Bow County Undersheriff George Skuletich said. The officer who responded woke the man up, identified him as Robert O'Neill and noticed odd behavior. "He was confused. His actions were consistent with somebody who might be under...

Authorities in Tennessee have released video of a shooting in which a white police officer kills a black woman who was approaching him while wielding a medieval-style ax. The video, released Thursday, shows Gallatin Officer James Spray telling 40-year-old Laronda Sweatt, who was holding the ax, to stop approaching him multiple times before fatally shooting her. "I want to know why he did her like that," Ella Sweatt said. "He didn't have to."