Free Republic

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's home was vandalized early Tuesday with messages spray painted on the sidewalk, driveway and garage. About a dozen people wearing masks drove up to the mayor's home, started yelling and lit off fireworks around 2 a.m., neighbors said. "There was a real thick layer of smoke and a lot of noise," neighbor Desiree Alexander said. Police are investigating the incident. Justin Berton, a spokesperson for Schaaf, provided the following statement: “An attack at the home of a publicly elected official does not advance democracy. Around 2 a.m. vandals shot projectiles at the Mayor’s home, set off...

A family's nearly two-decade wait to find out who killed their beloved daughter came to an end this month, as investigators announced an arrest in the cold case. The Orlando Police Department said Monday that 38-year-old Benjamin L. Holmes was arrested in the murder of Christina Franke. Franke was 25 and a student at the University of Central Florida majoring in education when she was found dead in her Audubon Park apartment in October 2001, according to FOX35. The college student had been robbed and assaulted, and her killer had left a large amount of DNA at the scene, police...

PINE HILLS, Fla. - According to a witness at the scene, a female Orlando police officer was shot numerous times by a man wearing a security uniform. Dozens of police vehicles descended on the area around the intersection of Pine Hills Road and North Lane, just south of Royal Oaks and Pineview apartments on a report of an officer-involved shooting Monday. The shooting reportedly happened at a nearby Walmart. We have an officer shot and suspect(s) at large. Officer transported to hospital. — Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 9, 2017 "(The shooter) was an average looking dude, he walked by me,...

Everyone who contributed to the violence and mayhem at Occupy Oakland protest marches should be held accountable - in one way or another - for their actions. Unfortunately, that's not how it works here in Oakland. On Friday, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan meted out punishment to 44 police officers for misconduct connected to Occupy demonstrations over the past year. The discipline ranges from recommendations to terminate two officers to 30-day suspensions, written reprimands and counseling. In comparison, 106 protesters have been charged with felonies and misdemeanors during all Occupy actions in Oakland, according to the Alameda County district attorney's...

Oakland’s long-running fight with the federal courts over its Police Department has taken a bizarre turn: The city administrator says the monitor who was sent to the East Bay to evaluate the cops tried to hit on her. Sources tell us the city alerted the federal judge who has ordered police reforms that the city is investigating the matter. They say his monitor, Robert Warshaw — a former police chief and antidrug official in the Clinton administration — made remarks in private conversations with City Administrator Deanna Santana that she took as inappropriate. In one case, Warshaw allegedly took the...

A man shot and wounded by Oakland police over the weekend is a relative of Oscar Grant, the BART passenger killed by a police officer in 2009, and was unarmed when he was shot in the back, his attorney said today. Tony Jones, 24, was shot once in the back by an Oakland officer on the 2000 block of 62nd Avenue in East Oakland about 11:45 p.m. Sunday after he ran from a van that police had stopped, according to police and Jones' attorney, Waukeen McCoy. Jones is being treated at Highland Hospital in Oakland. Police have said Jones was...

Occupy Oakland activists have filed a lawsuit against Oakland and are seeking damages. The ACLU-backed suit argues that protesters are engaged in "peaceful expressive activity," while Oakland police have used "excessive force" that has inflicted "mental stress" on activists. The lawsuit also complains that police have not sufficiently warned activists before dispersal orders. Thus Occupiers "did not have an opportunity to gather their belongings and leave the camp without being arrested or harmed." Of course, participants are aware that when they trespass on others' property or block streets to keep people from getting to work that police are supposed to...

