It shows St. Louis police making an arrest that would later be called abusive, and catches an apparently surprised officer yelling, in part, “Everybody hold up. We’re red right now!” before she abruptly shuts off the camera.

Joel Schwartz and Bevis Schock, lawyers who filed suit Jan. 22 on behalf of Cortez Bufford, said “red” is cop slang for a running camera. What is seen before the video stops, they claim, supports their accusations in St. Louis Circuit Court that police lacked probable cause and applied excessive force.

The video, which St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay’s office had asked a private lawyer to delay releasing last summer, shows city officers pull Bufford from a car, kick him repeatedly and shock him with a Taser. It played a role in the dropping of charges against Bufford.

1:03 - Audio on
6:24 - Ocak pressed to hood of car
7:10 - Officer hitting Ocak in the face

On December 29, 2010, 20 year old Isaac Ocak (pr. "O-jack") of Turkish descent was parked outside a private shopping center and ran in to return a Christmas gift. He left his car running but it was locked (he had a separate door key). He returned to find officers around it, and he explained he just ran in to return something. He apologized for doing this. Officers detained him on the hood of a patrol car for an excessive time after they'd already established he had a non-suspicious reason to park there and had no weapons on him. Although the officers said it was "wrong" to have left it running there, it is neither a crime nor a traffic infraction to do this at a private mall. Mr. Ocak complied with a demand to put his hands on the patrol car and continued doing so long after any potential threat to officers was negated.

The encounter went from strangely counting Mr. Ocak's house keys to repeatedly ordering his hands to remain on the hood, to violently grabbing him after 8 minutes of car hood detention, thrusting him down to the hood and handcuffing him, all where there was no probable cause to believe any crime was committed. Then after determining that Ocak's hands were under control, Officer Larry Longley grabbed and pulled the client's upper jaw with his left hand and started wailing on his face with a right fist, reportedly because Officer Longley was being bitten.

Mr. Ocak was booked in jail for two days, released, and later charged with "assault" for biting the officer's left pinkie. This assault charge was dismissed finally by prosecutors who watched the video.

To me, this video illustrates pure unnecessary escalation of what is not a crime or an infraction at all, but is a routine civilian encounter. Once the "suspicious vehicle" was determined not to be so suspicious, the officers should have let Mr. Ocak go at most with a warning or a trespass admonishment issued by the strip mall security, since this was not a public roadway. To me the encounter raises the specter of biased policing. The officer who hit Mr. Ocak is quite clearly being a bully, and appears keen on doing some damage to Isaac Ocak in one way or another, and ultimately succeeds. Any injury the officer received to his finger was a consequence of Officer Longley's own aggressive recklessness.

Volusia County Sheriff's Office is speaking out Tuesday after learning one of its deputies claims he let a fellow lawman off the hook in a traffic stop involving drugs.

Last month, VCSO said probationary Deputy Alex Taylor pulled over former DeLand police officer Hector Rios for speeding. Deputies say Rios was with a known gang member, and there was a small amount of marijuana inside of the car, but no one was charged or arrested.

VCSO said because of some deficiencies in the handling of the incident, they asked Taylor again why Rios was not arrested or charged. Taylor told deputies he "decided to give the driver a break because he was a law enforcement officer."

A 90-year old’s home was destroyed by police conducting a raid but it appears they got the wrong house.

The elderly woman shared her story of terror and what police are doing to clean up the mess.

She’s called Riviera Beach home for 25 years, but back on December 18th around 1 p.m., the 90-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, had some uninvited guests.

“I don’t know how the cops got in here. The noise woke me up when something said boom! Like a bomb or something,” said the 90-year old.

There was shattered glass, a busted door, and traces of a flash bang device.

Riviera Beach Police said after evidence of criminal activity, they got a search warrant.
“Cops standing over here talking about where’s the drugs? I said what? What drugs? Ain’t no drugs in here,” she said.

Police searched the home with drug sniffing dogs but came up empty-handed.
“I’ve never been arrested, never been in jail,” said the 90-year old.

