Free Republic

Under orders from President Obama ,military surplus vehicles were seized from Calhoun County, Alabama Sheriff Larry Amerson Wednesday. For over 20 years, under the federal government’s 10-33 program, the Defense Department distributed military surplus equipment and vehicles to local law enforcement.However, following the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, over local law enforcement controversies, President Obama halted the program through an executive order. All vehicles from the program that were deemed too “militaristic looking” were to be confiscated from local law enforcement all over the country.“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an...

A mariner sailing in uncharted waters runs the risk of hitting a reef, running aground, or becoming lost and suffering an immense hardship. The mariner takes these risks because the reward of discovery and achievement far surpass the hardship required to be the trailblazer. Being a trailblazer and navigating uncharted waters is what officer Nisha Henderson lives for. Henderson is the very first female member of the Utah County, Utah, Metro SWAT Team and is blazing a trail not only for herself, but for other female officers. Nisha Henderson (4)Reared in the shadow of the Beehive State’s Wasatch Mountains, Henderson...

Swatting, for those unfamiliar, is when people call law enforcement to report a fake emergency to get SWAT deployed to a specific location, like someone’s home—something Lil Wayne was a victim of earlier this year—sometimes resulting in victims being attacked or arrested by police. Swatting is now a federal crime, for which one Connecticut man is facing one year in prison for. Matthew Tollis a 22-year-old arrested last year in September is getting prison time for his involvement in six swatting incidents in 2014, according to the Department of Justice. -snip-Tollis was sentenced to 12 months and one day in...

The phrase "police militarization" conjures up an image of cops wrapped in Kevlar, barging into homes with semi-automatic weapons. But familiar as that image is, we don't know how common it is. There are simply no good statistics on police tactical operations in America. The federal government doesn't keep track, and neither do the states — with one exception: Utah. The pressure to start counting the operations there dates back to 2012, after a drug raid gone wrong in Ogden. A tactical team from the local drug task force had gone into a little house where marijuana was being grown....

But Miles' mother has claimed her 30-year-old son cannot have carried out the killing because they were out on a shopping trip together when the shooting unfolded. She is quoted by KPRC as saying: 'We got back, we couldn't get on our street. So after we couldn't get on our street, when we came back, the back way to our house and then that's when we (were) faced with SWAT and dogs and cops and guns and they handcuffed him.'

Tampa Bay, FL – A Florida family seeks justice after their son Jason Westcott, was killed by members of a SWAT team, during a “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 worth of marijuana. An ‘internal investigation’ absolved officers of any wrongdoing though police only found .02 grams of marijuana in Westcott’s home. “They have IA, they have internal investigations but when you police yourself, you have that veil of concern by the outsider,” said attorney T.J. Grimaldi. On Tuesday, attorney T.J. Grimaldi, representing the family of Westcott, informed the city that family would be filing a lawsuit,...

SUNSET, Lo. -- Officials are responding to a shooting involving multiple victims in Louisiana, reports CBS affiliate KLFY. Sunset Police have confirmed to KLFY that a police officer has been shot. KLFY is reporting that a man has barricaded himself inside the convenience store near where the shooting took place.

WORCESTER (CBS) — Marianne Diaz and her fiancé, Bryant Alequin, felt their lives were in danger when a SWAT team raided their third-floor apartment on Hillside Street with guns drawn. Diaz says she grabbed her seven-year-old and 18-month-old girls and prayed while Worcester police officers and State Police troopers executed a search warrant. “It was terrorizing, and the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life. They were loud, vulgar, and disgusting in behavior,” she said. It happened on Wednesday around 5:30 in the morning. Alequin says he was in the bathroom getting ready for work. “I was scared,...

Federal authorities today arrested a former Madison County deputy for his role in the roadside arrest and brutal beating of a Tennessee handyman in August of 2012. Deputy Justin Watson, who quit the force in April, was the only one named in the federal indictment.

<p>Alex Horton is a member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project. He served as an infantryman in Iraq with the Army’s 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.</p> <p>I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.</p>

The St. Paul Police Department SWAT Team Commander, Tim Flynn, says the military weapons they use only come out when they face high-risk, dangerous situations. "These weapons are critical to protecting the safety of the public and police officers," Flynn said. The SPPD has 99 AR-15 rifles on loan from the federal government, and they did receive a federal grant to obtain an armored vehicle used in potentially violent cases such as last year's arrest of cop killer, Brian Fitch. In October we reported on how four police departments returned military issued equipment obtained at no cost through a government...

RICHLAND | In what appears to be the second such drill, Special Forces have been deployed domestically alongside local Sheriffs to train for midnight raids in Richland County South Carolina.

[Embeded Video] HOLLADAY, Utah – Unified Police are looking for four suspects in a home invasion robbery overnight. Police said four Polynesian men dressed in all black kicked the door in at a basement apartment in Holladay. According to the two victims who were home at the time, the men said they were police officers and began searching the home and taking electronics. One of the victims was able to run down the street and call 911. The suspects chased him a few blocks and then ran before police arrived. Police set up roadblocks and began searching for the men...

On Monday, Mitch Bates, the Garland police chief, clarified details of this shootout between the gunmen and five of his force’s officers. Bates said that the officer and the security guard who were confronted by the armed gunmen were not in a police car, as was initially believed, but were standing by it when the gunmen drove up to a barricade and got out of their car. In addition, Bates said that the Garland police officer, who has not been identified, shot the gunmen and wounded, rather than killed, both of them. Four SWAT members armed with assault rifles and...

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‘They came with a battering ram.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full...

The family of a Santa Rosa man who killed himself during an armed standoff last year with Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies sued the county Friday in federal court, alleging an unwarranted, militarized assault on his home forced him to take his own life Dozens of deputies, including a SWAT team with an armored vehicle, descended on Swindell’s home and remained for hours after he released the kids and refused to come out. He committed suicide sometime the next morning when deputies filled the attic he was hiding in with tear gas and other chemical irritants, causing him extreme suffering, the...

Two Albuquerque, New Mexico, police officers are facing murder charges for the shooting death of a homeless man last year. (snip) James Boyd, 38, a mentally ill homeless man, was camping illegally in the hills above Albuquerque when he was confronted by police. During a standoff, police say he refused to drop a knife. The helmet cam video, however, appears to show Boyd surrender. When he begins to run, police open fire. On Monday, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg filed murder charges against SWAT team member Dominique Perez and former detective Keith Sandy.

It’s a morning Kenneth Wright will never forget: 15 armed agents break in his front door and grab him by the neck, still in the boxer shorts he slept in. For six hours, a handcuffed Wright sat in a cruiser parked outside with his three children, ages 3, 7, and 11, while agents searched his house. “They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids,” the Stockton, Calif., resident told a local news outlet at the time. Drugs? Weapons? Domestic violence? No. As Wright later found out, his gun-toting visitors were from the...

Habersham County, Georgia is nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, just south of stunning Tallulah Gorge.  The biggest city in the county is Cornelia, with 4,160 residents.  The entire population of Habersham County would fill slightly more than half the seats in the Georgia Dome. Yet Habersham County Sheriff’s Department has a SWAT team, complete with flash-bang grenades, one of which exploded in a 19-month-old’s crib on May 28, 2014.  A drug raid gone wrong.  In fact, gone so wrong that there wasn’t even a hint of a drug dealer at the home, just a sleeping family. [WSB-TV]...