This occurred two years ago. The trial is over. The cops got off. Ricardo's family got $4.7 million in settlement, and the judge released the video citing that the public should know what their police were up to.

He even told Guilford that he had previously pulled over other drivers for flashing their brights at him — all of whom had mistakenly thought he was using his high beams — and let them off with warnings. This would seem to indicate that Frost was driving with headlights that other drivers found distracting and potentially dangerous. Yet instead of looking into the matter, he continued to pull people over, essentially for the crime of being distracted by his lights.

ETOWAH COUNTY, Ala. – Rainbow City police shocked a girl multiple times with a Taser as she suffered grand mal seizures, then turned the stun gun on the girl’s mother when the woman tried to intervene, according to a federal lawsuit filed July 9.

The 16-year-old girl, identified in a federal suit only as T.D.H, was attending a rap concert at Center Stages of Rainbow City January 16, when the artist jumped into the crowd and caused a stampede, according to WBRC.

Fearing that she would be crushed by the crowd, the girl went into a stress-induced grand mal seizure, the suit claims.

The girl and her mother, Michelle Lee Helm, are also suing the venue, alleging that an employee who spotted the girl carried her out of the concert and “unceremoniously dumped” her on the lobby floor instead of getting medical help.

Five police officers who were off duty and working as security, held the girl down and one officer “body checked” Helm and put her in a physical restraint face-down on the floor, according to the lawsuit. The same officer then allegedly ordered another to use a Taser on the woman, which the officer allegedly did.

The girl was also stunned twice by police officers using their Tasers.

The lawsuit claims that Rainbow City police bound and gagged the girl before taking her to the hospital, and even joked about placing her in a mental facility. Officers took Helm to jail on a disorderly conduct charge. Helm contends police arrested her on bogus charges to cover up the officers’ illegal actions.

The 16-year-old, who says she is haunted by panic attacks brought on by the experience, was released to a complete stranger, according to the suit.

Helm is seeking damages, including the payment of medical bills incurred in the incident, s well as increased training and supervision of the department’s officers.

“I was in the shower,” Rossi said. “My daughter came to the shower and said there are two officers at the door. So I just grabbed a towel."

When she answered the door, there were two Chandler Police officers. One of those officers was Doug Rose.

Rossi said Rose became very aggressive and she told him to wait at the door so she could go get a cell phone.

“It made me very uncomfortable,” Rossi said. “So I closed the door. I turn to go into my living room, and I probably get about five steps in; and all of a sudden, I just hear boots running in after me, telling me stop or I’ll arrest you.”

At that point, both Rossi and her daughter begin recording. That’s when things turned south.

...

Rossi also admits she took an attitude with the officer after he illegally entered her home.

“Any one of us would be upset if a police officer barged into our homes without permission,” Victor said. “She had a right to be upset.”

The cell phone video was influential evidence in the internal investigation. Unedited copies were provided to ABC15 by Rossi and her attorney.

Rossi was never charged with a crime, records show.

After reviewing the incident, Chandler Police internal investigators determined Rose entered the home illegally and without probable cause. The investigation also determined that Rose didn’t document arresting or un-arresting the woman or the fact that she was naked.

There was also no video from his body camera for the call, records show.

After the incident, the other officer involved immediately contacted his supervisor to raise questions about Rose’s actions. The second officer was cleared of wrongdoing.

Riverside County agreed to pay $500,000 to the family of an 18-year-old man fatally shot in the back by a Moreno Valley deputy while handcuffed face-down on the ground, his family's attorney said.

...

In January 2014, the Riverside County district attorney found “there was no criminal culpability on the part of the officer involved,” according to spokesman John Hall.

The county denied the wrongful-death allegations, saying Colbert acted in “self-defense and in defense of others,” according to U.S. District Court documents.

Assistant Sheriff Lee Wagner said Colbert no longer was employed with the county as of May 14, 2015. It is unclear whether he retired or was fired.

Broken ribs, cuts, bruises and scrapes to nearly every part of inmate Matthew Walker’s body are detailed in a nine-page autopsy report.

The report was released Wednesday, a year and a half after the brutal beating death inside the Charlotte Correctional Institution.

The autopsy reveals that Walker, 45, suffered the injuries as 10 guards tried to subdue him.

