The Sandusky County Sheriff's Office will have to answer for their use of a flashbang grenade in the death of a Fremont man.

Last week, federal Judge Jack Zouhary, of the U.S. Northern District Court, in Toledo, put Sandusky County and the Sandusky County Sheriff's Office on notice they will have to face a jury and explain their use of a flashbang grenade in the July 11, 2010, death of 26-year-old Bryan Jones.

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"Jones had not fired a gun at neighbors or officers. Nor had he refused to surrender to police. Jones was instead asleep for some time and police, at best, made one failed attempt to talk to him; Jones made no threatening gestures with the shotgun he held on his lap during that time; and his mom, against whom Jones made the earlier verbal threat, was not nearby," Zouhary wrote.

"A jury could find that Jones posed no immediate risk to anyone until (at the earliest) after the TRT deployed the flash-bang. Moreover, a jury could conclude that a reasonable officer would know that if the officer awakened a sleeping suspect with a flashbang device, the explosion would disorient the suspect."

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Sheriff Kyle Overmyer ordered the Tactical Response Team (TRT) to storm the house about 90 minutes after the first deputy arrived and 20 minutes after he arrived on the scene. Overmyer later told investigators he was concerned Jones needed medical help when it appeared he stopped moving.

There was no one else in the home when deputies Mario and Jose Calvillo, who are brothers, quietly led the four-man team into the home.

All told, Mario fired five shots from his .40-caliber handgun and Jose fired nine shots from an M16A2 rifle. Jones was ultimately shot five times.

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The Calvillos and two other deputies opened fire when Jones was startled awake by the flashbang grenade. He died instantly.

The Lafayette Police Department has apologized on behalf of an officer who wrongfully ticketed and detained a bicyclist for riding through a crosswalk.

"Police officers are human just like everyone else, and they do tend to make mistakes from time to time," Lafayette police Chief Rick Bashor said. "In this case, the officer made a mistake. He misinterpreted a state law."

The incident took place last week at the corner of Minotaur Circle and South Boulder Road in Lafayette, when officer Sean Jenneiahn stopped a male cyclist — listed on Facebook as Vince Marten, of Louisville, but whose name and age police have not confirmed — for not dismounting at the crosswalk.

Police in Enfield, Connecticut, were ready to arrest one of their own, Matthew Worden, for punching a suspect when it was "neither necessary nor needed." They prepared a 7-page arrest warrant where it sounded like the cop's excuse was that his victim got in the way of his punches, but the state's attorney in Hartford rejected the application because, well, the incident was too complicated to follow.

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In her letter rejecting the arrest warrant [state's attorney Gail] Hardy said the video "depicts many moving parts where it is extremely difficult to keep up with everything that is going on with all parties."

Florida sheriff's officers falsely arrested and imprisoned a woman with allergies for buying two boxes of Sudafed at a drug store, she claims in Federal Court.

Mickey Lynn Goodson claims she bought the two boxes of the over-the-counter drug because the pharmacist recommended it. She sued Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young and the two officers who arrested her, Rodney Moore and William Buckhalt.

Charges of possession of a controlled substance were eventually dropped, Goodson says in the July 18 complaint.

In July 2010, Goodson says, she went to a Winn-Dixie store to get Sudafed "because she has allergy flare-ups." Sudafed contains pseudoephedrine, which can be used as a precursor chemical in some recipes for methamphetamines.

"The pharmacist on duty suggested that plaintiff buy two boxes of Sudafed and she did," the complaint states.

"Almost immediately," defendant Officer Moore drove up in an unmarked police car, Goodson says. Moore blocked her and her husband's car, prevented them from leaving, and asked if she had just bought Sudafed. She said she had. Moore then took the Sudafed and told the Goodsons they had to wait for more officers to arrive, detaining them against their will, they say in the complaint.

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olice are investigating another video of an officer placing a man in a chokehold and punching him in the face at an East Harlem subway station, an NYPD spokesman said.

Video of the incident surfaced about a week after the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner, on whom police also used the banned technique while trying to arrest him July 17 for selling untaxed cigarettes.

The new video shows police arresting Ronald Johns, 22, on July 14 at about 4:20 p.m. at the 125th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station. During the confrontation he is placed in what looks to be a chokehold at least twice.

Police Officer Colin McGuire stopped Johns after he entered the station through an exit gate, according to court papers.

Johns refused to show police his identification and then "flailed his arms and twisted his body to prevent Officer McGuire from putting handcuffs on him," according to a criminal complaint.

