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When Whitehill resident Andrea accidentally cut her arm on glass, her sister frantically called 911, "I need a paramedic." Columbus Police Officer Jon Thomas responded to the house where he pulled out his gun and shot toward the family's dog (which he claims ran toward him), missed, and hit Andrea's four-year-old daughter Ava in the leg, shattering her bone.

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As The Columbus Dispatch reports, Andrea also revealed that the cop never apologized or asked if Ava was okay and immediately left after shooting her.

A Columbus police officer accidentally wounded a 4-year-old girl in Whitehall on Friday when he fired at a charging dog, police said.

A neighbor and the girl’s uncle identified her as Ava Ellis, who was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where police said she was in stable condition.

The officer was at a house in the 4100 block of Chandler Drive investigating a hit-and-run case about 3:10 p.m., Columbus police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.

As the officer was walking from the home to his patrol car, a woman a few houses away called out to him, saying her sister and the girl’s mother, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself.

The officer was at the doorway when a dog charged at him, Alex-Bouzounis said.

The officer fired once, missing the animal but striking the girl in the right leg. It was unclear whether the girl was hit directly or by a ricochet. The officer has not been identified.
Neighbors say the officer walked back to his patrol car after the shooting.

“He seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered,” said Norman Jones, who called the police after hearing the shot. Columbus and Whitehall police arrived at the scene shortly afterward.

“Mommy, am I gonna die?” four-year-old Ava Ellis asked her mother.

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Queensland Police have been ordered to pay a man $2000 after he was tackled and arrested after riding his pushbike down the steps of a Gold Coast RSL on Anzac Day.

John Beard was arrested after police chased him and tackled him to the ground on April 25 outside of Southport RSL club for not wearing a helmet while riding his bike.

Police had claimed Mr Beard punched a police officer who approached him for not wearing a helmet, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

But CCTV footage showed officers chase Mr Beard and tackle him to the ground outside the RSL.

It was found officers had used excessive force when arrested him.

Charges including assaulting or obstructing a police officer, serious assault of a police officer causing bodily harm and failing to wear a bicycle helmet were dropped in Southport Magistrates Court.

It was also revealed that the officer that arrested him, Senior Constable Nathan Irwin, has been referred for further disciplinary action and is under investigation.

Mr Beard has made an official complaint to the Crime and Corruption Commission, and his lawyer Campbell MacCallum says his client should not have been charged.

"It seems Mr Beard was just having a bit of a joke – he'd had a few drinks on Anzac Day, he rode his bike down the footpath a distance and didn't have his helmet on," he told the Bulletin.

The CCC says it has refereed the matter back to the Queensland Police Service for handling, while Mr Beard was awarded $2000 in court costs.

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Under an aggressive policy meant to combat unlicensed vehicles for-hire, the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) has seized over 21,000 cars since 2012. After a seizure, commission inspectors pressure owners to plead guilty and pay hundreds of dollars in fines to recover their property. The Commission’s citywide dragnet not only cracked down those who compete with established transportation companies, but also ensnared regular New Yorkers, who were simply driving their friends, family, neighbors—and even nuns—around the city.

After the TLC seized their cars without warrants, five owners sued in federal court last year. As they asserted in their complaint, the government cannot “seize property without judicial process and hold the property hostage.”

On September 30, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni agreed and held that the warrantless seizures violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. “‘Probable cause’ is not a talismanic phrase that can be waved like a wand to justify the seizure of any property without a warrant,” she wrote. The decision marks an important victory for due process and property rights.

TLC inspectors “fall somewhere between meter maids and cops,” as the New York Daily News once put it. While barred from carrying guns, the Commission’s 170 inspectors carry badges, are authorized to make arrests, and may carry pepper spray and batons, and wear bulletproof vests while performing their duties. City law allows TLC inspectors to seize cars suspected of being unlicensed vehicles for hire. The Commission does not release cars it seizes until a hearing that is supposed to occur no later than two weeks after the seizure.

However, owners can retrieve their cars beforehand if they either plead guilty and pay a fine (ranging from $600 to $1,150) or post a bond of $2,000, equal to the maximum penalty under the for-hire vehicle law. If an owner opts for the latter, the bond will only be released if he or she prevails at the hearing. One TLC inspector even blasted the Commission’s enforcement division as “more or less just a corrupt money-making scam for the city.” Clearly, there is a strong incentive for the owner to plead guilty, even if he or she has done nothing wrong.

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In December 2013, Michael Harrell, another plaintiff, lent his car to a friend, but inspectors seized it. Since Harrell was unable to attend a hearing (scheduled two days before Christmas), a default judgement was entered in favor of the Commission. But Harrell successfully moved to vacate that decision and received a new hearing in June 2014. At that hearing, an administrative law judge ruled that the TLC “did not have any evidence” for its accusations and dismissed the case. Unfortunately, by that time, the Commission had already sold Harrell’s car and “did not offer any restitution or other financial compensation.”

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It is now abundantly clear that Matthew Ajibade was murdered by police in Savannah, Georgia. For over 10 months, police and prosecutors have concealed the video evidence of his murder not only from the public, but from Ajibade's closest friends and family members. His death in police custody was ruled a homicide by coroners, but the whole of Savannah's government has colluded in covering up the sadistic and brutal murder of a beloved artist and photographer who was a student at Savannah College of Art and Design.
The video below is awful and is confirmation that the United States tortures and kills its prisoners on American soil. Torture is not something that happens far away in Abu Ghraib: It's happening here.

