Free Republic

Former police association contractor charged with snooping on 'Joe the Plumber' Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:42 AM By Randy Ludlow The Columbus Dispatch A former contractor for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police has been charged with rummaging through state computers to retrieve confidential information about "Joe the Plumber." Brett A. Gerke, 52, of 2329 Woodcreek Place on the Far North Side, is charged with attempted unauthorized use of property. Gerke entered a diversion program on Oct. 2, which typically results in the dismissal of a criminal charge. He has not entered a plea. The charge is a first-degree...

ERICHO, Ark. (AP) -- It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps. The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

WILKES-BARRE - Luzerne Sheriff Michael A. Savokinas abruptly resigned Tuesday afternoon, ending a 20-month stint in office that often was plagued by controversy and clashes with other county officials. "At this time, my presence seems to be a distraction for my already over-worked staff," Savokinas wrote in a three-page resignation letter to Gov. Ed Rendell. Savokinas, 36, complained about a "witch hunt" and smear campaign "orchestrated by county officials" to drag his "reputation through the mud," and claimed drugs found in his vehicle "were planted as a possible political vendetta." Savokinas added he "can no longer do justice to my...

Sex Trade Ring Busted in Houston, Ex-Police Officer and 5 Others Charged August 26, 2009 HOUSTON — A sex trade ring in which young girls were allegedly pistol-whipped and forced from their homes into sexual slavery was broken up in Houston this week and several suspects are in custody. Five people, including a former Houston police officer, were arrested in the largest sex trafficking case in Texas' southern district, MyFOXHouston.com reported. A sixth remains on the run. John Butler, 47, William Hornbeak, 34, Jamine Lake, 27, Andre McDaniels, 39, and Kristen Land, 28, all of Houston, as well as Tulsa,...

Police are removing valuables from unlocked cars to shock motorists into being more careful. Officers in London are taking everything from handbags to satnavs, and leaving a note telling drivers their property is at a local police station.

Gay Cop Profiled Illegal Aliens for Molestation

A jumpy cat caused a distraction, report saysHOLLYWOOD - After a Hollywood police officer rear-ended a car in February and then arrested the driver on drunken driving charges, he and other officers talked about doctoring the report -- it said a jumpy cat created a distraction -- to cover up the crash. The exchange was recorded by a dashboard camera in one of the patrol cars. The officers apparently didn't realize it was on.

As late as three weeks ago, two months after court records show the state of Maryland agreed to settle a lawsuit with money and words of contrition over the arrest of a musician accused of e-mailing a bomb threat to the airport, he was still in court fighting to get authorities to say they were sorry.

<p>WHEN AGNES LAWLESS and three friends were inside a Lukoil convenience store in the Northeast at 3 a.m. last August, they'd all but forgotten the fender-bender in which they'd been involved moments earlier.</p> <p>There was little damage, and the other driver had left the scene, near Northeast Philadelphia Airport.</p>

(AP Photo/El Monte Police Department) It all started out with a kick to the head. True, the suspect was not exactly one to elicit sympathy, but that's not the point. A free society cannot tolerate police acting outside the law to administer physical punishment. Except Dean Scoville, "Associate Editor of Police Magazine and a retired patrol supervisor and investigator with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department," disagrees with that: There was a time when post pursuit ass-kickings were obligatory. Cops knew it, suspects knew it, and there are enough old timers on both sides of the fence that will verify the...

Cop taped beating Chicago bartender gets probation By DON BABWIN Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- An off-duty Chicago police officer convicted of pummeling a female bartender half his size was sentenced Tuesday to two years probation and anger management classes for the videotaped attack that appeared worldwide on the Internet and cable news channels.

San Diego police Officer Frank White was found not guilty yesterday of criminal charges resulting from the shooting and wounding of a mother and her young son during a road-rage incident last year. A Vista Superior Court jury acquitted White, 29, of a felony count of grossly negligent discharge of a firearm and a misdemeanor count of exhibiting a firearm. White showed little emotion as the verdicts were read about 4 p.m., but after the jury left the courtroom, he bear-hugged his attorney, Rick Pinckard, then his wife, Jacquellyn.

History and social analysis of the Duke lacrosse case, retold in part from original documents; compared and contrasted with the social history of the Scottsboro trials.

Veteran Miami-Dade prosecutor David Ranck faces battery charges after an alleged scuffle with a pizza delivery woman on Saturday during a delivery that went horribly wrong. It's the second report of prosecutors gone wild in the past week. A Broward County prosecutor was arrested late last week for punching a cop in the back of the head during a barroom fight. At least he picked on a man. According to police reports, Ranck and the unidentified woman got into a shouting match when the delivery person couldn't get into the attorney's gated community. After a bit of shouting that woke...

BOLEY, OK -- Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers get into a fight with a paramedic and it is all caught on videotape. The incident happened near Boley in Okfuskee County. In the video, you see OHP troopers pushing the paramedic and grabbing his neck. The fight happened during an emergency call when a patient waiting to be taken to the local hospital was in the back of the ambulance. Officials say OHP troopers became upset after the paramedic failed to yield while the troopers were rushing to a call of their own. The troopers claim the paramedic assaulted one of...

Birmingham police beating video

NUEVO LAREDO - In a rare move, the national military prosecutor's office has arrested 12 soldiers in the Mexican Army, including four officers, and will court-martial them on charges of murder in the deaths of three Nuevo Laredoans missing since March 14.The bodies of Miguel Ángel Gama Habif, Israel Ayala Ramírez and Aarón Rojas de la Fuente were found buried in a clandestine grave about 60 miles south of Nuevo Laredo, near the town of Vallecillos in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon. Raymundo Ramos Vásquez of the non-profit Human Rights Commission in Nuevo Laredo said the remains were exhumed...

OAKLAND - A grand jury today voted to indict Yusuf Ali Bey IV, the scion of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, for ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007, authorities familiar with the situation said. Prosecutors are likely to bring the case with special circumstances - allowing them to seek the death penalty against Bey IV, 23. He allegedly told two of his followers that in exchange for killing Bailey, he would teach them how to file fraudulent loan applications that could reap hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another man, Antoine Arelus Mackey,...

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall. The FBI employees have been charged with conspiracy and committing criminal invasion of privacy. They were working in an FBI satellite control room at the mall when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said Monday. Gary Sutton Jr., 40, of New Milton...

A decorated ex-cop who claimed he tested positive for cocaine because he ingested the drug during oral sex with his girlfriend can't have his job back, a Manhattan judge has ruled. Supreme Court Justice Eileen Rakower last month shot down helicopter pilot Jon Goldin's attempt to overturn his April 2008 dismissal from the NYPD. Goldin, a 15-year veteran, tested positive for cocaine in October 2006 in a random drug test using hairs from his arm. Goldin's lawsuit said the cocaine in his system was the product of "passive ingestion" from performing oral sex on girlfriend Coreen McCarthy, who, once he...

For months, perhaps longer, the Montague County Jail(TX) was "Animal House" meets Mayberry. Inside the small brick building across from the courthouse, inmates had the run of the place, having sex with their jailer girlfriends, bringing in recliners, taking drugs and chatting on cell phones supplied by friends or guards, according to authorities. They also disabled some of the surveillance cameras and made weapons out of nails.,The doors to two groups of cells didn't lock, but apparently no one tried to escape — perhaps because they had everything they needed inside. The jailhouse escapades — some of which date to...

A uniformed cop accused of raping an East Village woman in her apartment tried to hide from a surveillance camera while using a key to enter her building, sources said yesterday. But what he didn't appear to know was that there was a second camera catching his and his partner's every move before and after the alleged sexual assault, the sources said. The NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating a claim that the patrolman raped an intoxicated business executive after the cop and his partner responded to a cabdriver's 911 plea for help with his drunken passenger, the sources said....

SOF EXPOSES BATF CORRUPTION IN IRAQ Posted by SOF Editor on February 18th, 2009 3 Comments Printer-Friendly NEED A DEFINITION FOR OBAMA’S CALL FOR “RESPONSIBILITY�Amid the orderly transfer of power, our new Chief Executive has issued a call for responsibility. As is the case with most of his public statements, his meaning is not clear. However, if he means holding government officials accountable for their actions, a novel and great idea, it is something that we can all embrace. It is particularly true of those officials within agencies with a long and well documented history of abuses of entrusted...