The officers "had to struggle" with Johns and use pepper spray to subdue him, according to the court papers.

He was charged with turnstile-jumping, resisting arrest and trespassing, records show. He was arraigned the next day and released without bail. Johns is due back in court on Sept. 17.

A Southern California police officer arrested a man for video recording “private cars” from a public sidewalk.

The Covina police officer named K. Counts then handcuffed the man when he refused to provide identification, claiming that they were looking for a suspect on the loose, and that it could have very well been the man with the camera who decided to return to the crime of the scene, knowing he was being sought.

But from the video, it didn’t appear to be much of a manhunt.

There were no helicopters or cops searching yards. There were just a group of cops talking to some citizens from several yards away when the man, who goes by Damon Enz on Youtube, but identified himself as “David” to the officer.

The cop then told him he had the right to pat him down for “officer safety reasons.”

David obliged to let himself be patted down, which was when the cop knocked the camera out of his hand and handcuffed him.

David’s mother came out and picked up the camera, continuing to record, pleading with the cop to release her son, but the cop insisted that he was “obstructing my investigation.”

Another cop came up and walked towards his mother, which is when the video stops.

The incident took place June 30, 2014. David was incarcerated for six hours. Charges have since been dropped.

BATON ROUGE - Members of Metro Council will have to give the final approval to pay $495,000 to settle a wrongful death lawsuit over an officer-involved shooting where a drunken man was shot and killed in 2011.

On March 6th, 2011, Baton Rouge police officer Christopher Magee shot and killed Carlos Harris, 21, in the parking lot of Club Insomnia off Florida Boulevard. Harris was at the bar with a friend, Ryan Dominique, the night he was shot.

Leading up to the incident, police were called to the scene related to Domingue driving recklessly in the parking lot. As events unfolded and he was taken into custody, Magee either told or asked (accounts differ) Harris to move Dominique's car despite witnesses saying Harris told Magee he was drunk.

Harris was shot while moving the car after he smashed into various vehicles in the parking lot, including police cruisers. Magee said at the time he was worried for his safety, and those around him, so he opened fire. Harris was shot dead. Magee also suggested Harris had some sort of weapon.

"He told [Officer Magee] he was drunk...[But Magee] commanded him to move the car," witness Aisha Loliss told WBRZ News 2 after the shooting in 2011.

The homicide went unsolved for eight years until then-Detective Todd Harwood of the Kentucky State Police was assigned to investigate it as a cold case and concluded 18 days later that King was the perpetrator. Facing life in prison if convicted of murder, King, while maintaining her innocence, pleaded guilty in 2008 to manslaughter and accepted a 10-year sentence.

The Innocence Project began investigating after concluding it would have been physically impossible for King, who has only one leg and weighed 97 pounds at the time of the offense, to have thrown Breeden's body off a bridge into the Kentucky River, where it was found.

Then in May 2012, while he was being interrogated by Louisville Metro Police about another crime, Richard Jarrell Jr. confessed to killing Breeden and two other homicides. Louisville narcotics Detective Barron Morgan then passed his statement to the Innocence Project.

After a two-day hearing, Spencer Circuit Judge Charles Hickman said Jarrell had offered a "startling level of details" about the homicide in his confession. But as a matter of law, Hickman said he couldn't grant King's motion for a new trial because she had pleaded guilty.

A Syracuse man plans to sue city police, claiming officers brutalized him after he called 911 to break up a dispute outside his residence.

Alonzo Grant returned home from work at 7:30 p.m. one Saturday night. He found his adult daughter in a verbal argument with a woman who lived nearby. Things escalated, so he called police to calm things down, his lawyer said.

But by the time police arrived, his daughter had left. Grant told an officer the dispute was over, then walked back into his house, said Syracuse lawyer Jesse Ryder.

The officer entered the residence, the lawyer said, and told Grant to go outside and talk to another officer.

As Grant walked down the front steps, he claims the officer charged him without warning, grabbed him in a bear hug and flung him over a railing before putting him in a chokehold as another officer struck him repeatedly with his fist.

Imagine that your 2 year old son has just been stung by a scorpion. He begins to react to the venom, seething in agony and vomiting.

Your first instinct would be to get him to a hospital as soon as possible. Knowing that every minute counts you do not have the time to wait for an ambulance to get you there, you drive yourself.

Most people would speed to the hospital in this position, which is exactly what Jennifer Garbet did when her two year old son Easton was stung by a scorpion while playing in the backyard.

A speeding ticket is an afterthought at this point. While speeding to the hospital Garbet and the family friend who was driving see a police officer on the side of the road. They decide to proactively contact the officer to ensure a positive and swift outcome. So they pull over and tell him that they are in an emergency situation, thinking that he will help them.

Garbet said the officer nodded, as if he acknowledged their emergency, so they drove off. However, instead of helping, the officer actually pulls them over. He tells them to stop speeding and then they can go on their way. As they pull out onto the highway, they are immediately pulled over again!

The DPS patrolman, then detains the family, with the 2 year old boy suffering in the back. He forces them to stay there until an ambulance, that he said he called, arrives. ”You’re not going anywhere or you’ll be arrested,” the officer tells the frantic mother who just wants to save her son.

Over-Policing America

SWAT teams were once used only in emergencies such as riots or hostage situations. But today there are more than 50,000 "no-knock raids" a year.

I want the police to be better armed than the bad guys, but what exactly does that mean today? Apparently it means the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security equip even the tiniest rural police departments with massive military vehicles, body armor, and grenade launchers. The equipment is surplus from the long wars we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The Texas Dept. of Public Safety has apparently decided that if you'd like to be allowed to drive a vehicle in the state, you'd also perfectly fine with a criminal booking-style fingerprinting and having those immediately uploaded to a criminal database (that reps swear isn't a criminal database).

For years, Texas has only required a thumbprint as a minor security measure when obtaining a driver's license or ID card. That has now changed. It's unclear exactly when this went into effect (the Texas DPS made no announcement of this policy change), but longtime Dallas Morning News consumer affairs columnist, Dave Lieber, experienced it firsthand back in June.

Vinger may be correct that the DPS is allowed to collect prints as the result of this law, but it's not specifically ordered (or permitted) to collect all 10 prints. Note that the section quoted says "thumbprints or fingerprints." This "or" is important. A look at the actual amendments to existing law shows that the DPS isn't actually required to demand a full set of prints.

The amendments also refer to 521.042(b), which states the following:
(b) The application must include:
(1) the thumbprints of the applicant or, if thumbprints cannot be taken, the index fingerprints of the applicant;

So, there's no legal backing to Vinger's claims. Sure, the DPS is technically permitted to collect all 10 prints, but only because nothing specifically forbids this practice. But the law does not demand all 10 prints be provided in order to obtain a license or identification card. The law only asks for thumbprints or index prints.

This is why it was rolled out quietly. The DPS has no legal "authority" to demand a full set of prints before handing out a license. What it can do, however, is ask for them. At this point, supplying a full set of prints is purely voluntary. The DPS can't prevent you from obtaining a license if you refuse, but the whole system is set up to make it appear as though it's mandatory.

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The state gave the DPS the authority to collect index prints if thumbprints couldn't be obtained. For whatever reason, the DPS -- nearly a decade later -- has decided to roll out a very imaginative reading of the 2005 statute. Worse, it's claiming its interpretation of words that aren't actually there is "legal authority." And when questioned, it's falling back on "terrorism" and but-surely-you-want-criminals-to-be-caught rationalizing.

The state Attorney General's Office has agreed to pay $150,000 to a Philadelphia man who was injured in a pre-dawn car crash in 2009 involving a State Police vehicle, and then kept in the dark for two years about the identity of the trooper who was driving.

The man, Clayton Tanksley, was struck from behind by an unmarked patrol car while traveling on Interstate 295 in Camden County, rolling his sports utility vehicle onto its roof and leaving him hanging upside down from his seat belt as he awaited emergency crews.

The troopers who arrived first at the scene not only did not ask the off-duty trooper, Detective Sgt. William Billingham, to take an alcohol test, but also used his undercover identification on their accident report, sending Tanksley on a two-year search for someone who did not exist.

This week at an intersection in Syracuse, New York, two police cars collided when an officer in one of the cars ran a red light. The officer who was driving the vehicle that ran the light was actually distracted because he was using a laptop computer in his car.

It was reported that 35 year old Officer Robert Harrington ran the light at the intersection of East Water and South Townsend streets, colliding with an unmarked police car that contained 51-year-old Detective Edward MacBlane.

Tickets were not issued to anyone involved in the incident, but if it was not a police officer who was responsible for this collision, then there would have easily been a number of fines and tickets, if not an arrest.

Harrington claims that he was in pursuit of a “suspicious person”, but his emergency lights or sirens were not on at the time of the crash, and there has been no proof put forward to verify this claim. According to the police department, neither officer was injured in the crash and both vehicles sustained minor damage.