Free Republic

“There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.” - Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century I have known a lot of good cops, I have defended a lot of good cops, and I have been fortunate to call a number of good cops friends. So when I say that warrior cops - hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge - have not made America any safer or...

CURRITUCK, N.C. The Currituck County Sheriff’s Office now owns an 18-ton military armored truck able to take on high-powered rifle fire or roll through Outer Banks floodwaters. The $412,000, mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle known as an MRAP comes free as surplus from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Currituck is one of five North Carolina and two Virginia law enforcement agencies to receive one of the armored trucks this year. The federal government has given out 165 nationally since August, said Michelle McCaskill, a spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency. “Some people might ask, ‘Why do we need something like this?’ ”...

... David Eckert, a resident of Deming, NM, was pulled over by police officers after failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. For whatever reason, the officers decided Eckert was hiding something, or perhaps they were unsatisfied that a routine stop hadn't blown up into something bigger. ... 1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found. 2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to...

This 4 On Your Side investigation looks into the actions of police officers and doctors in Southern New Mexico. A review of medical records, police reports and a federal lawsuit show deputies with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, police officers with the City of Deming and medical professionals at the Gila Regional Medical Center made some questionable decisions. The incident began January 2, 2013 after David Eckert finished shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming. According to a federal lawsuit, Eckert didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign coming out of the parking lot and was immediately stopped by...

The parents of a 13-year-old Santa Rosa boy killed by a sheriff's deputy who thought the airsoft rifle he was carrying was real, plan to file a federal lawsuit in San Francisco on Monday, claiming the deputy who shot their son violated the boy's Fourth Amendment rights as they pertain to limits on police authority..... The Fourth Amendment states that citizens have the right to be secure against unreasonalbe searches and seizures. In an interview with NBC Bay Area on Monday morning, he said he will also allege that Gelhaus has been involved in prior instances of "excessive force" and...

The autopsy of an unarmed man killed by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer in September shows he had 10 bullet wounds, including five that were fatal. The report released Friday also revealed no illegal drugs in Jonathon Ferrell’s system. The 24-year-old had a blood-alcohol content of 0.06, which is within the legal limit of 0.08 for driving, the autopsy results also show. He also had traces of nicotine and caffeine. On the night of Sept. 14, Ferrell wrecked his car on Reedy Creek Road in northeast Charlotte and then banged on the door of a nearby house. The woman inside the...

On a Sunday afternoon in October of this year, Gabrielle Stropkai’s dog was shot by a police officer investigating a burglary nearby. The dog “was walking by and went ‘ruff ruff’ — just a couple of little ruffs,” a neighbor of the Stropkais’ told local television in Boise, Idado. But “she didn’t jump at him or anything.” In response, the owner remembers, the officer “pulled his weapon, asked whose dog it was, and shot her in the back of the head.” The dog died instantly. The Stropkais are not alone in their grief. A Google search for “dog shot by...

Deputy who shot and killed toy gun-carrying teen, 13, allegedly pulled gun Deputy who shot and killed toy gun-carrying teen, 13, allegedly pulled gun on a driver during traffic stop two months earlier A driver has come forward saying the deputy who shot dead a 13-year-old California boy after mistaking his fake AK-47 as real pulled a gun on him also, after he failed to signal a lane change during a carpool. Jeff Westbrook, 57, of Santa Rosa said he was mistreated by Deputy Erick Gelhaus after being pulled over Aug. 21 in Cotati, so much so that at one...

As a large wooden shrine sprung up Friday in the southwest Santa Rosa lot where a sheriff's deputy killed Andy Lopez last week, an attorney for the teen's family outlined the framework of a federal civil rights lawsuit the family intends to file next week. Arnoldo Casillas, the attorney representing the Lopez family, said the Oct. 22 shooting was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourth Amendment's limits on police authority. The family will file a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco contending that Deputy Erick Gelhaus shot Lopez “without reasonable cause,” Casillas said in a statement. The...

<p>SANTA ROSA - Santa Rosa police released more details today in response to persistent questions about the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy in southwest Santa Rosa last week....</p> <p>Henry said Gelhaus said he knows he yelled at least once to Lopez to drop the rifle, but Gelhaus said he is unsure whether he identified himself as a sheriff's deputy.</p>

Back in the Eighties, when the Time-Life series on the Civil War was coming out, there was a dramatic ad with a Civil War soldier pointing a musket at the reader. The ad said: “If the battle of Gettysburg were fought today, you would be the enemy.” Increasingly many Americans, most, but not all, conservative and/or religious, are being treated as enemies to be subdued by their own government. Angelo M. Codevilla in a brilliant post at the Library of Liberty and Law faces the issue squarely: Increasingly, the US government’s many police forces (often state and local ones as...