In case you can't stomach the video, here's an explanation of what happens, so that you can understand it and prepare to speak out against it.

On New Year's Day 2015, Matthew Ajibade was arrested after a mental health crisis. Instead of being taken to a hospital, Ajibade, who was otherwise in perfect physical condition, was taken to jail—against his family's wishes. In a video we received last week, police are seen punching and kicking Matthew Ajibade in the face and head before restraining him.

Now, after Ajibade was stripped of his clothes and handcuffed to a restraining chair, we see the worst. The police Taser has a camera attached to it that is automatically triggered when the device is turned on.

Strapped to the chair after already being beaten and stunned with a Taser multiple times, we see a red light, the target of the Taser, continually pointed at Matthew's groin. The audio from the Taser camera is distorted, but we see little to no movement from Ajibade.

It gets much worse.

Soon, we see that the Taser is moving closer to his genitals. As the camera gets closer to his genitals, it is deployed. You hear the awful shock of the Taser, followed by the unforgettable screams of Matthew Ajibade. The video then ends—perhaps as the Taser is turned off, but we don't know.

What we do know is that Matthew Ajibade died in his cell, strapped to this restraining chair, soon after being Tasered here. The timestamp on the video states that it is 4:45 AM on the morning of January 2.

Police claimed they found Ajibade "unresponsive" in his jail cell at 1:38 AM.

Either way, the video below shows a restrained man being tortured to death in our jails.

Nobody was charged with Matthew Ajibade's murder—and we now see that officials concealed this video because they knew we'd call for such charges if we ever saw it.

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Father of three, Corey Dickerson was out for a jog Saturday night when Talladega’s finest decided they needed to harass him. Dickerson is not your average pushover, however, and he knew exactly how to handle himself.

As the video begins, Dickerson was resting from a hard sprint when officer Price of the Talladega police department decided to detain him.

Officer Price begins his ‘fishing’ expedition by firing off random questions at Dickerson, in a likely attempt to get him to self-incriminate. But Dickerson is no fool.

When Dickerson legally refuses to answer questions, officer Price starts in with the usually, “Well, we’ve had a lot of burglaries and thefts, and we don’t know who you are.” In other words, “a black man jogging at night is suspicious, so give me your id.”

The police “not knowing” who Dickerson is, does not create the reasonable articulable suspicion necessary for a lawful detainment. At this point, officer Price’s detainment of Dickerson becomes unlawful.

Despite the fact that Alabama is a “Stop and Identify” state, police cannot detain Dickerson and demand his name, according to Ala. Code §15-5-30, unless the officer:

reasonably suspects (he) is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or other public offense and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his actions.

Simply claiming that there have been burglaries in the area does not constitute reasonable suspicion — and Dickerson knew this.

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Danan Gabaldon did not like the thought of jail, so he became particularly well-skilled at evading the police. On Memorial Day of this year, police attempted to apprehend Gabaldon, but he was able to flee, in what police say was a stolen SUV.

For ten days, Gabaldon successfully evaded the authorities until they tracked him to an intersection in southwest Albuquerque. Upon, immobilizing Gabaldon’s vehicle, police immediately tried to kill him as they fired multiple shots at the unarmed suspect.

However, being the escape artist that he is, Gabaldon managed to run from the scene without being hurt — but not for long. Two disturbing videos were released this week showing what happened next.

As Gabaldon ran, an APD detective hopped into his unmarked pickup truck, closed the distance to Gabaldon in six seconds, cranked the wheel to the right, drove up onto the curb – and plowed into Gabaldon.

The detective’s body camera and a citizen’s cellphone captured the attempted murder from two different angles. As if running a man down with a truck wasn’t enough, the detective gets out of the vehicle, gets on top of Gabaldon and begins to taser the back of his head. As he tasers the bloody and incapacitated Gabaldon, the detective begins pummelling his face and head with the butt of the weapon.

The officer is so deep into his feeding frenzy that he had no idea he was also tasering a fellow cop.

It took four months for the APD to release the videos below, and when you hear their justification for the detectives actions, you’ll know why.

According to KMOV:

APD’s spokeswoman said it was an accident, that detective was not trying to run Gabaldon down, but to cut him off. Gabaldon was resisting and that the department’s use-of-force policy speaks for itself.

That policy says, “Officers shall use only that force which is reasonably necessary,” and says officers shouldn’t expect suspects to comply without being tased.

Gabaldon is now in jail, charged with crimes from the Memorial Day incident, but not the day he was hit.

Whether or not Gabaldon is an upstanding citizen of the town or not, is irrelevant in this situation. He was unarmed and fleeing, not posing a threat to officers when he was run over by a raging cop. Regardless of what some people may say to justify this officer’s actions, the facts remain.

Cops are not the judge, jury, and executioner. Acting as if they are is a telling sign that America has slipped into a police state in which cops can dole out “street justice” with impunity. This precedent must be resisted and exposed.

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The Justice Department and U.S. Attorney Stephanie A. Finley announced today that the former Mamou Police Chief Gregory W. Dupuis was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, and former Mamou Police Officer and Chief Robert McGee pleaded guilty to one count of the deprivation of rights under color of law, both for their roles in a series of incidents in which they deployed TASERs on non-resistant inmates at the Mamou Jail.