Riviera Beach Police said the search warrant was executed at the correct address and while the resident may not have had any knowledge of drugs being sold from her home, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

The department has since put up temporary repairs and has decided to pay for new windows and doors.

The resident is supposed to get a new door later this week – and new windows by February 28th.

A King County deputy and a corrections officer were attempting to serve a warrant using the controversial "no-knock raid" method, bursting into the home of Dustin Theoharis in search of his roommate. Theoharis was in bed when the officers entered:
They said Dustin Theoharis looked like he was reaching for a gun. He was shot in the face, abdomen, legs and arm.
He wasn't reaching for a gun. He was unarmed. He was shot 16 times.
Prosecutors say there is not enough evidence for charges:

The King County Prosecutor’s Office has determined there is no new information to support criminal charges against a sheriff’s deputy and a state community corrections officer whose account of an incident in which they shot an unarmed man 16 times was called into question in a civil lawsuit.
Reacting to a judge’s recent ruling that raised questions about the deputy’s and officer’s version of events, prosecutors said in statement that insufficient evidence remains that the two acted with malice or bad faith in violation of state law.

The judge questioned the version of events from the two officers involved:
In their search of the home, Rongen and Thompson fired in a darkened bedroom after Theoharis, according to Rongen, claimed that he had three guns and reached under a mattress
Theoharis disputes that account in his federal suit, alleging Rongen and Thompson fired at him after asking for identification. Theoharis contends he reached to the floor for his wallet and was turning back with it when he was struck with about 16 shots in the face, arm, legs and abdomen.

King County agreed to a $3 million settlement to Theoharis in 2013. Theoharis filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Rongen last summer and this week a federal judge denied a request to toss the lawsuit.

A report conducted by KMOV, with the help of St. Clair, exposed the downright insane requirements for Bellefontaine Neighbors cops.

According to the report:

The mandate was put in writing. It requires officers to take a specific number of “self-initiated activities” each month. St. Clair gave News 4 Investigates copies of spreadsheets used by the Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Department to track those activities. It identifies seven different activities that officers are required to do. Those include writing ordinance violations, traffic arrests, uniform traffic tickets, parking violations and traffic warnings.

St. Clair had to do 50 of them every month. The spreadsheet shows that Traffic Arrests represented up to 15 percent of the required activities for Bellfontaine Neighbors cops, an equivalent of up to 8 arrests per month, and that Uniform Traffic Tickets were up to 60 percent, or about 30 tickets per month.

...

Just to put that into perspective, 75 percent of all officers’ duties is forced revenue collection.
This department focuses 75 percent of all of its time on the act of revenue collection. This ratio is particularly disturbing.

It means that only 25 percent of the time are they trying to solve murders, prevent crimes, and investigate thefts. But that’s probably too generous of a number as well. If you take into account the immoral War on Drugs; solving murders, preventing crimes and investigating thefts is probably only a tiny fraction of that 25 percent.

The payout amount in the earlier Pantaleo case is hardly unusual for New York City, where claims against members of New York’s finest have swelled by 31% over the past five years. In that time, the city has paid out nearly a half-billion dollars in claims. According to the New York City Comptroller’s Office, there were 9,500 claims filed against the police department in 2013, to the tune of $137 million. The total amount paid out in fiscal year 2014 has ballooned to $212 million.

An Orlando police officer accused of punching and kicking a handcuffed man in March has been fired.

An Orlando police officer accused of dragging a handcuffed man to the ground and punching him has been fired.

The incident was captured on video by a witness, and Chief John Mina said they viewed the video in June.

Officer William Escobar is charged with two counts of battery and two counts of perjury.

According to records from the state attorney's office, Escobar lied when he said he wasn't trying to hit the victim in the head during the incident.

...

The man who was being arrested, Refus Holloway, a former military police officer, was initially charged with battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest, but those charges were dropped.

Holloway told investigators he was visiting his cousin when a fight broke out and he tried to break it up. That's when two officers pulled up and arrested his cousin. Holloway said he began asking questions about the arrest, at which point he was kicked by an officer. He said Escobar then handcuffed him and punched him several times.