The findings come on the heels of a grand jury decision last week not to indict any of the guards involved in his death.

The medical examiner confirms Walker had four fractured ribs and injuries on his head, neck, and arms. It also notes handcuff impressions on Walker’s wrists.

"I can just see him lying there screaming for help and me not being able to help him," explained Walker’s sister May Atkins.

Atkins was even more surprised to hear some of the details contained in the autopsy, which says some of the cuts on her brother's body measured 3 1/2" long and more than two inches wide.

It further states Walker was in overall good health and it says his death was caused by suffocation and blunt force trauma to the head, neck and stomach during an altercation with prison guards in April 2014.

One thing the medical examiner is making clear in the report is that Walker's death has been ruled a homicide.

Despite that fact, a grand jury ruled last week there wasn't enough evidence to charge any of the 10 guards involved in his death.

All of guards were suspended but later offered their jobs back, and only one decided not to return to work.

"I hope they sleep at night," said Atkins.

Walker’s death isn't the only one being investigated at CCI. Damion Foster died just weeks after Walker. His death and six others remain under investigation as the state's prison system is working to clean up its image.

35-year-old Caroline Small took police on a low-speed chase that ended with her Buick Century in a ditch on its rims. The two cops who followed her shot her, claiming they feared for her life because she could drive the car, which was without tires now, down the narrow path between her and them . After shooting her in the head, the cops are caught on their cameras talking about their marksmanship. A subsequent investigation of the incident cleared them of wrongdoing but the investigation by the Journal-Constitution found a number of problems:

• Glynn County police officers interfered with the GBI's investigation from the start, seeking to protect the officers.

• The department tampered with the crime scene and created misleading evidence that was shown to the grand jury.

• The local district attorney shared the state's evidence with the officers nearly two months before the grand jury convened and cut an unusual deal with them just before it met.

Both cops remain employed as police officers in Georgia and were never disciplined. Video shows them waving off a former EMT who witnessed the shooting and was trying to offer first aid. Last year a federal judge threw out a wrongful death suit by the family because, she said, the cops said they felt Small was a threat and so killed her lawfully. Small's interaction with cops began when someone saw her sitting in her car in a parking lot and called police about suspected drug use.

The factors that contributed to the "nothing to see here" approach in Georgia are not unique to that state. Police shootings are universally investigated by someone substantively connected to law enforcement—be it the police department's own internal affairs department, state investigators, or outside prosecutors. Police shootings are generally protected by law not only if a reasonable threat existed, but if the cop involved perceived a threat. The system of law enforcement privileges—things like treating disciplinary files as private personnel records and employment as a police officer as a public service privilege—meanwhile, ensures obfuscation can prevent transparency and accountability.

...

It’s only July and the same police department is making headlines again. This time, it’s due to the release of police dash cam footage showing Sweetwater Detective Octavio Oliu being stopped after running a toll booth using stolen license plates. Oliu, 42, is facing felony charges of official misconduct and organized scheme to defraud. His lawyer, C. Michael Cornerly, said the officer will fight the allegations.

The disgraced Sweetwater police detective used a stolen license plate to shirk hundreds of highway tolls for months until he was pulled over for speeding on Florida’s Turnpike, authorities said.

...The teenager suffers from a medical condition that induces seizures, causing her to lose consciousness and experience sporadic muscle contractions. The lawsuit states that at one point during the concert, the performer descended into the crowd, creating a “stampede” that “trampled” the teenager, triggering a seizure.
When her sister sought help from an employee, they carried her to the lobby, “unceremoniously dumped” her on the floor and held her in a chokehold, at which point she suffered another seizure.

Her sister had notified their mother, who came to the concert venue. When she arrived, police immediately “held her down on the ground at five different points of her body” and restrained her with handcuffs. One officer then told another to “get her,” prompting them to fire their Taser at the defenseless, restrained woman, causing her to urinate.
The lawsuit states that at this point, the daughter “attempted to raise her head,” prompting officers and a venue employee to restrain her by pinning her down violently. An officer then shocked her with a Taser three times on her chest while she was “face down with her arms secured behind her,” inducing yet another seizure that rendered the youth unconscious.

After the teenager slipped out of consciousness, she was driven to Gadsden Regional Medical Center and her mother was arrested for disorderly conduct. The suit alleges that, while at the hospital, police made jokes about the teenager and threatened to commit her to a mental hospital.

Witnesses have told Mississippi state investigators that an unarmed black man died after being kept in a chokehold by a police officer for more than 20 minutes and denied CPR, according to his family’s attorneys, who said an autopsy confirmed he was fatally strangled.

State medical examiners provisionally found Jonathan Sanders died through homicide by manual asphyxiation, according to attorneys Chokwe Lumumba and CJ Lawrence.

...

According to the attorneys, one witness alleged that Herrington said he was “going to get that ------” seconds before confronting Sanders in Stonewall on the night of 8 July, and several said the officer was the aggressor. Police have described the encounter as “a fight”.

...

According to the attorneys, the three witnesses are related to Sanders by marriage and one has 10 years of experience working in law enforcement. They said this witness told Herrington he was trained in CPR and had his own mask for use on a patient but was repeatedly prevented by the officer from using it on Sanders.

The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive
The Guardian is counting the people killed by US law enforcement agencies this year.

The version of events given by witnesses, they said, is that Sanders was riding by a gas station on a horse-drawn buggy at about 10.30pm when he made a comment to Herrington, who had pulled over a driver. The attorneys said this driver had told them he was drunk and his registration tags had expired.

The driver said his stop was abandoned when Sanders asked Herrington “Why don’t you leave that man alone?” or similar, said Lumumba. “According to the driver, once the officer saw Jonathan, his attention was piqued and he said: ‘I’m going to get that ------.’”

The attorneys said investigators from the MBI had informed them they were aware of the alleged racist remark and were in communication with the driver.

Lumumba said a person they call Witness 1 was standing at the window of a nearby home seeking signal for a cellphone when he or she saw Sanders approaching on his buggy, wearing a light on a headband similar to those used by climbers.

“Then, Witness 1 saw officer Herrington’s blue lights come on,” said Lumumba. “Jonathan’s horse reared up, startled, and knocked Jonathan off his horse. His light slipped around his neck. Jonathan ran to get the horse and Officer Herrington came from behind him, yanked him down to the ground in front of the house with the light strap and placed him in a chokehold. Jonathan didn’t even see him.”

Early reports said witnesses had thought Sanders was choked with some kind of flashlight, which attorneys now believe was a reference to the head-mounted light.

“I never saw him go for the officer,” said Witness 1, who was quickly joined by Witnesses 2 and 3, according to the attorneys. They said Herrington held Sanders face-down on the ground and placed his arms around Sanders’ neck to restrain him.

Witness 3, who the attorneys said has law enforcement experience, told investigators he ran outside to see what was going on and told Herrington: “‘Let him up; he won’t be able to breathe in my grass because my grass is too high,’” said Lumumba. Witness 2, who had also moved outside, said he or she then heard Sanders twice say “I can’t breathe”.

The witnesses said Herrington was shouting to them that Sanders was reaching for his gun, despite the 39-year-old being unable to reach the weapon. The officer initially asked Witness 3 to help remove the gun from his belt, before changing his mind and asking for a woman who had been travelling with him in his patrol car to come out and remove the gun with Witness 3’s guidance.

“The chokehold had been going on the entire time,” said Lumumba, who noted that Eric Garner died in about three minutes when placed in a chokehold by a police officer in New York City last year, prompting months of protests.

“Witness 3 was saying ‘Let him up, let him up, he’s not breathing, let me do CPR’,” said Lumumba. “He is trained in CPR and had a mask in his home. But Herrington said ‘No, stand back’.”

The witnesses said that after being instructed by the officer, Herrington’s companion attempted to call for backup but could not operate his radio system, according to the attorneys. Witness 3 again stepped in to help, and officers were dispatched, but they travelled to the wrong location and had to be redirected.

“This time frame, according to Witness 3, is that Jonathan was in a chokehold for more than 20 minutes, close to 30 minutes,” said Lumumba, who said that when a support officer identified as “Officer Derek” arrived, Herrington told his colleague: “I think I put him to sleep.”

Medics were called and used Witness 3’s mask, according to Lumumba, but they did not appear to competently administer CPR. After they sat Sanders upright, “blood starts rushing out of his mouth, and they are never able to get a pulse”, said the attorney. Sanders was put in an ambulance and taken to hospital, although the family’s attorneys say he was dead at the scene.

On July 3rd, I was at a DUI checkpoint on Jennings Rd., at the 91 south on ramp in Hartford, CT, reminding people, on the eve of Independence Day, that they have rights, when I noticed a Hartford police officer (vehicle #19, LIC. Plate # 69HFD) turn right onto the 91 South on ramp, where the checkpoint was located. Then, in a high traffic area and without any warning (lights, turn signal, or otherwise), he turned around on the on ramp and exited at the other side of the entrance to the on ramp (another car did the same thing and received a $200+ fine). He then proceeded to head towards me, driving against traffic to ask if he could take a picture of me, at which point I told him he was going the wrong way. To that, he replied, "I'm a law enforcement officer (the irony), I can do that." As he turned around, he impeded traffic and came close to causing an accident.

In Connecticut, police officers can only violate traffic laws when they are on an emergency call, and they MUST have their audible siren and lights on, or just an audible siren, not just their lights (CGA 14-283). Do shiny badges grant extra rights?

Now, the I-Team has obtained video of Bland's arrest. The video shows police on top of Bland, who is on the ground with several officers restraining her as she questions why they are being so rough. The video was shot by a bystander Friday morning, three days before she died in police custody.

Bland was pulled over Friday for improper signaling a lane change, according to Waller County Sheriff's Department officials. They say she was charged with "Assault on a Public Servant" and taken into custody by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper.

"After he pulled her out of the car, forced her and tossed her to the ground, knee to the neck, and arrested her," says her friend Malcom Jackson.

Bland's friends say she had been with her family in suburban Chicago over the July 4th holiday, and drove to Texas for a job interview at her alma mater, Texas Prairie View A & M. Family members say she got the position and was to begin working in student outreach today.

In the video of the arrest, an officer is heard telling the bystander taking the video to leave.

In the video he shot, Bland is heard saying, "You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that? I can't even hear!"

Then, as she is taken into custody, she repeats, "You slammed me into the ground and everything."

Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith says Bland "had been combative on the side of the road."

...

The Willowbrook High School graduate died by "self-inflicted asphyxiation," according to sheriff's deputies, who have turned the investigation over to Texas Rangers. Some family members and friends say Bland was found hanging in the jail cell, but authorities have not confirmed the exact circumstances around her death.

In a press release from the sheriff's department, authorities say they applied CPR, but Bland was pronounced dead shortly after she was found.

"I do not have any information that would make me think it was anything other than just a suicide," says Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis.

...

A Columbia County sheriff’s deputy was fired after admitting in court that he secretly took nude photos of a woman and posted them on the Internet, the sheriff said Thursday.

Thomas G. Bagnall, 28, of Hudson, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the felony of unlawful surveillance, according to Columbia County Court Chief Clerk David Cardona.

After the plea, Judge Jonathan Nichols issued an order of protection on behalf of the victim, barring Bagnall from going near her.

...

Bagnall faces a maximum sentence of one-and-a-third to four years in state prison.

A four-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, Bagnall was suspended without pay for 30 days following his arrest, in accordance with state Civil Service Law, and was back on the books until Wednesday, when he was fired, Bartlett said.

The sheriff said he was not happy to have to continue paying Bagnall a salary that he estimated to be “in the high 40s” until the case was resolved.

“There’s a victim in this case ... and sometimes the system stinks,” Bartlett said.

“We’re very proud of the job we do here, and this is not something we take lightly,” The sheriff added. “I was extremely disappointed in his actions, and he will never again set foot in this building, unless he goes to jail.”

In August 2014, a Germantown woman was notified an acquaintance had seen nude photos of her on the Internet, state police said at the time of Bagnall’s arrest. Following an investigation, it was discovered Bagnall had taken the photos from the outside the woman’s residence and then posted the images online, police said.

An investigation into the issue revealed that the officer was not parked in the spot for official business. The officer claimed that he did not see the marking on the ground and expressed to his commander that he was embarrassed.

The local police department also determined that since the space was not properly marked as a handicap space, the officer would not be reprimanded. In fact, no vehicle, regardless of the operator, would be ticketed for using that space, according to the department chief.