FERGUSON, Missouri (CNN) The Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown didn't stop him because he was suspected in a convenience-store robbery, but because he was "walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic," the city's police chief said Friday.

"On 5-18-14 I received a call from my 22 year old autistic son. So I immediately got in my truck and went to where my son was being ticketed. As I drove up on the right hand side of the road adjacent to my son's car, I did not leave my vehicle, I kept it running. The officer turned around and asked "can I help you?" I said "I'm his father." The officer yelled at me to leave the premises. I stated "I'm his father, and just wanted to tell you he's autistic." He turned around and said, "Leave or you'll be arrested!" He started walking towards me and said "you're under arrest." I said, "for what?", I kept saying over and over all I wanted to do was tell you he's autistic. He just replied, "you're under arrest." But I was sure I hadn't broken any laws. This was when I said, "no I'm not under arrest, I haven't done anything." I was still sitting in my truck with the door closed when another officer drove up. The other officer opened my passenger door and proceeded to climb in and push me out. As I came out, I was standing in front of the officer, and he grabbed me and tried to throw me on the ground. When I didn't fall down he tased me (and I have heart trouble). I went down on my knees, then both officers jumped on me and slammed me into the pavement. They handcuffed me laying on the ground and put the taser to my lower spine and tased me four more times. I was put in the police car and taken to jail, where I posted bond." - Florida Cop Watch FB page

According to reports, police were alerted to the area after an unidentified male suspect hit his sister with a boat paddle following a lengthy dispute.

Upon arriving at the scene, police say the man refused to speak, causing a SWAT team to be deployed outside the home.

With tensions considerably hightened, SWAT officers spent several hours demanding the man surrender.

SWAT officers responded to the man’s silence with a raid on the residence, resulting in his arrest.

Reportedly, the suspect was eventually taken to the King County Jail for questioning.

After news of the incident became public, several critics of the increased militarization of law enforcement took to social media to voice their concern.

A mortified Queens couple says NYPD cops ransacked their home — and left the wife’s sex toys dumped in their 5-year-old daughter’s bedroom — during a 2012 investigation.

...

In allegedly wreaking havoc on the Hollis home, the officers also crushed electronic tablets, stepped on toy train sets, poured out cereal, broke a “muffin maker,” dumped cinnamon spice on the kitchen counter, pulverized a night-light and left out frozen steaks and fish to rot, the suit says.

The cops allegedly swiped $680 in cash — all while snipping cable wires and stomping an Xbox.

The damage occurred after James, a barber, shot their 14-year-old son that May while moving three unregistered firearms from a closet to a garage, according to the suit.

The distraught dad was ready to talk to investigators — but his wife, who was with their wounded son at Long Island Jewish Hospital, told him by phone not to say anything, the suit states.
Annoyed officers informed the husband that he had chosen poorly, the court papers say.
“So you’re lawyered up?” they asked him, according to the suit. “All bets are off. We’re tossing your house and arresting your wife.”

James Goldring was eventually charged with endangering the welfare of a child and served 30 days of community service, according to court papers. Gina Goldring pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

The couple said in their suit that the cops’ harassment of them didn’t even stop after the ransacking of their home.

They busted James’ barber-shop customers for loitering and cited him for not sweeping up hair and having uncovered garbage cans, the suit states. With customers scared off, Goldring said he was forced to close in June.

Goldring declined to comment on Friday. His lawyer, Alan Levine, didn’t return a phone call. They are seeking unspecified damages. The city Law Department said it hadn’t been served with the papers.

A North Port Police K-9 officer who kissed a 16-year-old girl faces unpaid suspension and probation for the act but will not be criminally charged, Police Chief Kevin Vespia said.

In April, the teenager and her father reported to the North Port Police Department that she was kissed by Officer Shawn Rice against her will. According to the department's investigation reports, the teenager alleged Rice kissed her on the lips four separate times in January.

Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

The two medical experts conducted the four-hour examination Sunday at the Austin A. Layne Mortuary in St. Louis. Benjamin L. Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Brown’s family who paid their travel expenses, hired them.

“The sheer number of bullets and the way they were scattered all over his body showed this police officer had a brazen disregard for the very people he was supposed to protect in that community,” Mr. Crump said. “We want to make sure people understand what this case is about: This case is about a police officer executing a young unarmed man in broad daylight.”

...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Michael Bell shake hands after the former passed a bill into law mandating that investigations of police officers be turned over to an outside party.

...

It took six years to get our wrongful death lawsuit settled, and my family received $1.75 million. But I wasn’t satisfied by a long shot. I used my entire portion of that money and much more of my own to continue a campaign for more police accountability. I wanted to change things for everyone else, so no one else would ever have to go through what I did. We did our research: In 129 years since police and fire commissions were created in the state of Wisconsin, we could not find a single ruling by a police department, an inquest or a police commission that a shooting was unjustified. There was one shooting we found, in 2005, that was ruled justified by the department and an inquest, but additional evidence provided by citizens caused the DA to charge the officer. The city of Milwaukee settled with a confidentiality agreement and the facts of that sealed. The officer involved committed suicide.

...

I’m not anti-cop. And I am finding that many police want change as well: The good officers in the state of Wisconsin supported our bill from the inside, and it was endorsed by five police unions. But I also think the days of Andy Griffith and the Mayberry peacekeeper are over. As we can see in the streets of Ferguson, today’s police are also much more heavily equipped, armed and armored—more militarized. They are moving to more paramilitary-type operations as well, and all those shifts call for more transparency and more rules of restraint. And yet they are even less accountable in some ways than the U.S. military in which I served. Our citizens need protection from undue force, here in our own country, and now.

NEW ORLEANS, LA (WVUE) -
An officer who was involved in a Monday shooting that left a man hospitalized turned off her body camera just before the incident.

New Orleans police said Officer Lisa Lewis got into a fight with a man during a traffic stop on Mimosa Court in Algiers. During the altercation, she shot 26-year-old Armand Bennet in the forehead.

Bennet's attorney, Nandi Campbell, said her client never resisted, and she claims the officer fired a second shot at her client as he ran away.

The officer's attorney countered that Lewis had turned her body camera off because her shift was about to end and she was on her way back to the Fourth District station when she initiated the traffic stop that led to the shooting.

"What good is the camera if officers are able to take them off and just put them on the side?" Campbell asked. "There's supposed to be some sort of checks and balances, so if we have an officer who has no problems shooting at a man two times. Why should I be surprised that she took the camera off? I'm not surprised at all."

It's unclear yet if there's any other video from the scene.

Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Holbrook is filming this. The Park Police Officer interaction. At the end of this video he tells me he does not want to be videotaped (which I am allowed to film per SCOTUS), he lurches towards me, grabs me, wrenches my wrist and the phone out of it, takes my phone, and violently cuffs

The incident and citation were reviewed by Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto, who determined the officer “erred and misapplied the ordinance.” Chief Ohotto dismissed the citation and directly contacted Holbrook to apologize on behalf of the Minneapolis Park Police Department.

“The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and the Park Police Department understands and upholds First Amendment and freedom of speech in the parks,” Park Board spokeswoman Dawn Sommers said in a statement.

“This is exactly why I'm running for governor as a Libertarian,” Holbrook said in a statement. “Police shouldn't be harassing citizens while they're engaged in protected political activity.”

Police chiefs have been forced to confirm for the first time the identities of two undercover police officers who fathered children with campaigners from groups they had been sent to infiltrate.

A high court judge had ordered the Metropolitan police to make the disclosures after the force lost a legal battle. The Met had fought to keep secret the identities of the two undercover officers, Bob Lambert and Jim Boyling, since a group of women launched a lawsuit three years ago.

The women are suing the Met saying they have suffered intense emotional trauma and pain after learning they had been deceived into forming long-term relationships with undercover police officers.

Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer representing the women, said the disclosures were a "partial victory" for the women: "The police have been pulled, kicking and screaming, to this first extremely significant development in the litigation brought by the women in their long battle for justice and accountability."

Lambert had sexual relationships with four women while he infiltrated animal rights and environmental groups between 1984 and 1988. He fathered a son with one campaigner but abandoned both of them when the child was an infant.

He had a 18-month relationship with another woman, Belinda Harvey, while pretending to be a left-wing campaigner called Bob Robinson.

Boyling had sexual relationships with at least three women while posing as an environmental activist, under the false name of Jim Sutton, between 1995 and 2000. He later married one of them and had two children with her before they divorced in 2008.

Both were members of Scotland Yard's controversial undercover unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, that infiltrated hundreds of political groups between 1968 and 2008. Last month, the Met was criticised after it was revealed that the unit had collected information on 18 grieving families who were campaigning against police.

The women's lawsuit continues as the Met is rejecting their claims that the force was legally responsible for the trauma experienced by them.

I have to disagree about body cameras. Just hear me out. Imagine the police have to come to your house for something like a domestic, or a noise complaint. You allow them inside to cooperate with the investigation. The officer turns on his body camera. Now everything inside your home is being recorded. Your wife, kids, dog. That big TV. Family photos. that huge mess you haven't cleaned up in your kitchen. The bedroom and potentially embarrassing and private things. That medication you left on your counter. Everything that is in view of the camera. As cop I hate going inside of peoples homes. Its uncomfortable. I try to avoid it unless its necessary or required. Your home is your castle. I don't want to infringe on that comfort. But sometimes I have to. Now back to the camera. Everything I recorded at your house could potentially become public record depending on the outcome of that call and the subsequent case that follows. Do you really want all of that released to the public? Who decides what gets edited and what doesn't? How long is the data kept for? Where and when is data stored and downloaded? There are too many questions. People have a the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Especially inside of their homes. People are concerned with this becoming a police state but in the same breath want the police recording everything they do. That means I'm recording everything the general public does too and I don't think anyone should be comfortable with that on a scale that large.

You cant ask for less intrusion of your daily lives from the government and simultaneously want more surveillance.

The former chief executive officer of Redflex, a major red light camera (RLC) vendor, has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago.
On Wednesday, in addition to former CEO Karen Finley, government prosecutors also indicted John Bills, former managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation, and Bills’ friend Martin O’Malley, who was hired as a contractor by Redflex.

According to the indictment, O’Malley himself was paid $2 million for his services as a contractor, effectively making him one of the company’s highest paid workers. Much of that money was then funneled to Bills, who used it for personal gain. Via Redflex employees, Bills also acquired a Mercedes and a condominium in Arizona. In December 2013, Ars reported on red light cameras nationwide, and in particular, Redflex's four cameras in the central California town of Modesto.

A May 2014 affidavit written by an FBI special agent suggests that Bills likely used some of this money to purchase and store a boat, buy a car, pay for an addition to his Michigan cabin, pay for his girlfriend’s mortgage, pay his own mortgage, pay his kids’ schools, and hire a divorce attorney over the course of several years.

A 2013 Redflex document states that two employees “paid for vacation-related expenses” for Bills “for at least 17 different trips from 2003 through 2010,” which included “hotels, flights, rental cars, golf games and meals” and a computer, for a total value of around $20,000. Karen Finley was vice president of operations at Redflex from 2001 until late 2005, and then was promoted to CEO from 2006 until February 2013.

The three named defendants face 23 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery, and other charges. They could each be sentenced to decades in prison if convicted: each fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while the other counts have lesser penalties.

...