Free Republic

Houston, TX — A completely innocent man was shot, tasered, brutally beaten, and had stun grenades thrown at him by vicious and incompetent SWAT officers. Then, those same officers tried to cover up their mistake by charging the victim, Chad Chadwick, with six criminal offenses including felony assault on a police officer. This incident happened in 2011, but it has taken Chadwick three years and his entire life savings, to finally beat the charges that he was falsely accused of. Last month, a jury found Chad Chadwick not guilty of interfering with police. With tears in their eyes members of...

A few minutes ago SWAT found out that the PTSD gunman who killed four in Souderton and Lansdale, Pa was not in home in Souderton, PA. Escaped. Whereabouts of gunman unknown, more deaths expected. New crime scene in Pennsburg, Pa with police investigating.....unknown.

The federal government and the Obama administration are under fire for a variety of unconstitutional programs aimed at both militarizing and controlling local police and law enforcement, including supplying a vast array of sophisticated U.S. Defense Department “weapons of war” to city and county governments. Billions of dollars in military equipment has already been handed to municipal police departments and county sheriffs’ offices nationwide under the rapidly expanding federal schemes, but concerns from across the political spectrum are growing quickly as well. This year alone, over 150 so-called “mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles,” or MRAPs, used by U.S. forces in Iraq, were...

Midland, TX — Rosendo Gino Rodriquez, 49, was shot dead in an altercation Monday while Midland Police were conducting a routine welfare check. The Midland County mental health unit was conducting a regular welfare check at a home on the 2700 block of Washington Street, when things went sour. According to the Midland police, Rodriquez became “aggressive” during the welfare check. The term aggressive is used loosely by the MPD, as they claim he acted out said “aggression” by running away from them, back into his house, and barricading himself in a room. The Free Thought Project would like to...

Since 2006,MRAPs, helicopters, machine guns, and night-vision-goggle have been increasingly evident across America as the good ol' yankee copper morphs into a full-metal-jacket-looking killer (even as the FBI admits the threats to police have not escalated as much as the media would like). So it isjust 'lucky' that Ferguson has reignited a narrative that enables President Obama "to discuss federal programs and funding that provide equipment to the state and local enforcement agencies," in a series of meetings today at The White House. We suspect funding will increase (for your own protection) and a new SWATification Tzar will be unveiled....

Dog shot dead by SWAT team during alleged dispute over neighborhood dog waste • A small dog was filmed being shot by advancing police officers in Racine, Wisc. on Saturday after police were called about violent threats made by the dog's owner, said a neighbor. Police Chief Art Howell said the owner threatened to kill the officers with an armor-piercing crossbow before setting his dog loose. A SWAT team sent to handle an alleged neighborhood dispute over dog waste ended up killing the dog, and igniting a firestorm of criticism against the local police force. In dramatic video capturing the...

The Bearing Arms website said the activity is “a favored tactic” of gun-control supporters. For example, from the Facebook page of Moms Demand Action, a group that tries to push retailers into public statements of opposition to guns, a Jennifer Decker wrote, “Every time I see someone with a gun in a store I will call 911 … because I feel threatened, they’ll get tired of that right quick!!!” Added Alan Crammatte, “Call the police and say you feel threatened by a man with a gun.”

The New Haven SWAT team must have been pretty amped up: It was midnight, and they were getting ready to bust down the door of a man wanted on charges involving weapons violations, robbery — and murder. They were not sure how many people were in the house, or how they’d react. After a volley of flash grenades that set fire to the carpet and a sofa, they moved in, guns drawn. A minute later, they had their man zip-tied on the floor. If only they’d double-checked the address first. Bobby Griffin Jr. was wanted on murder charges. His next-door...

Phillip Smith at the Drug War Chronicle sums up the news reports detailing the latest casualty in the never-ending U.S. war on drugs. A Georgia SWAT team shot and killed an armed homeowner during a September 24 drug raid sparked by the word of a self-confessed meth addict and burglar who had robbed the property the previous day. No drugs were found. David Hooks, 59, becomes the 34th person to die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year. According to WMAZ TV 13, Laurens County sheriff’s deputies with the drug task force and special response team...

Windsor police responded in force Thursday afternoon to a residential neighborhood on Alden Lane after a prank 911 call reported a shooting in a home there. Officers swarmed the quiet residential block just before 6 p.m., when elementary school-aged kids and parents were attending an evening program at the nearby Mary Agatha Furth Center. Police showed up at the home where a retired man and his wife live with one of their daughters and her child, after receiving a 911 call that appeared to come from the their address. The caller said a grandfather at the home had shot someone...