I believe it is long past time to end the War on Drugs. That’s not because I approve of drug use or have any desire to encourage it. But this particular war has already gone on longer than the ones in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, put together, with no end in sight and far less to show for it. I would not only decriminalize drug use, I would give it the same legal status as tobacco and alcohol, and with the same age restrictions. For one thing, this would provide a great source of new tax revenue. Also, it...

"Our policy is pretty clear that they have to drive within the traffic laws" except under those circumstances, said Police Chief David Kunkle, who is meeting with police association officials Thursday to outline the new policy. [snip] So far, the Dallas Police Department has received notice of 103 marked vehicles and six unmarked vehicles running red lights, said Lt. Sally Lannom, who helped draft the new policy. [snip] "I think what they're worrying about is what if it's 2 o'clock in the morning, you're headed to a call but it's not an emergency call," Cpl. Bristo said. "If I roll...

When 26-year-old Edward Pluhar Jr. decided to walk past the people waiting in line at Walmart's customer service desk over the weekend, he probably didn't expect one of the men he dissed to confront him over it. What he and his father really didn't expect, however, was for the guy to be an off-duty police officer who doesn't appreciate being threatened. The police officer [Chris Kirby] told Pluhar Jr. he needed to wait his turn, but the Frankfort man purportedly refused. [His father, 61-year-old Edward R. Pluhar Sr.,] then allegedly approached the off-duty officer, told him to mind his own...

The economy is in the toilet. So do yourself a favor and ease up on the accelerator. That's the indirect message of a recent study by two economists, who found that when government revenues dry up, police write more speeding tickets. After analyzing 14 years of data in North Carolina, the pair found that for every 1 percent drop in government revenue, the number of traffic tickets issued per capita increases by 30 percent the following year. “It's significant,� said University of Arkansas-Little Rock economics professor Gary Wagner, who co-authored Red Ink in the Rearview Mirror: Local Fiscal Conditions and...

Investigators have identified a former Utah state trooper as a suspect in a series of highway shootings in Dallas that left two motorists dead, police said. Brian Smith, 37, who now lives in Keller, shot himself early Tuesday during a standoff in Garland with a SWAT team. Smith was listed in critical condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. "We feel confident because of the ballistics tests that we have at this point that he (Smith) is responsible for the shootings, " said Sgt. Gil Cerda, police spokesman... Smith supervised about five patrolmen in the Salt Lake City area and...

Dallas police said Tuesday early tests connect a former Utah state trooper to Monday's series of rush-hour shootings in Garland and Dallas. Two people were killed and another was injured in the shootings Monday evening. Dallas police said they think Brian Smith, 37, a former Utah trooper who shot himself early Tuesday morning during a standoff in Garland, shot and killed a big-rig driver in Dallas. They declined to comment on the other death in neighboring Garland because it was outside their jurisdiction. "I certainly believe that he is going to be linked to the Dallas offenses -- the three...

McALLEN - A former U.S. Border Patrol agent was sentenced in federal court Monday to serve more than seven years in prison for his role in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy. Reynaldo Zuniga, 34, of Harlingen, pleaded guilty in September to using his official vehicle to drive drug traffickers past areas where they were most likely to be caught. Zuniga told investigators he accepted $1,200 to make the drive between the banks of the Rio Grande and an Hidalgo Whataburger at least five times before his arrest June 6, according to court documents. He is at least the fifth local Border...

<p>McALLEN — Two South Texas Border Patrol agents appeared in federal court today on charges alleging they helped drug traffickers move their product across the U.S.-Mexico border.</p> <p>A grand jury in Houston returned sealed indictments Monday against Leonel Morales, 30, of the Border Patrol's Laredo sector and Salomon Ruiz, 34, of the Rio Grande Valley sector.</p>

Brownsville police arrested a Texas state trooper on Saturday morning as he aledgely was finishing a drug deal, Brownsville Police Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique said on Monday. Jesus Rafael Larrazolo, 35, a four-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public Safety, was arrested by police at 10 a.m. in the parking lot of Best Buy as he was loading his car with more than 60 pounds of cocaine after having purchased the drugs in front of police, Manrrique said. A group of detectives from the Special Investigations Unit were conducting routine surveillance in the Pablo Kisel area, when they noticed suspicious...