Dupuis’ sentencing and McGee’s plea are the result of a federal investigation into the illegal use of excessive force upon inmates at the jail.

Dupuis, 57, of Mamou, pleaded guilty to one count of violation of an individual’s civil rights on April 13 and was sentenced today by U.S. District Court.

According to evidence presented at Dupuis’s plea hearing, Dupuis served as police chief from 1994 to 1997 and from 2004 to 2014. During his tenure as chief, officers, including McGee, repeatedly administered taser shocks as a form of punishment on inmates who were being disruptive, even if the inmates’ disruption was purely verbal, and on inmates who were calm and compliant when the officer deployed the taser. On Apr. 25, 2010, Dupuis went to the department’s jail to deal with a verbally disruptive detainee.

Dupuis ordered the detainee to get down from his bunk and put his hands on the far wall. The detainee complied.

Dupuis then entered the cell and deployed the taser on the detainee’s back, causing the detainee to fall to the ground, suffer pain and injure his knee. At his plea hearing, Dupuis admitted that he knew at the time that his actions were unlawful.

McGee, 44, of Mamou, pleaded guilty today to one count of violation of an individual’s civil rights committed as an officer in 2010, prior to his 2014 election as chief of the Mamou Police Department. According to McGee’s guilty plea, McGee was called to the Mamou Police Department on multiple occasions in 2010 and 2011 to deal with disruptive inmates.

On Aug. 6, 2010, McGee and an inmate were engaged in a conversation. Although the inmate posed no threat to himself or the officers, McGee fired the taser at the inmate, causing the inmate to fall and experience pain.

McGee, who was elected Mamou police chief after this incident, resigned his position as chief on Oct. 8, as a result of the federal investigation.

McGee faces up to 10 years in prison, three years supervised release and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing date was not set.

“The defendants abused the trust given to them as law enforcement officers when they engaged in a pattern of repeatedly tasing compliant detainees,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department will vigorously prosecute those who violate the civil rights laws to ensure that the rights of all individuals, including those in custody, are protected.”

“Law enforcement officers have a duty to ensure that detainees are treated fairly and humanely when taken into custody,” Finley said in a press release Tuesday. “Mr. Dupuis and Mr. McGee breached that trust and violated their oaths by using excessive force on incarcerated

The FBI and the Louisiana State Police conducted the investigation. Trial Attorneys Stephen Curran and Sanjay Patel of the Civil Rights Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Myers P. Namie and Robert Abendroth of the Western District of Louisiana are prosecuting the case.

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A Baltimore police sergeant has been suspended after a video surfaced on social media that appeared to show him spitting on a handcuffed subject.

Sgt. Robert Mesner, who has been with the department for 34 years, is the subject of a criminal investigation and an internal investigation, police said Tuesday.

"The video appears to depict the police sergeant spitting on the arrestee," interim police Commissioner Kevin Davis said in a statement. "That is outrageously unacceptable and it directly contradicts the necessary community relationships we are striving to rehabilitate."

The video, shot at night, shows a man who appears to be under arrest, handcuffed and prone on the ground. A man in a police uniform standing over him leans down and appears to spit on the man.

Bystanders in the video are heard shouting that the officer spit on the man.

The incident occurred on Old York Road on Monday night, police said.

The man in handcuffs was identified by police as Alfred Evan.

Evan, a 31-year-old Parkville man, was charged with second-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, second-degree assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, according to online court records. He was held in lieu of $25,000 bail. He could not be reached for comment, and no lawyer was listed for him in court records.

Activist Kwame Rose received videos of the incident and posted them on Twitter to his more than 7,000 followers.

Rose, whose legal name is Darius Kwame Rosebrough, said the video showed the officer "doing everything Kevin Davis said police shouldn't do."

Rose said the incident is another example of why there is a need for stronger police accountability.

"The officer needs to be fired," he said.

Davis said the department is asking for witnesses to come forward. He said police are searching for additional videos of the incident.

Last week, Davis answered questions about a video that showed a man punch a police trainee on Broadway.

"More and more police encounters are going to be captured on videotape," he said. "The Police Department welcomes that."

The department is scheduled to launch a body camera pilot program this month in the Central, Western and Eastern districts, with the technology expected to be in use citywide by early next year.

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After years of watching a Fairfax County parking enforcement officer slap tickets on his customers’ cars for expired tags or inspection stickers, usually as the cars were awaiting state inspection or repair at his Chantilly shop, he snatched the latest ticket out of Officer Jacquelyn D. Hogue’s hand and added some profane commentary on top.

Hogue responded by having Redwine arrested for felony assault on a police officer, though she is not a police officer. And when the case first went to court, a Fairfax judge sentenced Redwine to four days in jail.

Redwine appealed, got a jury trial last month and was acquitted within minutes. But the bitterness he feels at having to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees, plus being booked, fingerprinted and photographed at the county jail, with no prior record, is shared by numerous fellow auto repair operators at the Mariah Business Center on Sullyfield Circle off Route 28.

They don’t understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue’s appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers’ cars inside the shops, the shop owners said.

“They’re harassing the small businesses trying to make it in this tough economy,” said Ray Barrera of A&H Equipment Repair. He estimated that his customers’ vehicles had been hit with $60,000 worth of fines and fees over the past six years.

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A Round Rock police officer's actions are igniting a firestorm on social media after he was caught on camera putting his hands around a student's throat.

Gyasi Hughes is suspended from Round Rock High School today due to a fight between him and another student over a pair of prescription sports goggles. But it's what happened afterwards that has him speaking out.

Two Round Rock School Resource Officers were called by an administrator to help break up the fight between the two students. In cell phone video, shot by another student, the officers are seen trying to calm Hughes down. But when the 14 year old puts his hand on the officer, the cop grabs him by the throat and takes him to the ground.

"I was mad because he kept pushing me and touching me and I wasn't physically doing anything to him either. That's when I said 'can you leave me alone' and that's when he took me down," said Gyasi Hughes.

Hughes' friend, Sebastian Vazquez was eating lunch when he heard the commotion.

"In the beginning, I heard people be like ooh and stuff, and it was Gyasi and this other kid, they were pushing each other around," he said. But Vazquez says it was never a full-blown fight, and things got more tense when two school resource officers showed up. "Both cops got him in the corner, so I pulled my phone out to start recording because that seemed odd," said Vazquez.

Yet another friend shared Vazquez's video with KEYE TV. "The officer that handled this problem exaggerated way too much," said Ryan Tomlinson. "Somebody needs to know about this. We have to let the news know about this so I uploaded the video to news with their permission," said Tomlinson.

In a statement from the Round Rock Police Department a spokesperson said, "After repeated attempts to calm the non-compliant student, and stop him from going after the other student, officers were forced to detain him for his safety and the safety of others." Adding, "This incident is currently under review by the police department staff."

A Round Rock ISD spokesperson said the school is working with the police department to make sure proper procedures were followed.

Hughes' dad wants the officer reprimanded. "In terms of the officer it was definitely excessive force that was being used. There's many ways to handle situations and the way he handled the situation was unacceptable," said Kashka Hughes.

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A ... woman who was punched and tackled to the ground by two white Jacksonville policemen for filming the arrest of her husband claims the cops stole her phone with a recording on the incident, reports NewsJax4.

According to Kelli Wilson, she went down to a local convenience store to record the arrest of her husband and retrieve their car when she was assaulted by the two cops who demanded her name and told her to put her phone away and stop recording.

“I was beaten, and then falsely arrested, my phone was stolen, my car was taken. It was a traumatic experience. It was definitely an experience you never think you would be going through,” said Wilson.

Although police confiscated her phone, video of her arrest was captured by surveillance cameras that showed the unarmed woman talking to the police before they charged, attempting to grab her phone with one officer seen punching her while the other one held her arms.

According to Wilson, one of the policemen demanded she stop filming and she asked him “why?”

“He asked for it, he demanded it again, and I gave him the same, ‘Why do you want my phone? What do you need my phone for?’ He told me he would punch me in my face,”Wilson explained. “I eventually got punched and beaten and the sergeant that was on the scene joined in the beating.”

According to the police report, officers at the scene said Wilson repeatedly refused to identify herself and she was arrested for interfering with the arrest, although in the video she can be seen backing away from the officers. The officers admitted that they kneed and punched her as they made the arrest. The report also states the arresting officers believed she was reaching for a weapon after they had her face down on the ground. No weapon was discovered.

According to Wilson, the police confiscated and still have her phone that contains the video that she feels will exonerate her.

Her lawyers believe that the surveillance video should be enough to prove that she did nothing wrong.

“She was lucky for that video, because without it, I don’t think a judge or jury would believe her against three police officers,” said her attorney, Dexter Van Davis.

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Sparks, Nev. police answering a call about a suicidal woman shot the woman's daughter by mistake, then killed the mother, and the daughter wants them to pay for it.

Darcie Latham sued Sparks, its Police Department and three officers in Federal Court Wednesday, accusing them of shooting her in the upper leg, then killing her suicidal mother, whom police thought had a gun.

Latham, 27, says she and her sister were checking on their mother, Monica Ritchey, at her home in Sparks after 2 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2013, when their mother held a gun to her own head and threatened to shoot herself if her daughters got any closer.

Latham called 911 and says defendant Officers Chad Mowbray, Ryan Simpson and Sgt. Michael Keating responded, incorrectly identified her as her mother and shot her.

Latham says she told the police dispatcher she was with her sister outside and that her mother was armed, threatened to kill herself, fired rounds into the air, was depressed and on pain medication, and threatened to shoot herself if police showed up.

The dispatcher told Sparks police that Latham and her sister were outside their mother's home, and Mowbray deployed an AR-15 rifle when he arrived and stayed at his car, Latham says in the complaint.

Latham says she was backing up while holding a phone to her ear with one hand and held the other over her head when Mowbray shot her.

She says that either Simpson or Keating said over the radio that Ritchey had pointed a gun at them and told Mowbray to "take the shot," which he did after confirming the order. He shot Latham - not her mother.

Latham was maimed and suffers from permanent neurological injuries.

Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick investigated and in August 2014 said the officers were justified in shooting and killing Ritchey and wounding Latham, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Gammick said in his report that Mowbray had "reasonable belief" that his fellow officers were in "imminent danger of being shot" by Latham, the newspaper reported.

After Mowbray shot Latham in the leg, other officers thought Ritchey had fired the shot, and Keating shot and killed her, according to the Gazette-Journal.

Latham seeks punitive damages for civil rights violations and negligence.

She is represented by Richard Salvatore with the Hardy Law Group, who was not immediately available for comment. The Sparks Police Department does not comment on pending lawsuits.

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A 53-year-old man who was bitten by an aggressive dog outside a a QuikTrip in Phoenix Thursday morning was then shot by the officer who had responded to the scene, CBS affiliate KPHO reports.

At around 4 a.m., bystanders outside the store contacted an officer who happened to be inside to tell him there was an aggressive dog attacking people out front, according to Sgt. Jonathan Howard with the Phoenix Police Department.

The officer went outside to warn others about the dog and to call for animal control. That's when, Howard said, a man exiting the store was bitten by the stray mastiff/pit bull mix.

The station reports that when the officer tried to subdue the canine, it bit him in the arm. The officer then fired at the dog but the man who had just been bitten before him was also hit by one of the officer's rounds.

He had to be transported to a hospital both for treatment of gunshot wounds and dog bite wounds. However, his injuries are not life-threatening.

The officer stayed on scene to help investigators and then was taken to a hospital to be treated for his bite injuries, the station reports.

Maricopa County Animal Care and Control officers took the dog to the West Valley Animal Care Center, where it was euthanized due to its injuries. MCACC spokeswoman Melissa Gable said the dog did not have a microchip. He was wearing a red collar, but there were no tags or other form of identification.

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Criminal charges were filed against an Owasso police officer who’s been on administrative leave while under investigation for excessive force.

Friday, the Nowata County district attorney charged Officer Mike Denton with assault and battery with and deadly weapon and reckless conduct with a firearm.

Denton has been on administrative leave since June when he was caught on dash cam video hitting a suspect following a high-speed chase.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said the dash cam footage and body cam footage played a major role in finishing the investigation.

The high-speed chase from Tulsa through Owasso ended in Nowata as police from a number of departments surrounded a white truck.

Video shows Denton jamming his shotgun through the window, hitting the suspect, Cody Matthews.

From there, officers Tased Matthews, who was holding a knife, then tried to get him out of the truck. Once he's down, the video shows Denton hitting Mathews again.

That’s what led to Nowata County District Attorney, Kevin Buchanan, filing criminal charges against Denton.

Jessica Brown with OSBI said, "We approach it just like any other investigation, and that is to try our best to collect all the facts in the case, and the facts came in the form of interviews with other officers that were at the scene when the arrest was made."

Brown said, through the investigation, the police who were on the scene with Denton were also interviewed. She said information from those interviews and the video was handed over to the DA.

Brown said in situations like this, having the video is a tremendous asset to the investigation.

"Any video of an incident helps dramatically in an investigation because it spells out the facts," she said.

On the charge of assault and battery, documents say, Denton, "without justifiable or excusable cause" held a shotgun in his hands with the intent of causing bodily harm.

On the second charge of reckless conduct, the documents say, while hitting the suspect, Denton also hit a Nowata officer who was standing close by.

As of now, no warrant for Denton's arrest has been issued.

If he is convicted, depending on the charge, he could face a fine or up to life in prison.

In a statement, the Owasso Police Department said Denton was placed on administrative leave with the excessive force allegations came to light. They said he remains on leave pending the completion of the internal investigation.

They said the charges filed against Denton in Nowata County are being taken seriously and will be considered as part of the ongoing administrative process.

Denton's actions prompted the new investigation just months after he's back on the force after another excessive force complaint.

The old video shows Denton elbowing a handcuffed suspect in 2011.

Denton lost his job but won it back, with back pay, through arbitration and the courts.

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A Virginia sheriff was publicly slammed by his colleagues this week for saying “------” several times during an interrogation. Responding to a video that mysteriously surfaced on Tuesday, the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association and the Fraternal Order of Police have denounced Dinwiddie County Sheriff D.T. “Duck” Adams, who says he used the term as a bonding technique.

In the video, Adams questions white murder suspect Michael Edward Elmore, who says he does not want to provide details because he’ll get in trouble with “these niggers.” In response, Adams says, “No it’s not. We’re gonna protect you, man. We’re gonna protect you. These niggers are not going to get to you. … You’re not gonna be in no hot water with those niggers. Tell me what happened, man.”

Adams told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which first broke the story, that he used the slur as a way to establish a partnership with the suspect. “I repeated what he said because any police officer knows that when you’re in an interrogation, you have to use their words in order to get on their level to get a confession,” he said.

But Adams’ peers have said that the sheriff was out of order for his remarks.

“Although you are trying as an interrogator to communicate with the same manner and on the same level as the suspect, you still have to hold yourself to a higher standard,” Virginia Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Carroll told the Times-Dispatch. “There is a difference between a curse word and a racial slur.”

Executive Director of the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association John W. Jones shared a similar sentiment. “The Virginia Sheriffs’ Association is disappointed that one of its own members has chosen to display unprofessionalism during an interrogation,” he said.
Adam is currently campaigning for his re-election, and believes the Republican Party released the video because he is a Democrat. The video was released just a few weeks before Election Day, but the interrogation happened two years ago.
Watch it here:

“I was able to get a confession, and the man is in the penitentiary now as a result of it. What more can I say about it? I just can’t believe they would resort to this,” Adams said, defending his actions.

Responding to the sheriff’s accusations, Dinwiddie Republican Committee Chairman Dean McCray countered, “There is no truth to that. The Republican Committee did not circulate that. We think he’s going to lose anyway.”

Reid’s attempt to appear friendly and establish a bond with the suspect is a common law enforcement tactic. Known as the Reid technique, cops will try to use psychology — rather than aggression — to illicit a confession. Officers capitalize on suspects’ anxiety and use it to manipulate the course of the conversation, rather than using physical force. In this case, Elmore did confess and was convicted for murder. But studies show that using psychological warfare in the interrogation room often leads to false confessions.

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Surveillance Camera Registration And Mapping, or SCRAM as it’s called, is a program where police have residents ‘voluntarily’ register their home surveillance systems with the local police. The way the program is supposed to work, is when a crime is committed near your home, police can ‘request’ all the footage that your system recorded. Of course, if you don’t voluntarily give up the footage, police will either take it by force, or get a warrant to secure the footage.

Medford PD's SCRAM Program

I know what you’re thinking: Why on Earth would you tell the police you have a CCTV security system? It’s a very logical argument. I, for one, wouldn’t want the police to have access to any audio/video that I have. But for some areas of the Country, residents are required by law to register those devices with the local police departments.

Take New Jersey, for example. Assemblyman Ralph Caputo crafted bill A-3843 permitting a municipality to enact an ordinance establishing a private outdoor video surveillance camera registry, requiring owners of such cameras to register them with police. People who don’t do it would be subject to $100 fines. That bill is currently making it’s way through the state legislature (it currently has been amended to make the registration process voluntary, though if the registration will be voluntary, why is there a need to pass this bill?)

Registration data must include the owner’s name, address, telephone number, listing of all cameras used there, description of areas viewed by the cameras, and details about how and how long images are saved. New Jersey isn’t alone in their registry. The cities Fremont, San Mateo and Sacramento, California, all have ‘voluntary’ registries as well. Additionally, St. Petersburg, Florida, began their ‘voluntary’ registration last year.

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The Fairfax Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 77 called for the boycott of Cox Farms because they mistakenly believed the family business had posted the sign. The sign was in fact posted in the window of a home near the property which is the residence of one of the business owners’ family members.

The Fairfax FOP called the sign “disturbing and disappointing” in a Facebook post, which they later deleted due to outcry.

“This is a time in which law enforcement is the target for criticism for almost everything they do and officers are constantly questioned by the public and the media without the benefit of all the facts,” the post read. “The presence of this sign at Cox’s Farms helps perpetuate this kind of behavior and judgment. I know you have heard it about a million times but the truth is that ‘All Lives Matter.'”

The post said Cox Farms is a local family attraction for things like picking out pumpkins and taking tractor rides. The FOP urged the boycott of the farm, saying the sign was inflammatory and targeted police with “baseless criticism.”

Gina Cox, who owns Cox Farms, said her daughter has the right to post any sign she wants in her home.

“It’s her private property and she can put up any political sign she wants to in her yard,” she told WUSA. “We treasure our relationship with our local police force, it’s not anything against them at all.”

The FOP was accused of bullying the business by anti-police brutality activists.

“The Facebook post they made, which was removed because of the unprecedented public outrage towards their attempt to bully a local landmark and beloved destination, further reinforces the lack of trust in the Fairfax County Police Department,” Mike Curtis, with the organization CopBlock, told the station.

Brad Carruthers, FOP president, said he took the post down because it was the “wiser course of action.”

“The phrase ‘black lives matter,’ which was initially associated with the positive intentions of creating better connections within communities and encouraging education and dialogue on issues of race, has unfortunately also been used more recently to incite violence against law enforcement officers, which is why it has negative connotations for us,” Caruthers wrote. “My hope is that the situation will improve and we will forge better bonds and a better partnership within our communities.”

A Black Lives Matter activist said saying the phrase has been co-opted is just propaganda.

“It’s not an attack on individual officers; it’s a movement to highlight the structural oppression Black people face in this country,” BLM activist Erika Totten said to WUSA. “When Black men, women and children are dying in the street at the hands of a law enforcement officer every 28 hours, when most of the people incarcerated are there for non violent crimes, when a Black boy can be assaulted for using the ATM and for making gentrifies uncomfortable, how can we not begin the conversation on how to eradicate racial bias in our criminal justice system.”

In the end, Caruthers admitted that black lives matter.

“We do believe in Black Lives Matter,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, and I know it’s a cliché of all lives matter, but we want to work with the communities to strengthen community trust.”

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The motto of the Chicago Police Department is to "Protect and Serve." However, the latest allegations involving at least two officers with more more than 20 years experience is that they were doing anything but that.

Instead, they are accused of sex-trafficking a 14-year-old girl and there may have been other victims as well.

On Thursday at the Police Board Meeting, Superintendent Garry McCarthy made no comment about the investigation.

Sources say the officers were first caught with child pornography, but as Internal Affairs investigators looked further into the case, they uncovered additional evidence the officers had been using some online web pages to advertise the girl, or girls, for prostitution.

The alleged pimping activities were being conducted while the officers were off-duty, according to a police source.

At least two officers have since been stripped of their police powers and reassigned administrative duties pending the outcome of the investigation. They have not been charged, so we are not naming them.

Because of the nature of the case, and for integrity reasons, Chicago Police have brought in the FBI to help in the investigation.

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A Missouri cop with an oral fixation for penis was able to convince 60 straight men to come to his home for fellatio after placing an ad on Craig’s List.

Chesterfield police officer David Cerna would pose as a woman online, sending men a photo of a woman, telling them that she wanted to perform oral sex on them.

The men would get aroused and make arrangements to meet the woman at her home, only to show up and learn that the woman was shy and did not want to show her face.

So the men would stick their penis through a hole in a door as Cerna kneeled on the other side, performing oral sex on them. Sixty men in 18 months fell for this ruse.

The Missouri cop would video record the sex acts and post them online on a gay porn site he ran.

And he would also arrest boys and transport them to the police station where he would take them in a backroom and frisk them thoroughly by fondling their genitals, then exposing the genitals so they would be recorded by a secret camera.

And if that did not keep him busy enough, Cerna set up a video camera in the bathroom of a local gas station to provide material for his website.

And that is what led to his arrest after a local television reporter began investigating a secret camera found in the Mobil on the Run. The reporter, Chris Hayes from Fox 2 News, then informed police about the camera, who began investigating, tracking it to their fellow officer.

Cerna, who had been on the force for six years, was arrested and fired. And through the investigation, police found videos of the minors as well as of the men who fell for the fellatio-through-the-door ploy.

And he is now facing a litany of charges, including invasion of privacy charges related to the videos from the Craig’s List hookups to sexual exploitation of a minor stemming from the boys he secretly recording while fondling their genitals.

Cerna, 34, pleaded guilty on Monday to the invasion of privacy charges. He has yet to attend trial for the sexual exploitation charges.

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Palm Beach Gardens, Florida have refused to explain why an officer shot and killed a black man who was reportedly having car trouble over the weekend.

According to WPTV, Palm Beach Gardens Police have only said that one of its officers had shot a man at around 3:15 a.m. on a southbound exit ramp of I-95.

Family members confirmed that the man was 31-year-old Corey Jones, who is known in the community for playing drums in several local bands and churches.

“We don’t know where his body is, we don’t know what’s going on, all we know is someone knocked on the door and said this has happened,” WPEC was told by Ava Wright, a cousin of Jones.

Wright explained that Jones had called an older brother to report car problems while on the way home from a gig on Sunday morning. Jones reportedly said that he would need a ride home after calling a tow truck.

“The family needs some comfort,” Wright insisted. “He never got into any trouble; he was a very good kid.”

Watch the video below from WPTV, broadcast Oct. 19, 2015.

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Raja was on duty in an unmarked police vehicle early Sunday morning when he came across Corey Jones and his disabled car on the Interstate 95 southbound exit ramp at PGA Boulevard.

Raja, who was in plain clothes, believed Jones’ vehicle was abandoned and stopped to investigate it, according to a statement released by police Monday afternoon. As Raja exited his vehicle, “he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject,” the statement says.

“As a result of the confrontation,” Raja fatally shot Jones.

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A detective who installed a hidden camera in the female officers' changing room on his boss's orders is not entitled to immunity on his co-workers' unreasonable search claims, the Seventh Circuit ruled.

William Adkins was a detective at Jessie Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Chicago when he installed a hidden surveillance camera in the ceiling of an office used by female officers as a changing room.

Female officers used the room, which was also in use as a supervisor's office, because the center did not have a designated female locker room for security personnel.

The center discovered the surveillance equipment during a renovation two years later.

Adkins claims he installed the camera on the orders of his supervisor, Chief of the Police and Security Service Myron Thomas, who told him the camera was needed to identify supervisors who were sleeping in the office while on duty.

Adkins contacted two people to inquire about the legality of installing the camera in the office, and both told him it would be illegal. But Thomas told him "not to worry about that."

Images from the camera were sent to Thomas' computer.

Renee Gustafson, a police lieutenant supervisor, sued Thomas, Adkins, and the United States for performing an unconstitutional search, and invading her privacy. The U.S. was dismissed as a defendant when the government accepted her Compensation Act claim.

A federal judge denied Adkins' motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed Friday.

U.S. Circuit Judge Joel Flaum rejected Adkins' claim that "that his actions did not violate a clearly established constitutional right of which a reasonable law enforcement officer in his position would have known."

Adkins' asserted that the Supreme Court's 1987 decision in O'Connor v. Ortega was delivered by a four-judge plurality, and was therefore not a judgment that clearly established the law of the land.

"Both the Supreme Court and this Court have long held that a controlling holding may be gleaned from a plurality opinion," Flaum said, writing for the three-judge panel.

He continued, "More to the point, we have already held that the O'Connor plurality opinion controls because Justice Scalia [in his dissent] did not articulate a different standard than the plurality's reasonableness test."

Thus, he said, the right of employees to be free from unreasonable employer search was clearly established by the time Adkins installed the hidden cameras in 2007.

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Earlier this year, New York State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan ruled that the NYPD couldn’t shield itself from Freedom of Information requests simply because disclosing fleet details could interefere with ongoing investigations. The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefing arguing against the NYPD’s position, but New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton continues to stonewall reporters.

“Those are issues I’d prefer not to divulge to the public at this time,” Bratton said. “I will not talk about anything at all about this — it falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.”

