...On June 21, 2012, the EPD SWAT team was responding to anonymous internet posts that were apparently threatening to the police. Instead of investigating the threats, they haphazardly ordered a search warrant to Milan’s home where the IP address was traced. Having conducted no investigation about the occupants of the home, a dozen officers hastily geared up with AR-15s drawn, kicked in windows, threw flashbangs, and held an elderly woman and two children hostage while police tore apart their home.

After assaulting and endangering the lives of this innocent family and finding nothing, police finally conducted a brief investigation and found that the threats were issued by Milan’s neighbor, Derrick Murray. The following day, Murray was arrested and pleaded guilty to making the threats through piggybacking Milan’s open WiFi.

After city attorneys had attempted to protect the EPD from liability for the raid by claiming qualified immunity, a judge called them out for it. In his ruling, Judge Richard Posner wrote:
The infuriating body cam video was released publicly and serves to undermine the relations between Evansville residents and the department. The dramatic video is akin to a first-person shooter video game. It illustrates the true danger faced by the Milan family during this home invasion by heavily armed militarized men.

To highlight the sadistic nature of police, near the 5:30 mark in the video, as officers are tearing through the basement, they come across the family cat. One officer is heard saying, “There’s a cat,” to which his fellow officer responds, “Here, I’ll kick it.”

Luckily the Milan family escaped the assault physically unharmed. However, the emotional stress of having your door kicked in, flash-bangs thrown at you, being held hostage by men in black military attire, and being told you’re a criminal, can weigh heavy on a person’s emotional stability.

What self-respecting human being could attempt to claim “immunity” from liability after subjecting a family to such horrific nonsense?

What this says to the community and the Milan family is this, “I know we could have severely injured your teenage daughters and blown a hole in your face, but look, it was an honest mistake, you have no recourse… we are the police.”

Luckily an exception to the rule occurred, and the court ruled in favor of justice in this instance.

Watch the video below and imagine that this is your house and your family. If that was your daughter who had a flashbang grenade thrown at her as she innocently watched TV on the sofa, would you be okay with the police saying they weren’t liable?

Former Mount Pleasant Police Chief Brian Fanelli, of Mahopac, entered a guilty plea on Monday to possession of child pornography.

Fanelli, 56, was arrested in January 2014, just two months after becoming police chief, when federal agents raided his home. Federal authorities accused him of downloading and sharing more than 120 files containing pornographic images and video of children.

Fanelli entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas at the federal courthouse in White Plains. The one count of possessing child pornography carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and maximum fine of $250,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Fanelli had been a member of the Mount Pleasant Police Department for more than 30 years. In exchange for his guilty plea on one count, federal prosecutors agreed not to recommend more than four years and three months in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 12. He has been allowed to remain under home confinement, with electronic monitoring, in the meantime.

According to THV11 affiliate in Fort Smith, KFSM, a former Lowell Police Department officer is facing a DWI charge after he crashed one of the department's cruisers in June.

Lowell Police Chief Randy Harvey stated that Harold "Alex" Dominguez, 44, resigned his position on July 27.

Springdale police will not release the toxicology report, but the department is pursuing DWI charges.

According to the crash report, Dominguez was driving a 2009 Dodge Charger owned by the Lowell Police Department when he struck another vehicle around 8 p.m. on June 17.

This third grader was shackled and crying out in pain for 15 minutes. He was restrained because of behavior related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a history of trauma. A member of the school's staff videotaped the incident.

Students with disabilities represent 12% of public school students but are 75% of all students subjected to physical restraint at school, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Law enforcement in schools must be trained on how to work with children with disabilities and trauma. Learning de-escalation skills should be as common as fire drills for schools and any law enforcement officers who serve them.

Zach Anderson, 19, says he’s no “monster,” but judging by the punishment he received for having sex with a girl who told him she was 17, the law is treating him like some of society’s most despised people, registered sex offenders .

For the next 25 years, not only must he add his name to the same rolls as violent rapists, he is forbidden to live in certain places, including his family home, and he faces tight restrictions on where he can work. He cannot own a smart phone. He cannot use a computer. Aside from immediate family, he cannot speak to anyone less than 17 years old.

He will be 46 when his name finally comes off the registry, in 2040.

Anderson was arrested last winter and charged with a sex crime after having sex with a girl he had met through a dating app, he told ABC’s “Nightline” in a program that aired Thursday.

They flirted through text messages and, having been assured by the girl that she was 17, he drove the 20 miles between his home in Elkhart, IN, and hers in Niles, MI, and the two had sex at a playground, he said.

Anderson found out after the girl’s mother reported her daughter missing that she was only 14. He was arrested two months later, and pleaded guilty last spring to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in a Michigan court.

The now 15-year-old girl admitted she lied about her age, and she and her mother both pleaded with the judge not to tag him as a sex offender.

But Anderson drew a tough judge who condemned what he called a culture of, “meet, hook-up, have sex, sayonara, totally inappropriate behavior,” according to court records. He sentenced Anderson to 90 days in jail and ordered him to register as a sex offender.

Anderson was released from the St. Joseph County Jail last month after serving his sentence, and is now adjusting to what life is like for a registered sex offender.

For the next five years, being a registered sex offender means he can’t have a smartphone or use the Internet. So much for his Plan A, a career in computer science.

Other than immediate family, he can’t speak to anyone younger than 17. He can’t frequent places that serve alcohol, and he has an 8 o’clock nightly curfew. He can’t pursue a favorite activity, skateboarding, because he’s banned from public parks.

There are more places where Anderson can’t live than places that meet 1,000-foot distance requirements intended to separate sex offenders from places children might congregate.

His parents’ home is 800 feet from a public boat ramp, so Les and Amanda Anderson had to use some of their savings to buy their son a fixer-upper across town.

“They make me out to be a monster,” Anderson told the news magazine. “I can’t even look at life regularly.”

Had he known the girl’s true age, he wouldn’t have pursued the flirtation, he told ABC.

“I wouldn’t even have gone to her house, like I literally wouldn’t have gone to her house at all,” he said.

In response to the comments:
1) I did not begin the recording knowing that police were soon to be there, I ALWAYS have the dashcam going for any drive I take, even if it's only 1-2 miles
2) I was arrested. In the video, officers told me to leave then 3 days later tell me they got an arrest warrant for fleeing and disobeying an officer's signal.
3) This is not the first encounter with this cop, or his department.
In 2013 this cop pulled me over and told me the reason for the stop was he thought, with no basis what-so-ever, that I didn't have a license despite me having one. In fact, I have been pulled over 3 times by officers of this department using that same excuse.
I've been stopped numerous times by this department claiming everything from no registration to no license, traveling too slow, need electro-mechanical turn signals on a pedal bicycle, and many more.

As some of you may have heard, I was arrested on July 22nd for interfering with an officer, assault, and fleeing. On Sunday night, July 19th, I had parked outside my town's public library to upload a homework assignment for my summer class over the free wi-fi available there. As I was leaving, I noticed an officer of Clinton Police Department pull in. After confirming with the officer that I was not currently suspected of a crime, I proceeded to attempt to leave, but the officer then came up behind me, and reactivated his emergency lights. I inquired as to whether I was suspected of a crime, and received no response, however I had previously been told that I wasn't. After giving a lengthy time, I proceed on my way and the officer then drove out behind me signalling that he wanted me to stop and I complied. Late Wednesday, July 22nd, I was informed that a warrant had been issued for my arrest and that I should report to the police station. I promptly reported to the police station and brought a GoPro camera with me. I was told in the lobby that I could not bring it inside, and that either police would seize it, or to leave it in the lobby where they won't accept responsibility if it is stolen. I then informed the officer that I would return it to my vehicle at which point I was thrown to the ground and had my head bashed against the wall and floor until I vomited and passed out. I woke up 45 minutes later in the hospital stripped naked and after being released, I was booked into jail on charges of assault of an officer and interfering with an officer.

I will post the video taken inside the police station by the GoPro, assuming that it has not been deleted or destroyed. This is not the first time that the Clinton Police Department has harassed me and my family and I suspect that this incident is in reaction to my recent video about my multirotor project and also in response to litigation I currently have pending against them on unrelated matters.

Three Santa Ana police officers want to quash a surveillance video that shows officers making derogatory comments about a disabled woman and possibly snacking on pot edibles during a recent raid of a medical marijuana dispensary.

A lawsuit, filed last week in Orange County Superior Court by three unidentified police officers and the Santa Ana Police Officers Association, seeks to prevent Santa Ana Police Department internal affairs investigators from using the video as they sort out what happened during the May 26 raid of Sky High Collective.

Lawyers for police and the dispensary said the video – which has been widely seen on television and several online news sites, including ocregister.com – could play a key role in the ongoing investigation into the officers’ actions.

The lawyers disagree about the video’s accuracy and authenticity.

...

Corey W. Glave, a Hermosa Beach attorney representing the Santa Ana Police Officers Association and the three officers, said the video was taken without the officers’ knowledge and was handled by Pappas, among others, prior to being made public.

...

The lawsuit argues that the video doesn’t paint a fair version of events. The suit also claims the video shouldn’t be used as evidence because, among other things, the police didn’t know they were on camera.

Officers came to the house after a call from a family member who thought the police could calm the bi-polar Tanisha down, during an argument.

Police came, responding to the situation as a “disturbing the peace” call. It seemed that everyone agreed Tanisha should undergo an evaluation at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, police sources told us.