Mayor Jean Quan vowed Wednesday to quickly reform the scandal-plagued Oakland Police Department after a frustrated judge threatened a federal takeover if it fails to quickly make good on changes agreed to nine years ago. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson said he "remains in disbelief" that the department has failed to adopt the reforms. Henderson's frustration with the pace of improvements was evident throughout a scathing five-page ruling issued Tuesday. "This department finds itself woefully behind its peers around the state and nation," he wrote. In his ruling, Henderson increased the oversight authority of a court-appointed monitor. Oakland Police Chief...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Orlando police say an officer, who broke an 84-year-old man's neck, did nothing wrong. Officer Travis Lamont was cleared by the department late Friday morning. Orlando Police Chief Val Demings said Officer Lamont did not violate policy. He broke 84-year-old Daniel Daley's neck in September while arresting him. Since the department has cleared Officer Lamont's use of force, there will be no internal affairs investigation into the officer's actions. WFTV spoke with Daley's lawyer, Mark NeJame, Friday. NeJame told WFTV he is not surprised that the Orlando Police Department cleared the officer, but says it was wrong...

OAKLAND -- Nonviolent demonstrators were roughed up by police during last week's protest in downtown Oakland over the involuntary-manslaughter conviction of a former BART police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed rider, civil rights attorneys said Wednesday. Some of those who clashed with law-enforcement officers were among the 78 people arrested July 8 during a protest in which downtown businesses were looted, had their windows broken or were damaged by anti-police graffiti, authorities said. But Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, said officers had attacked people who did...

Dozens of layoffs effective at midnight, barring last minute deal. Oakland's police chief is making some dire claims about what his force will and will not respond to if planned layoffs happen tonight at midnight. Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, vehicle collision, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line. Some 80 officers will be let go at midnight if a last-minute deal is not reached. Negotiations...

Oakland laid-off 80 police officers today after negotiations between city officials and union leaders failed on one simple matter: job security. The police union demanded that the city guarantee that its officers would not be laid off for three years in exchange for giving up some pension benefits that would have eased the city's budget problems. City leaders, however, said it would have been irresponsible of them to agree to protect police jobs for more than one year because the city's budget problems are likely to worsen. The layoffs - which come days after a riot broke out in Oakland...

THERE ARE times when one reads an article of such magnitude it causes utter disbelief; and rereading the piece only exacerbates the feeling. That was certainly how I felt when I read that the sister of Lovelle Mixon — the assailant who killed four Oakland police officers before he, too, was killed by police — seeks compensation from the city because of injuries she and her grandmother sustained during the gunbattle that ensued in her apartment where Mixon was hiding after he had already killed two officers. It is alleged that as Mixon hid in the apartment, the sister and...

If history repeats itself, the fatal shootings of four Oakland police officers on Saturday afternoon will become the next benchmark in the national debate on a federal law to ban assault weapons. If there is a grain of hope to be gathered from a loss so tragic, it's that last weekend's horrific events will help end the debate on an unresolved policy issue that has resulted in thousands of deaths and helped sustain veritable demilitarized zones in some of our nation's largest cities. In Oakland, a city already struggling with high crime and gun violence, the deaths of two officers...

Criticizing the Oakland City Council for paying only "lip service" to resources for public safety, embattled Police Chief Wayne Tucker announced his resignation this morning. Tucker, at a press conference, spoke for about 10 minutes and then handed the podium to Mayor Ron Dellums. "Quite frankly I've lost faith in the City Council," Tucker said. "They've given lip service to public safety in the city." Oakland City Council members on Monday said that Tucker should resign or be fired because of scandals plaguing his department -- a position they planned to announce at a news conference today while calling for...

OAKLAND — The FBI is investigating allegations that the head of the Oakland Police Department's Internal Affairs Division almost nine years ago beat a drug suspect who later died, and then ordered subordinate officers to lie about it, according to police sources, some of whom federal agents recently have interviewed.The beating allegations are just one aspect of a wide-ranging FBI probe covering many of the department's recent high-profile problems, including the handling of the 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of workplace reprisals. Capt. Edward I. Poulson, who...

Search for answers into slaying has raised questions not only about handling of case, but department as a whole — OAKLAND — As 2008 ends, more questions than answers remain about the brazen slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey 17 months ago, and they raise increasing concerns about this city's beleaguered police force — questions that some officers say are now being asked within their own ranks.Officers and recently retired officers interviewed for this story describe the department as fractured, lacking confidence in Chief Wayne Tucker and his executive command staff, and neutered in its crime fighting abilities.Continuing violent crime, chronic...