That type of “It’s for your own good,” attitude is precisely the kind of carte blanche that created the modern NSA in the first place. The NYPD is neither a military organization nor a government agency tasked with protecting New Yorkers from far-flung threats across the globe. It’s a local police force that serves the needs of its own citizens, and its policies and practices must be open to civilian review. As the recently-filed amicus brief notes, “How is the NYPD ensuring that innocent New Yorkers are not subject to harmful x-ray radiation? How long is the NYPD keeping the images that it takes and who can look at them? Is the NYPD obtaining judicial authorization prior to taking images, and if so, what type of authorization? Is the technology funded by taxpayer money, and has the use of the vans justified the price tag? The current price tag is between $729,000 and $825,000 per van.

While these vehicles are referred to as X-ray vans, they don’t use conventional X-ray imaging. Instead, they rely on backscatter technology. Conventional X-ray machines detect hard and soft materials based on how much energy makes it through the target, while backscatter X-rays detect how much energy is reflected from the target. These are the machines that raised substantial privacy concerns when they were first deployed. The image below is Susan Hallowell, director of the Transportation Security Administration’s research lab.

The NYPD’s refusal to turn over information related to its use of these technologies runs afoul of multiple Supreme Court rulings and safety regulations. First, the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that using high-tech sensors to search a person’s house or person is illegal unless a warrant is obtained. Second, there’s very real concerns over the safety of backscatter X-ray devices. In her initial decision, Judge Ling-Cohan wrote:

Petitioner states in his affidavit, and respondent does not dispute, that: backscatter technology, previously deployed in European Union airports, was banned in 2011, because of health concerns; an internal presentation from American Science and Engineering, Inc., the company that manufactures the vans, determined that the vans deliver a radiation dose 40 percent larger than delivered by a backscatter airport scanner; bystanders present when the van is in use are exposed to the radiation that the van emits… moreover, petitioner maintains, and it is not disputed by the NYPD, that ‘there may be significant health risks associated with the use of backscatter x-ray devices as these machines use ionizing radiation, a type of radiation long known to mutate DNA and cause cancer.

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But what if months pass between the arrest and the time of indictment?

Lady, people charged with crimes, they are criminals. And they say what meets their purpose. Now they told you they had requested an attorney. They had not requested an attorney in 98 percent of the cases. You never hear of that. I never hear of that.

I don’t know whether they have requested an attorney or not. They would not be entitled to an attorney until indictment, as a policy of this district by myself and the other circuit judge. It would be an additional burden on trial attorneys to go out there and investigate every single case.

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A former Macy's employee racked up six weeks behind bars at Rikers Island for a subway theft he didn’t commit — because he fit the vague description of a black man wearing a hoodie, a bombshell lawsuit charged.

David Owens sued the city and Police Officer Anthony Francavilla on Monday, saying he was unfairly busted on Oct. 23, 2012.

Owens had just clocked out of his stock clerk job at the Herald Square flagship store about 3 a.m. and boarded an uptown No. 1 train at 34th St., according to the federal suit filed in Manhattan.

He had no idea he was walking into a nightmare set in motion an hour earlier when an “erratic, possibly intoxicated and definitely hysterical” white woman told police, according to Francavilla’s affidavit, that her backpack had been stolen at an A/C/E train station.

Owens was still at Macy’s finishing up his shift when the alleged theft took place, his lawsuit says.

The accuser told police she was resting with her feet on her backpack at 2:28 a.m. when she felt someone take it and later saw her hoodie-clad assailant “get off the train and run up a flight of stairs,” the lawsuit claims.

When police detained Owens an hour later, the woman, “who officers had to hold up as she spoke,” claimed that Owens did it, according to the complaint.

Owens tried to protest, explaining he had just clocked out of his job. He even showed officers his time-card receipt and gave them the phone number of his supervisor, but Officer Francavilla utterly “ignored him,” the lawsuit claims.

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A New York City police officer was indicted on Monday on charges including perjury and grand larceny for allegedly stealing a property in Brooklyn from a dead woman’s family, DNAInfo reported.

Prosecutors said that 45-year-old Blanche O’Neal filed a false deed on the property in July 2012, saying that she bought it from Colie Gallman for $10,000. Not only was Gallman’s signature forged, they said, he was identified as the “sole heir” to Lillian Hudson, the former homeowner. Hudson died in 1993.

Last September, O’Neal also identified herself as the property’s owner while testifying during a burglary trial concerning a generator stolen from the premises.

“Her brazen actions have unraveled and she will now be held accountable,” Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said. “That she is a veteran NYPD officer makes this alleged crime all the more disturbing.”

The officer’s actions came to light, officials said, when Gallman and three relatives tried to sell the property and found the false documents.

O’Neal, a 12-year veteran of the department, was also charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument and filing a forged instrument. She has been suspended without pay and pleaded not guilty to the charges in a court appearance on Monday.

“She’s pleading not guilty, because she’s not guilty,” her attorney Edward Harold King told Gothamist.

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Since finding out all of this, Deon has been contacted and offered money to put Howard back with me in a home where he will be loved and spoiled and well taken care of. Deon responded to our offer and pretty much has told me and many others such as Mission K9 Rescue and Operation Releash (non-profit organizations), tough luck and he is providing another type of service now (Therapy Dog), which by the pictures you can see that Howard is not providing this man any type of service and instead is being neglected and not living out a life as a war hero or any dog for that fact should.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/sol...v6HX60WbxdD.99

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