Free Republic

DURHAM (WTVD) -- Did a member of a Durham police SWAT team go too far when he shot and killed a dog during a raid in April? Some say it was unnecessary force. ABC11 cameras captured the incident at a home on Dunstan Avenue April 12. Officers were looking for Pete Moses and Vania Sisk. According to search warrants, Moses is a suspect in the disappearance of a woman and a 5-year-old boy. Sisk is the boy's mother.

JUNEAU — The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday reversed a judge’s finding that a Kotzebue police officer who used a stun gun on an 11-year-old should get immunity in the case brought by her mother. The justices determined that a lower court had erred both in granting Lee Virg-In qualified immunity and dismissing Sandra Russell’s claims that the city had improperly and negligently trained or supervised Virg-In. The matter was sent back to a trial court. Russell’s attorney welcomed the news, and an attorney for the city, Joe Evans, said he is prepared for trial. Evans said Virg-In is no...

Wisconsin --(Ammoland.com)- To Recap: On Saturday, September 18, 2010, five (5) members of WCI met for dinner at a Culvers Restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. Each of these individuals was openly carrying a handgun when they arrived at the restaurant, entered the restaurant and ordered and ate their meals. At or about the time that the WCI members finished their meal and left the restaurant, a woman in her car observed them openly carrying handguns and called 911 to report it to the City of Madison Police Department. The 911 caller informed the dispatcher that she didn’t know if it was...

WAVERLY, Tenn. - The beating apparently didn't stop when the man seen on video being beaten by Humphreys County deputies arrived at the jail, according to witnesses. This is among the incidents the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation are now looking into in connection with the January beating of Darrin Ring. The FBI and TBI served federal grand jury subpoenas to the sheriff's department. Those subpoenas could include jailers, deputies and Sheriff Chris Davis, as well as all records, files and computers. Larry Barbee is one of two inmates who has told the TBI that Ring...

“City officials have identified one out of every 17 Denver police officers as having discipline issues serious enough that their courtroom testimony may be suspect.” Denver’s Police Department has been stupidly run and marginally corrupt — not as bad as Chicago perhaps — as long as I can remember, so much so that the city more or less has a budget item in the millions of dollars every year for settlements with people unjustifiably killed or wounded by police. (After a real surge in those cases, the City of Denver hired a new Director of Public Safety who has been...

Cops mistakenly converge on wrong home in Struthers By John W. Goodwin Jr. jgoodwin@vindy.com YOUNGSTOWN A case of mistaken identity nearly roped a Struthers family into one of the largest drug sweeps in the area this year. Doreen Fox of Lewis Street, Struthers, was home with her 30-year-old son Wednesday morning preparing to leave for a doctor’s appointment when she noticed movement outside the home. She opened the front door to a flood of local and federal police. “They [police] were in my front yard, my rear yard; they had my house surrounded. When I opened the door to see...

A Seattle police officer has been charged with fourth-degree assault in connection with a December 2010 fight outside a bar. But the police union president said not only was the officer a victim of a brutal attack, but the victim of a hate crime.(edit)"The Seattle Police Officers Guild is outraged by the decision of the city Attorney Peter Holmes to charge Seattle Police Officer Garth Haynes with assault. The whole story has yet to be told regarding this incident," said police guild president Rich O'Neill.(edit)Haynes faces a maximum of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted of...

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indianapolis man who was charged after he refused to give police video of an arrest he captured on his cellphone has been acquitted. Willie King, 66, was standing on his neighbor's property in the 3900 block of North Whittier Place as he recorded officers arresting a man on Feb. 18. "I heard the neighbors screaming and hollering about the police. (They said) 'You all get off of him. He's already in handcuffs. Why are you doing this?' " King said. "I just got my camera out, put it on record, walked over to my neighbor's house and...

A Chicago woman who played witness to a beach melee on Memorial Day weekend wants Chicago police and officials to come clean about what happened along the lakefront in May. City officials said they closed North Avenue Beach on May 30 because of excessive heat, but Amy Schwartz says no one is talking about the excessive violence that prompted her to call 911 that day. "There's a fight breaking out on the beach because there's nothing but animals covering this beach today," Schwartz phoned into the police. "What the hell is going on?" Schwartz said she was walking from Oak...

The following report confirms that an off-duty Fullerton, CA police officer was arrested for stealing an Apple iPad at a Miami International Airport TSA checkpoint last month. According to court documents, FPD Officer Kelly Mejia was caught on surveillance video taking an $800 iPad from another passenger just after it had passed through the x-ray machine in the presence of TSA security agents.

A Phoenix police spokesman said a woman was wounded in an officer-involved shooting early Wednesday morning.Sgt. Trent Crump of Phoenix police said sharpshooters shot one of two women barricaded in a home near 13th Street and Broadway.Crump said details of the shooting were sketchy, but that the wounded woman was in serious condition and the other woman was in police custody.Crump said officers were attempting to serve a search warrant on one of the women about 7:30 Tuesday evening. He said the suspect tried to run from the house through the back door, but encountered officers. The woman pointed a...

“He [a federal agent] had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there.”--Anthony Wright, victim of a Dept. of Education SWAT team raid The militarization of American police--no doubt a blowback effect of the military empire--has become an unfortunate part of American life. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units. Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department...

A Baltimore City police officer has pleaded guilty to extorting car accident victims. According to the plea agreement, Reeping said he would contact fellow Officer Alexis Moreno Mejia, who would then arrive at a crash scene to arrange to tow the vehicle to Majestic. The court document indicated that Moreno would then pay Reeping up to $300 for each vehicle taken to Majestic.

A sheriff's deputy in Pulaski County, Ill., has been arrested today and charged with 20 counts of felony including unlawful sale of firearms. Tara M. Kern, 38, of Villa Ridge, a deputy sheriff in Pulaski County, was charged with two counts of official misconduct, 16 counts of the unlawful sale of firearms and two counts of obstructing justice, according to a statement released today by special prosecutor Tyler R. Edmonds, the state's attorney for Union County. According to the press release, "Kern is alleged to have provided firearms to her husband, William A. Kern, a convicted felon, during the years...

VIDEO AT LINK • Eyewitness says he removed memory card from phone and put it in his mouth before police took the device Police officers crushed a man’s phone and held a gun to his head in an effort to destroy a recording he made of a fatal shootout, he claims. Narces Benoit saw the officers shoot dead Raymond Herisse, 22, in Miami Beach, Florida, last week after the suspect sped off and drove recklessly . Mr Benoit was nearby with girlfriend Ericka Davis when one of the officers allegedly put a gun to his head, handcuffed him and smashed...

A D.C. police officer charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of a young Prince George’s County mother and her 1-year-old child will be held without bond.

Almost a half-hour before Jennifer Carter Agee was shot to death on Memorial Day, the Franklin County Sheriff's Office was warned that her sheriff's deputy ex-husband had an assault rifle and was driving to Salem to kill her. But Sheriff Ewell Hunt told his dispatch center not to issue a "be on the lookout" alert to other law enforcement agencies, saying he would take care of the situation himself, according to a sheriff's office radio call log.

HAMMOND | Four federal agencies are probing an alleged gun-running scheme involving Lake County Sheriff's Department personnel. Current Sheriff John Buncich said he stripped six officers of police powers Tuesday, the same day federal authorities raided sites in a case Buncich claims he prompted after taking office this year. The guns allegedly sold include weapons owned by the county, or confiscated during arrests, the source said. The officers on leave are Capt. Marco Kuyachich, Lt. Michael Reilly, Sgt. Joseph Kumstar, Officer Ronald Slusser, Officer Edward Kabella and Officer Scott Shelhart.

Records released by the Pima County Sheriff's Department this week show that the four houses served with search warrants the morning of May 5 - when Jose Guerena was shot and killed by a SWAT team - are less than four miles apart and are all connected to the Guerena family. And while initial reports were that doctors told the Guerena family that Jose had been shot 60 times, the Pima County medical examiner's preliminary report says he was shot 22 times. In its sole briefing on the incident, the Sheriff's Department said SWAT team members fired 71 rounds. Aside...

When Menlo Park police officers busted into an East Palo Alto home and pointed a firearm at a two-year old girl in November, they had the wrong house, say the two homeowners, who are filing a $500,000 claim against both cities. The East Palo Alto City Council rejected the claim on an unanimous vote. The Menlo Park City Council has yet to consider the case.