According to an internal investigation, there was no evidence Holloway was resisting arrest before he was struck. The investigation found Escobar's actions were unbecoming of an officer and that he violated several standards of conduct.

Escobar was placed on alternative duty status during the investigation. Chief John Mina announced his termination Wednesday.

lorida policeman has been charged for groping a woman who he was supposed to be taking to jail, but officials said that the crime did not be rise to the level of “sexual battery.”

According to an arrest warrant, 22-year-old Daytona Officer Larry Leon Jones was transporting the woman to jail last week after she was taken into custody for leaving the scene of an accident, Florida’s News 13 reported.

The woman said that Jones told her he was pulling the patrol car over to adjust her handcuffs because she had complained that they were too tight.

The victim’s statement indicated that Jones said he needed to search her again, and then he reached under her shirt and groped her breasts.

The arrest report said that Jones continued to grope her while he “pulled her pants and underwear away” and “shined a flashlight down the front and back of her pants.”

Daytona police spokesperson Jimmie Flynt said that patrol car GPS records matched the woman’s story, and that there had been inconsistencies in Jones’ version of events.

“She has not wavered with what she says happened from the day she made these allegations to when they interviewed her maybe three or four days ago,” Flynt explained.

Jones was charged with battery, felony false imprisonment and official misconduct. He was released on $7,500 bond.

According to Baughman, around 9:30 a.m. while home alone with her infant son, U.S. Marshal’s broke into her home with guns drawn, demanding her and her 1-year-old son vacate the premises.

“He told me, ‘Get out and get your stuff and do it today, or we’re going to lock it up here,’” Baughman said, according the Albuquerque Journal. “I’m just a simple tenant and they treated me like a drug lord.”

Baughman was surprised to discover that the federal agents were there to seize her home for her landlords alleged failure to pay a tax bill in an ongoing and convoluted dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The family had been occupying the home since September, with her husband having lived in it independently since May. She said she was told of Carter’s tax issues when moving in, but said the IRS and the U.S. Marshals’ actions came as a complete surprise.

“I never got a call, they never came and talked to me, just this paper stapled to my door,” Baughman said.

Around the first week of October, they found a letter to Carter, from the IRS, stapled to their door informing them of the intent to foreclose on the property. She told both Carter and London, who at that point informed her that until the appeals were exhausted there would be no danger of losing the home.

Baughman was frightened and unsure of what to do because of the armed men telling her she needs to vacate her residence. Because she was home alone with an infant, Baughman called the Eddy County Sheriff Scott London to intervene in the unnerving situation.

London showed up at the residence to help Baughman.

Upon arrival, U.S. Marshals threatened Sheriff London with arrest while at Baughman’s home. They stated that U.S. Marshals Service was tasked to “take any and all necessary actions, including but not limited to the use of reasonable force to enter and remain on the premises.” They told the sheriff that they had orders to arrest anyone interrupting the proceedings.

London was not intimidated by the threats from the federal agents and stood his ground until the U.S. Marshals finally relented and vacated the premises.

The legal drama began in October 2014 when Kent Carter, former owner of Kent Carter Building, a contracting business, appealed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Brack. The ruling upheld a previous judgment allowing the seizure and sale of three properties in payment for taxes owed from 1995-2001, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Carter challenged the IRS’s claim on his property as a pro se litigant, which is someone that represents themselves without legal counsel.

...

The CBP had two suspects exactly where it wanted them: detained by agents at a checkpoint. And the longer they were detained, the more nervous they got. Despite a search of the interior turning up nothing and the drug-sniffing dogs failing to alert, the CBP officers were pretty sure they had just captured two smugglers. So, the agents routed the vehicle through their backscatter X-ray scanner, skipping a step in the process.

...

So, Buchanan was unable to come up with any evidence or probable cause, but decided to perform the backscatter anyway, despite his doing so being completely contradicted by his portrayal of the CBP's standard m.o. This wasn't the only contradictory statement in the CBP's testimony.

Rochester, NY (WROC)- "Beware of the dog."

It's a sign that's supposed to protect a home and keep strangers out. In Jayme Resnick's case, it didn't exactly work.

"My friend called me and said 'Don't panic- Papi got shot by the police.'"

Papi is Resnick's 55-pound pitbull, a small and playful animal whose large brown doghouse with his name painted on the front, sits on a tree stump in his backyard.

Last Thursday while Resnick was away his friend was dog-sitting. They were inside the kitchen when a police K-9 unit entered the backyard looking for a suspected robber. They say Papi heard the commotion and ran out the door only to find a police canine on the other side. Witnesses say the two dogs began to fight.

"They came inside with another dog and they fight and I was surprised because he never bite nobody or hurt nobody either," says Jessica Vicente, a neighbor.

The police report says the officer kicked Resnick's dog to break up the fight before firing four rounds from a .45 caliber Glock. Neighbors say they heard four to five gunshots.

It was not until 6 in the morning on Nov. 1, 2009, that Officer Adrian Schoolcraft finally had access to a telephone. The night before, he had been brought to the psychiatric emergency room at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center on the orders of his police bosses.

Since then, his left hand had been cuffed to a gurney and he had been guarded by officers from the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn, where he worked.

¶ He rolled the gurney to the phone and dialed a number, but the call was immediately disconnected by a sergeant, who said, “Hey, I thought perps weren’t allowed to use the phone,” according to a federal lawsuit that Officer Schoolcraft has filed against the city, saying he was punished for whistle-blowing.

¶ Then, the suit charges, six officers pushed Officer Schoolcraft back down on the gurney, and a second handcuff was tightened around his left wrist.

¶ Officer Schoolcraft was not, however, a perp — as the police call someone charged with a crime.

¶ He was a police officer who had accurately reported wrongdoing by his supervisors, and who had left work an hour early the previous day. The very people he implicated — and who knew that he had — decided that his early departure and failure to answer the telephone constituted a psychiatric emergency. Led by a deputy chief and a deputy inspector, officers raided his apartment and brought him in cuffs to the psychiatric emergency room. Throughout the encounter in his home, which was secretly captured on audiotape, Officer Schoolcraft sounds calm, and not like a threat to anyone. His suit claims that the hospitalization, which lasted six days, was meant to shut him up.

Kennedy says her sister called 911 so police could help her remove two unwanted guests from the home she shared with her boyfriend.

At one point, Sexton grabbed a musket gun from the closet.

"An old musket gun," said Kennedy. "It has powder that goes down in it, and you got to use a rod down in it. Even pellets have to put down in it."

Kennedy says her sister's boyfriend told her the gun was not loaded, and he says when officers told the mother of two to put it down, she began to comply.

"That officer still shot my sister dead in the chest," said Kennedy.

Gastonia Police will only confirm that officers are justified in shooting if they fear their life is in danger.

"We're not getting the full picture of it," said the victim's neighbor, Ron Radford. "And if the rest of society wants to draw conclusions based off one-sided information, I think that's reckless."

Gastonia Police asked the State Bureau of Investigations to take over so as to have an unbiased investigation.

"All she wanted was someone removed from her house," said Kennedy.

Sexton was 43 years old. She had two teenage children.

Officer Neely has been with the Gastonia Police Department sine 2012.

It all happened back on February 16th of 2014, when deputies were called to a home just after midnight. The 911 operator told the police there were reports that two men had been fighting and a weapon was involved.

But that wasn’t true. Everyone in the house, including the woman who called 911, say that the dispatcher was told that “the fight was over money, not a gun.”

Officer Willis arrived at the house and Smith was standing near the front door. Willis says that he issued verbal commands for Smith to come out of the house. She complied with these demands, even though she had done nothing wrong and was not one of the suspects. As soon as she stepped out, as the officer had commanded, officer Willis opened fire, shooting her twice.

After the shooting, the Sheriff’s Department lied to the media and said Smith was armed when she came out. None of that was even remotely true and they later retracted the statement.



The lawsuit now says that Smith had absolutely nothing in her hands nor on her person “that could reasonably have resembled a weapon.”

The suit also says that Sheriff’s Department supervisors tampered with Willis’ records.

A BCSO investigation later confirmed this, saying that several supervisors altered Willis’ field training records. The goal was clearly to make the officer look better.