Today a federal appeals court rebuked police in Orange County, Florida, for mounting a warrantless, SWAT-style raid on a barbership under the pretense of assisting state inspectors. "We have twice held, on facts disturbingly similar to those presented here, that a criminal raid executed under the guise of an administrative inspection is constitutionally unreasonable," says the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. "We hope that the third time will be the charm." On August 19, 2010, two inspectors from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) visited the Strictly Skillz Barbershop in Orlando...

<p>While some law enforcement agencies are snatching up free military surplus vehicles, Orlando police plan to spend $230,000 for a new armored personnel carrier for the department's SWAT unit.</p> <p>It's not the Orlando Police Department's first armored vehicle — it already has three. But the new one will replace an 8-year-old model, and the city's original one is an older piece of military surplus that hasn't been used in years.</p>

A Littleton, Colorado, man named Jordan Mathewson was raided by a heavily armed SWAT team thanks to a false shooting and hostage report, and all the chaos was captured on a Twitch game stream (see below). During a Counter-Strike session, Jordan "Kootra" Mathewson -- a founder of The Creatures -- suddenly noticed things around him were amiss. "Uh oh. This isn't good. They're clearing rooms. What in the world, I think we're getting swatted," he says in the video. Luckily, Mathewson stayed calm throughout the ordeal and was released a short time later. On top of invading his offices, police...

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton lists the following guidelines on his blog. There is some doubt among scholars that Sir Robert Peel actually enunciated any of his nine principles himself — some researchers say they were formulated in 1829 by the two first commissioners of London’s Metropolitan Police Department.

A terrifying helmet cam video, released to the public Wednesday, depicts a SWAT team executing a search warrant on the home of a 68-year-old woman and her 18-year-old adopted daughter. The video is raising questions of privacy, reasonable force and police due diligence. They had the wrong place. The raid of Louise Milan and daughter Stephanie Milan’s Evansville, Ind. home was accompanied by the sound of shattering glass and multiple flash-bang grenades. It was all due to the Milan’s non-password protected Internet router, according to the Evansville Courier & Press. The raid was prompted by a series of threatening posts...

To people on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and many around the world who watched Wednesday night's violence unfold, it seemed like a scene out of another country. (snip) Some in the military community say the problem is that police are getting the equipment without the same training and rules. "To call this militarization doesn't characterize the military very well," said Josh Weinberg, an Army veteran who focuses on security issues for the Truman Project. "We always were trained in escalation of force." To call this militarization doesn't characterize the military very well. The police apparently "had their weapons up...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday ordered the state Highway Patrol to take over security in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb roiled by four nights of unrest over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager. The governor moved after police came under intense criticism for their handling of the protests, including firing tear gas into crowds on Wednesday night and arresting two reporters. Nixon said that Ferguson in recent days looked “a little more like a war zone, and that’s unacceptable.” The head of the Highway Patrol, Capt. Ron Johnson, told reporters: “I understand the anger and fear...

The increase in police brutality in this country is a frightening reality. In the last decade alone the number of people murdered by police has reached 5,000. The number of soldiers killed since the inception of the Iraq war, 4489. What went wrong? In the 19070’s SWAT teams were estimated to be used just a few hundred times per year, now we are looking at over 40,000 military style “knock and announce” police raids a year. The police presence in this country is being turned into a military with a clearly defined enemy, anyone who questions the establishment. If we...

An officer believed they were acting in an aggressive manner," said Sgt. Paul Paulos, a St. Paul police spokesman. "He thought he'd be bit or the dogs would bite one of the team members." Perry and her fiance, Larry L. Arman, said the dogs had been sleeping by the front door and did nothing more than bark when police used a ram to break down the door of their home to execute a search warrant. The warrant wasn't publicly available in court as of Thursday. Perry and Arman said it indicated police were looking for marijuana, drug packaging, weighing equipment,...

Florida sheriff defends acquisition of surplus MRAP Published June 30, 2014 Associated Press DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla. – A decision by one Panhandle sheriff's office to purchase a military surplus MRAP is being criticized by some residents. The Northwest Florida Daily News reports that the Walton County Sheriff's office bought the mine-resistant and ambush-resistant MRAP for just the $2,500 cost of delivery. Sheriff Mike Adkinson says the heavy-duty vehicle will protect his officers in dangerous situations. But some residents told the newspaper that the military vehicle is an unnecessary show of force in their largely rural county.