But what happened next is described very differently by police and family members.

“As the officers escorted Anderson to the police vehicle, she began actively resisting the officers,” police spokesman Sgt. Ali Pillow claimed to the local Cleveland publication, The Plain Dealer.

Tanisha changed her mind about the evaluation after police slapped cuffs on her. She believed she was within her rights to decide whether she went for a voluntary evaluation. But police, at this point, argued that it was up to them.

“The woman began to kick at officers,” Pillow said. “A short time later the woman stopped struggling and appeared to go limp. Officers found a faint pulse on the victim and immediately called EMS.”

Two male officers escorted Tanesha Anderson, who was prescribed medication for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, to the police cruiser. She sat herself in the backseat but became nervous about the confined space and tried to get out, Anderson said.

As Tanisha called out for her brother and mother, an officer used a “Judo” take down move after having pressed her head down repeatedly in the backseat in what seemed to be a “smothering” manner, Joell Anderson said.

Joell says that after she hit her head on the concrete, and the officer placed his knee on her back, she never opened her eyes or spoke another word.

To add insult to injury, Joell says that his sister’s sundress was lifted above her waist, where it remained as officers refused to administer any aid to the unconscious woman. Joell says that he was forced to go over and use his own jacket to cover her naked lower body, because police would not, even when he asked them to.

Wagoner, OK Police illegally detain and arrest neighbors for filming! Jacklyn McAdoo, James Lee, and Amber Watson was filming their neighbor's car being repossessed. When cops showed up on the scene, they demanded everyone's identification, even the neighbors! Amber Watson, the person recording, eventually gave in to the cops scare-tactics and gave him her name and date of birth. She could not give him her physical ID, as it was not on her at the time. Even after running her for warrants, which came back clean, she was arrested for Obstructing and Investigation. The officer also forced the trio to write 'voluntary' statements or he would take them to jail.

It's time to speak out! Last November I was pulled over an officer Jamiene Wiggans after taking the bus boy home so he didn't have to walk in the bitter cold. I was stopped for "Failure to Use a Turn Signal" although I was not told till the end of the stop.

When I saw the flashing lights I immediately pulled over and turned off the car not sure if anything I had done wrong, put my keys on the dash, rolled down the window and organized my license and insurance to fully cooperate in the stop.

As I'm preparing I hear screaming about a gun and he's got a gun and for me to get my hands on the wheel! The next thing I know officer Wiggans is at my window and shouldering in on her weapon implying she preparing to shoot me.

Confused I remind officer Wiggans this is not Ferguson, a neighboring community I grew up near to and worked in as a youngster. .

Not sure what 's going on I do as I'm told. I'm then given permission to hand over my license and insurance card but I'm told to keep my hands on the wheel and I will be watched and if I move at anytime I will be out of the car in hand cuffs and arrested.

Fearing this woman was looking for an excuse to shoot me I again do as I'm told in spite of the fact that it's bitter cold and I don't have on a winter coat because I have just started a new job.

After what seemed like 10 minutes officer Wiggans returned to the car and told me I had been stopped for failure to use a turn signal. I then told her I thought she was a bully with a badge, a racist and a bigot and I would be filing a complaint that next Monday.

I did file a complaint with the OCC, (Office of Community Complaints), and of course they circled the blue wagons and said her conduct was fine. We only need read the headlines to see the horrors that police feel justified in doing, I guess because they can.

This is why I'm posting to day. The Sandra Bland traffic stop for failure to use a turn signal and subsequent death brought the months of sleepless back. It's time for decent people to speak out and stop this madness!

My lawyer was able to obtain the actual police stop video and she can be heard back in the car laughing about how she's got some "old white guy" and how funny the whole thing is to her.

She also says "I just wanted to see what he's got" and in subsequent viewing of the video which I believe show I used my turn signal, make this as former Attorney General Eric Holder said a routine violation of 4th amendment rights from start to finish.

I have a trial date on August 10th, 2015 and I'm hoping someone will come to their scenes but I'm not hopeful. When my lawyer asked the prosecutor about all the dialogue back at the car she said "he didn't hear it.

Look for updates page about a lawsuit I hope to press for this needless madness. So far the message I get from the legal system is guilty until you can find the money to prove otherwise.

Police ask us to believe the vast majority are fair and decent, but I ask the same. They need to conduct themselves in a way that shows they understand that the majority of people are decent hard working people who want to follow the law and don't need to be treated like criminals even if they are poor or have to work in around tough neighborhoods.

This is the first time in my 54 years having NEVER been in trouble with the law, that it seems to me policing is America has lost its perspective and is dangerously close to loosing it's moral authority!

Lyga is perhaps best known for his 1997 fatal shooting of fellow LAPD Officer Kevin Gaines.

While working undercover, Lyga got into in a heated traffic dispute with Gaines. Neither man realized the other was also a police officer. During the altercation, Lyga put his gun on his lap for protection when Gaines allegedly pulled beside him, yelled, “I’ll cap you, ************!” and pointed a gun at him. Lyga shot Gaines twice, he acknowledges in the complaint.

Investigation showed that Gaines was working for Death Row Records producer Suge Knight and was romantically involved with Knight’s estranged wife, Sharitha Knight, according to the complaint.

Lyga says that investigation also revealed that two of Gaines’s associates were involved in criminal activities, and led to the Rampart Scandal, involving corrupt officers in the LAPD’s Rampart Anti-Gang CRASH unit.

Gaines’ death also sparked controversy because Gaines was black and Lyga is white.

...

About 16 sixteen years later, in November 2013, Lyga says, he was giving a training seminar on search warrants when students asked him how the Gaines shooting had affected his career.

Among other things, Lyga told the students about a confrontation he had during a deposition with Carl Douglas, the attorney for Gaines’s family. He claims in the lawsuit that Douglas tried to paint him as a racist and asked if he had any regrets about the incident.

“I says, ‘No. I regret he was alone in the truck at the time,'” Lyga says in the complaint, apparently quoting from the leaked video. “I could have killed a whole truck load of them. And would have been happily doing it,” Lyga told the students.

He also called Douglas an “ewok” and made sexist comments about a female LAPD officer, according to the L.A. Times.

Lyga says he did not know the conversation was being recorded by police Officer Bruce Stallworth, who was friends with Kevin Gaines.

...

He said he hoped he could continue to serve the LAPD, but the panel found in October that he should be fired for his remarks. Instead, Lyga says, he chose to retire early so he could collect pension benefits.

Lyga claims he has suffered “physical illness and physical injuries” and mental distress from the humiliation of being fired and “from the defamation and the attacks on his character.”

He claims the LAPD had no evidence that he is racist, but fast-tracked his termination because he is white and because his statements made the LAPD look like a racist institution.

Lyga claims he was fired because of political pressure from the African-American community “based on their unfounded allegations that Lyga was a racist cop killer.”

He claims he would not have been fired if he were black, and that black officer would not be fired for making the same statements he did.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Attorney’s Office could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Lyga seeks $300,000 in compensatory and statutory damages, special damages, back pay, front pay and reinstatement.

An NYPD officer was arrested on harassment and assault charges Sunday in Queens, according to the department.

Rasaun Gourdet, 35, was arrested after an altercation with a family member, police said.

A federal appeals court said the Evansville Police Department “committed too many mistakes” to be shielded from liability in a woman’s lawsuit over a 2012 SWAT raid on her home.

The ruling, released Friday, compared Evansville police to the comical Keystone Kops of silent film and suggested that broadcast video of the failed SWAT raid on the wrong house may have hurt race relations in the city.

The panel of three appeals court judges upheld a ruling by United States District Court Judge William Lawrence that said Louise Milan’s claim that police used excessive force can receive a jury trial.

Federal agents arrested a Cleveland-area police officer last week on charges of selling guns to known felons and shooting a hole in their wall while in uniform.

According to the criminal complaint filed in an Ohio federal court last week, two felons who cooperated with local and federal law enforcement said they bought guns from Kevin Ryan Lumpkin, 29, who was a police officer in North Randall at the time. The felons were not identified by name in court documents.

Investigators say Lumpkin installed a security camera at the felons’ home in 2012 after one of them was shot when robbers broke into their house. At that time, Lumpkin also supplied them with a catalog of firearms to browse.

With Lumpkin’s help, the pair collected handguns, rifles, a short-barreled shotgun, and a bulletproof vest, the complaint says.

However, in that same year a dispute with the felons led to Lumpkin, while in uniform, firing a round from his service weapon inside the home, the complaint says. The round struck a wall in the basement and was never repaired.

In 2013, Cleveland police responded to a domestic violence dispute in which they searched the home and recovered several firearms and boxes to firearms. Authorities traced serial numbers on the guns and learned that Lumpkin was the original buyer.

A year later police in the neighboring town of Solon recovered a handgun with a serial number matching one of the boxes found at the home. Officers took the gun off of a suspect who had an outstanding warrant.

Lumpkin told investigators that he had known the two felons since 2006 and would play video games in their basement, but had not talked to them in three years. He also admitted to buying firearms that were recovered at their home but believed the guns had been stolen from him even though he never reported them stolen or missing.

When investigators showed him a picture of the wall with a bullet hole in it, he said he recognized the location, but when asked how the bullet hole got there, he replied, “Why would I say that?”

When they asked Lumpkin to be honest about the circumstances surrounding the bullet hole, he said, “What does being honest get me?”