Morehouse College’s chief of police, Vernon Worthy, has been charged with aggravated assault, false imprisonment and pointing a gun at someone after a hunting confrontation in Middle Georgia.

MEXICO CITY — Interpol is sending a special investigative team to Mexico to determine whether sensitive information from its database on criminals and terrorists was leaked to drug cartels, the agency said Wednesday. Interpol launched the probe after Mexican federal police official Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas was placed under house arrest as part of an investigation of law enforcement officers who allegedly shared police information with traffickers. Gutierrez Vargas directed the international police agency's National Central Bureau in Mexico, where he had access to Interpol's database of information on suspected terrorists, wanted persons, fingerprints and DNA profiles, among other data, the...

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina sheriff's official has apologized for plunging a funeral into chaos when undercover agents tried to arrest the dead man's son—and used a Taser on him in the process. It happened as the coffin was being loaded into a hearse. The officers planned to quietly arrest pallbearer Gladwyn Taft Russ III, The Star-News of Wilmington reported Wednesday. Relatives said two deputies dressed in coats and ties grabbed Russ and kneed him in his back before Tasering him. One deputy's gun fell out of its holster. Russ' sister, Taffy Gause, said when she got out...

Dozens of federal air marshals charged with protecting the public from airplane terrorists have themselves been accused of criminal wrongdoing, including 18 who were charged with felonies. The tally comes from an investigation by the investigative journalism group ProPublica. Its story says marshals have been accused of aiding a human trafficking ring, smuggling drugs and money, trying to hire a hitman and trying to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan. "Since 9/11, air marshals have taken bribes, committed bank fraud, hired an escort while on layover and doctored hotel receipts to pad expenses, records show,” the story reports. They have also “used...

Mr. Sandvick's unit released a 67-page report on what it called an "illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of (the 2004) election in the state of Wisconsin" -- a swing state whose last two presidential races were decided by less than 12,000 votes. The report found that between 4,600 and 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots. Absentee ballots were cast by people living elsewhere; ineligible felons not only voted but worked at the polls; transient college students cast improper votes; and homeless voters possibly voted more than once....

Two former Border Patrol agents were arrested in Mexico after more than two years on the run and were charged in the U.S. with taking bribes to help illegal immigrants cross the border, authorities said Monday. A federal indictment unsealed Monday in San Diego accuses brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal of taking bribes, smuggling illegal immigrants, tampering with witnesses and conspiring to launder money. The brothers were captured by Mexican authorities Saturday at a gated apartment complex near the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, said Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San...

A gay NYPD lieutenant has been found guilty of sexually harassing two male sergeants and creating a lewd, hostile work environment, the Daily News has learned. Lt. Kieran Crowe, 50, denied the allegations, and blamed his behavior on "jock itch." Sgts. Dominic Coppola and Sean Gallagher filed an internal complaint against Crowe in 2004, when all three men worked at the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity at Police Headquarters. They also sued the city and the NYPD in Manhattan Federal Court. The sergeants said Crowe, a 23-year NYPD veteran, simulated masturbating and wiggled his tongue at them in a sexually...

Keovongsa Siharath was arrested in Henry County on charges he punched his stepfather. Jeffrey Churchill was charged with assault in an altercation with a woman in a mall parking lot. All three are now officers with the Atlanta Police Department. More than one-third of recent Atlanta Police Academy graduates have been arrested or cited for a crime, according to a review of their job applications. The arrests ranged from minor offenses such as shoplifting to violent charges including assault. More than one-third of the officers had been rejected by other law enforcement agencies, and more than half of the recruits...

Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients.... The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard...