"No officers were injured during the shooting," Samples said, but "we did have one officer receive a minor injury, not related to the gunfire." Though police were guarded with details surrounding the case, eyewitnesses claim the shootout was prompted by a code enforcement operation involving an old, rusted and inoperable van owned by Pryor. Witnesses say a Statesboro Code Compliance officer reported to Pryor's home to seize the van, which has sat idle in the yard for several years. "He has had the van forever. They have been asking for years for him to move it. He signed some papers,...

SAVANNAH, GA - A Savannah family is demanding answers from police as to why they shot their beloved dog. New: (photo) Police detail in a report that six rounds were fired at the dog. Officers claim the animal charged at children and officers. The pit bull got out of their house Thursday morning on East 71st Street off of DeRenne Avenue. But police and the family disagree on what happened next. The family says Ziggy was a kind soul to kids and small animals. But police tell a very different story. They say the 100 pound animal was on a...

SANTA ROSA, CALIF. - 3:14 p.m. Tuesday, less than 10 seconds elapsed from the time sheriff's deputies spotted a 13-year-old California boy carrying what they thought was an assault rifle and the moment they shot him dead, only to learn afterward the gun was a plastic replica. It took 16 seconds more for the two officers to call for medical assistance, according to the time line of events released by police investigating Tuesday's shooting Andy Lopez Cruz, had been on his way to a friend's house (with a toy) gun... He died at the scene... seven bullets struck the boy,...

A Dallas police officer involved in the shooting of a mentally ill man, that was caught on camera, has been fired. Surveillance video shows Cardan Spencer was 20 feet away from paranoid schizophrenic Bobby Bennet when he shot him in the stomach. The police officer and his partner had maintained their story: that they were forced to shoot after the man threatened their safety by lunging at the pair with a knife. Officer Spencer has now been fired pending a criminal investigation after a neighbor released surveillance video capturing the incident that showed nothing documented in the police report actually...

A Boise family is outraged over the death of their 5-year-old dog. Sunday afternoon, a Boise Police officer fired his weapon at the dog, killing it. For years, Gabrielle Stropkai found companionship in her dog, Kita, calling her a lover and a friend for her son Hayden to grow up with. “We have kids who run up and pull her tail and grab her by the back of the neck and get in her face and she does nothing but love on them,” said Stropkai. However, as two Boise patrol officers were investigating a theft that was reported in the...

Cop suspended after horrific video of him 'kicking and hitting his child because she ate carrots' is released as it emerges police police chief knew and did nothing A police officer is accused of beating his teenage daughter, force feeding her hot sauce, beating her with ropes and tying her hands with plastic zip ties and handcuffs, it emerged today. Jeremy Yachik, 35, from Loveland, Colorado, was arrested on Wednesday morning and charged with four counts of child abuse and one count of false imprisonment. His ex-fiancee Ashley Saint-Roberts sent an email to officers and news agencies accusing Yachik of...

The FBI is launching its own investigation into the shooting this week of Andy Lopez, the 13-year-old Santa Rosa boy killed by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who mistook the BB gun Lopez was holding for an assault rifle. FBI officials notified command staff for Sheriff Steve Freitas and Santa Rosa Police Chief Tom Schwedhelm of the move Friday. The federal inquiry is separate from the investigation led by Santa Rosa police into the deputy-involved shooting. A spokesman in the FBI’s San Francisco office called the agency’s inquiry a “shooting review,” looking into the “incident itself (and) the deputies’ response.”...

Cops took no more than 10 seconds to fire six or seven shots into the body of dying teenager Andy Lopez after seeing him with a toy pellet gun. Mr Lopez was spotted by deputies on Tuesday afternoon in Santa Rosa, California, carrying the toy rifle, which they mistakenly thought was a real assault weapon. The time that elapsed between when officers reported the sighting to dispatch and then reported shots fired was only 10 seconds. Hundreds of local residents marched on Wednesday night to remember the popular teen and protest at the senseless shooting. They chanted 'We need justice'...

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed. In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter. A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates...