A Peekskill police sergeant suspended a year ago when he was accused of lying to FBI agents and the chief and of failing to monitor sex offenders continues to receive full pay and will be granted a disability retirement under a settlement that's been criticized by Mayor Frank Catalina.

Sgt. Ray Henderlong was suspended last March and has been out on an undisclosed disability since then. He will receive his full $121,000 salary until the Aug. 25 retirement date agreed on with the city as part of a settlement that also drops all departmental charges against him.

That settlement, approved by City Manager Anthony Ruggiero, "did not come to the mayor or the (Common) council until it was a done deal, and I was very, very unhappy about it," Catalina said, adding that Ruggiero should not have paid lawyers who negotiated the agreement without consulting the council.

A hospitality ambassador for the city of Berkeley was fired and his partner suspended after a video unearthed last week shows the employee - whose job it is to "create a more welcoming downtown" - beating a homeless man on the street.

Berkeley police had arrested the two homeless men, but ended up discovering the YouTube video this week , showing two ambassadors - identified in court documents as Jeffrey Bailey and Carmen Francois - on March 20 dressed in neon yellow caps and shirts telling two homeless people, Nathan Swor, 23, and James Cockereese, 29, to move along and out of an alley behind the CVS on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Bancroft Way.

A federal grand jury has returned a four-count indictment against a former Independence police officer who tasered 17-year-old Bryce Masters during a traffic stop in September. The incident resulted in Masters going into cardiac arrest and eventually being put into a medically induced coma.

The indictment stems from an FBI investigation into whether officer Timothy Runnels used excessive force after pulling over Masters on September 14th, 2014.

Runnels is charged with two counts of depriving Masters’ constitutional rights based on his alleged use of excessive force. He’s also charged with filing a false report and giving false statements to investigators afterward.

...

After the incident initially happened, police attempted to claim that the car Masters was driving was stopped due to the car’s license plates being associated with a woman wanted on warrants.

This information proved to be untrue as his family volunteered that the car was properly registered to Masters’ parents and that he nor the vehicle had any warrants associated with them.

The police also alleged that Masters was combative with officer Runnels, which eventually resulted in Masters’ injuries. These allegations were thoroughly refuted by eyewitnesses to the incident, as well as cell phone video, taken by eyewitnesses, which captured the tail end of the encounter.

The video is hard to watch as it shows Runnels standing on the teenager as he seizes in cardiac. Masters is dragged around and eventually ends up under the officer’s foot like a trophy kill. No aid whatsoever is given.

...

The reality of the situation is that officer Runnels became abusive when Masters decided to record his interactions with the officer on his cell phone.

This simple act, meant to keep himself safe, sent the officer into an authoritarian rage that resulted in him brutalizing a frail teenager doing nothing other than attempting to exercise his constitutional right to film an officer in the carrying out of his official duties.

For this, Masters was left cuffed on the ground in a pool of his own blood, suffering from cardiac arrest, and Runnels refusing to render any medical aid.

Masters sustained brain damage after he went into cardiac arrest, with doctors placing him into a medically induced coma that included lowering his core body temperature.

Masters continues to receive physical therapy and his condition is slowly improving, according to Masters’ family attorney, Daniel Haus.

If convicted, Runnels faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the two constitutional rights violations, and up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 on each of the other counts.

Sergeant Christansen pulled me over, doesn't give me a reason why, then demands I open my door without any reason, he then pulls out his baton and threatens to smash my window. This "PEACE OFFICER" is supposed to uphold the law not break it. After smashing my window and physically assaulting and emotionally traumatizing me the officers perform a roadside examination and found that i was not impaired or under the influence. How do we give so much power and responsibility to people that lack love for themselves, these people take their pain and rage out on the world and we ask why people live in fear?

Six people were arrested on federal drug charges in the city of Fresno, California, including Deputy Police Chief Keith Foster, who is considered to be the ringleader of the group. Lindsay France reports on the reaction from the department and the charges against Foster.

Five years after 46 people, almost all of them black, were arrested on fabricated drug charges in Tulia, Tex., their ordeal will draw to a close today with the announcement of a $5 million settlement in their civil suit and the disbandment of a federally financed 26-county narcotics task force responsible for the arrests.

The case attracted national attention because the number of people charged literally decimated the small town's black population. It also gained notice because the arrests were entirely based on the work of an undercover narcotics agent who has been accused of racism and perjury. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas pardoned the Tulia defendants in August, after a court hearing last March exonerated them.

''This is undoubtedly that last major chapter in the Tulia story, and this will conclude the efforts of people in Tulia to get some compensation and justice,'' said Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer in Amarillo who represented the people arrested five years ago in the civil suit. ''With the abolition of the task force, it completely closes the circle on what was done.''

Mr. Blackburn added that the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force failed adequately to supervise the agent, Tom Coleman, in its eagerness to win battles in the war on drugs.

Tulia is a poor town of 5,000 people between Amarillo and Lubbock. The $5 million will be divided among 45 former defendants based on a formula that will take account of whether they served time in prison and how long. One defendant has since died.

The settlement will be paid by the City of Amarillo, which had a leading role in running the task force. Marcus W. Norris, the city attorney, said many drug task forces in Texas were poorly organized and governed. That led, he said, to poor supervision of Mr. Coleman in Tulia, a lack of accountability and catastrophic misjudgments.

''There's a lesson here,'' Mr. Norris said, ''that cities should be very careful about these alliances.''

Mr. Coleman, who was named Texas Lawman of the Year in 1999 for his work in Tulia, will go on trial on perjury charges in May. He has pleaded not guilty. Jon Mark Hogg, a lawyer for Mr. Coleman, declined to comment on the civil settlement.

Stephen Stubbs, a Las Vegas area attorney, was acquitted on Tuesday of obstruction charges stemming from his refusal to leave the side of a client, who had requested him as counsel while he was being questioned by members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. This client is a member of a ministry group called “Bikers for Christ.” In spite of the “for Christ” part of that name, the group was targeted for questioning by the LVMPD, because of Metro’s long-standing policy of intentional harassment toward motorcycle clubs.

Four teens on March 25th 2015, around 8:30am assaulted and abused by El Centro College Campus PD in Downtown Dallas,Tx. Treated as criminals while they were waiting for their bus when this lady walks up and tells them to put their hands on the wall.

So I received a default judgement a couple days ago on a seatbelt ticket that was written by this officer for this exact incident, yet he never wrote me a ticket to begin with! So I took this video to the Magistrate and let her watch the entire video herself and she removed the default judgement immediately and set it for trial in about a month. This Sheriff was a coward and wrote a seatbelt violation but never served me a copy, or never even made it my knowledge he was writing a citation. I'll have my day in Court.

So the ticket was thrown out because Officer Fisher never showed up to the court hearing. I will always film any police encounter from here on out.

Traveling up to saint augustine from south Florida I was stopped for speeding. 85 in a 70 along with other vehicles I was the one stopped. The state troopers would not answer our questions as they should, being public servants. Opened my door without permission. Reached for my camera when I was filming. They Wanted to take my weapon when it is legal and I showed I.D. Many wrongful mistakes they made that went against my rights as a U.S. Citizen

The federal government became owners of one of the biggest troves of Bitcoin, thanks to seizing millions of dollars in the digital currency from criminals associated with the online black market Silk Road.

Two federal agents who led the probe allegedly decided they wanted some of the money for themselves, according to a new federal court documents.

The two now-former agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Secret Service are charged with wire fraud, money laundering and other offenses for allegedly stealing Bitcoin during the federal investigation of Silk Road, an underground illicit black market federal prosecutors shut down last year.

The charges in a criminal complaint filed in San Francisco federal court paints a picture of corrupt federal agents trying to enrich themselves as they tried to bring down one of the Internet's top cybercriminals.

The charges against the agents could end up causing complications for the government's case against Ross Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts", the Silk Road founder. Ulbricht was found guilty last year of aiding drug trafficking with his site.​ He is awaiting sentencing. As a result of the case against Ulbricht and others, the federal government seized bitcoin that it said at the time was valued at over $33 million.

The agents are: Carl Force, 46 years old, of Baltimore, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service.

Seven weeks later, a day after attending a hearing for that arrest, Townsend was arrested a second time after police banged on his door at 10 p.m., rousing him from his sleep, charging him with witness intimidation over a Facebook post he had made two nights earlier that police described as a “terrorist threat.”

In that post, which you can read below, he tagged several journalists, activists, friends as well as some of Brockbank’s family members.

Meridian police and Ada County prosecutors had to find a second judge to sign the arrest warrant after a previous judge had refused to sign it for lack of probable cause.

The identity of the judge who signed the warrant remains a mystery because the warrant was immediately sealed.

Now Townsend is facing five years in prison for the witness intimidation charge in addition to the one year in jail for the obstructing charge.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's son Dante showed up to a rally outside a Park Slope high school where protesters say a 19-year-old student was handcuffed twice and nearly arrested after school safety officers deemed his broken glasses a security threat.

...

The incident began before the start of school on Thursday morning, when the student — whose name was not released — was stopped by school safety agents manning the school's metal detectors, according to police and a letter the PTA circulated to the school community Thursday night.

The student was wearing broken glasses held together with a pin, as he had been doing for several weeks, according to the PTA. School safety agents told him the pin was a security risk and confiscated the glasses, the PTA said.

When the student tried to retrieve the glasses, safety agents restrained him, according to school staff who saw the incident. "They brought him to the ground, pinned him down, and handcuffed him,” the PTA said in the letter.

Police confirmed there was a scuffle and that the student was issued a summons, but then released.

Police said the confrontation broke out after the student refused an order from school safety agents to remove the metal pin before entering the school building.

Principal Jill Bloomberg then asked the student to come to her office to write down what had happened, according to the PTA. Bloomberg did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

As the boy was writing his account, NYPD officers who were not part of the school safety team rushed into the principal's office and handcuffed the student again, according to the PTA letter.

He was then placed under arrest "and held in a room by NYPD officers without his parents or any of our staff present," the letter continues.

The student was eventually released and no charges were filed, the PTA wrote.

NYPD spokeswoman Kim Royster said a school safety agent was struck in the eye and sustained minor injuries during the scuffle with the student.

The student was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, Royster said.

"I feel like they're just trying to be mean and bully us," said 16-year-old junior Feyisola Oduyebo, referring to school safety officers. "It's training us to be ready for prison."

Called Sun City man an "enemy" for using medical Marijuana.