WASHINGTON - The ATF lost 76 weapons and hundreds of laptops over five years, the Justice Department reported Wednesday, blaming carelessness and sloppy record-keeping. ... "It is especially troubling that that ATF's rate of loss for weapons was nearly double that of the FBI and DEA, and that ATF did not even know whether most of its lost, stolen, or missing laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information," he added. ... Compared to weapons loss rates for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, the ATF misplaced almost twice as many guns. ... The Justice Department's report can be found at:...

Patrol fires 12 troopers in cheating case Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:21 AM FROM THE (CANTON) REPOSITORY CANTON -- Twelve officers accused of cheating on a certification test for a device used to gather evidence against intoxicated drivers have been fired from the State Highway Patrol. Patrol spokesman Lt. Tony Bradshaw said it's the first time in the law-enforcement agency's 75-year history that so many officers have been let go at once. The patrol said the three sergeants and eight troopers from the Canton post and one Wooster trooper cheated on a certification exam for administering breath tests to determine...

On Aug. 14, at around 3 p.m. my wife stepped out of Target in El Centro. I stayed in Target to throw away the trash because we ate in the “Food Ave.” When I walked outside, my wife informed me that a guy in a four-door, silver-colored car sped down the parking lot and somewhat yielded as my daughter was crossing the parking lot intersection. As soon as the driver saw enough room to squeeze by the curve and my daughter, he accelerated fast enough to make the tires skid causing a burning rubber noise (also scared my daughter). He...

Murder and attempted murder charges against seven New Orleans police officers, accused of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina, were tossed out by Criminal District Court Judge Raymond Bigelow, who concluded that an Orleans Parish prosecutor tainted the secrecy of the grand jury process by showing a piece of testimony to another officer. "The violation is clear, and indeed, uncontroverted. The state improperly disclosed grand jury testimony to another police officer," Bigelow said, reading his ruling from the bench. The judge also dealt a blow to the prosecution on two other pending defense challenges to the...

Albany DA David Soares sought to put the Troopergate scandal to rest (Spitzer siccing state troopers on elected officials like a Third World generalissimo). Soares reluctantly released 8,562 pages of documents from his two Troopergate probes.....that show Soares treated then-Gov. Spitzer with kid gloves and totally whitewashed the role of Spitzer and his aides in the plot to use State Police to smear elected officials......the Public Integrity Commission, found at least four (if not more) top Spitzer aides broke the law. Troopergate has grown well beyond the smear campaign and long ago became a scandal of coverup - Soares' own...

A rookie cop - the son of a highly respected New York City detective - has been stripped of his badge and gun after being caught on video viciously attacking a bicyclist who was part of a Times Square demonstration. ' The startling YouTube video shows Officer Patrick Pogan, 22, apparently setting his sights on - and then tackling - a bicyclist as he pedaled along Seventh Avenue as part of last Friday's controversial Critical Mass ride. Christopher Long, 29, was among a throng of riders as he whizzed toward the corner of West 46th Street at 9:30 p.m. and...

Racial slur? So what! Two police officers say black chief didn't care BY JOHN MARZULLI DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, July 27th 2008, 11:11 PM Pace for News Cops Shelron Smikle (l.), 28, and Blanch O’Neal, 38, pictured here at their lawyer’s office, plan to sue NYPD. Cairo for News The cops say when Assistant Chief Gerald Nelson (above) found out they had lodged a complaint about a black sergeant’s N-word-laced rant, Nelson repeated the N-word. Two black cops who reported a boss for using a racial slur say they were viciously chewed out by an African-American chief in the...

Two former officials with the Houston Police Officers' Union -- one a police officer, the other a recently retired officer -- were indicted this morning on charges accusing them of stealing more than $100,000 from the union. A Harris County grand jury indicted ex-board secretary Ronny Martin on charges of misapplication of fiduciary property and theft by a public servant. Former board treasurer Jeff Larson is charged with misapplication of fiduciary property. All of the charges allege that $100,000 to $200,000 was taken. Both men were relieved of duty in mid-January in the midst of an investigation, police union officials...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks. An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store. However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department's response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks. Garvin is accused of saying, "If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we...