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This Court has held that, during an otherwise lawful traffic stop, asking a driver to exit a vehicle, conducting a drug sniff with a trained canine, or asking a few off-topic questions are “de minimis” intrusions on personal liberty that do not require reasonable suspicion of criminal activity in order to comport with the Fourth Amendment. This case poses the question of whether the same rule applies after the conclusion of the traffic stop, so that an officer may extend the already-completed stop for a canine sniff without reasonable suspicion or other lawful justification.

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A Charleston police lieutenant on paid administrative leave is under investigation for making racially insensitive video recordings, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Lt. Shawn Williams, of the Charleston Police Department, was placed on leave last week pending an investigation by the Police Department’s professional standards division. The investigation was triggered after police obtained video recordings taken from Williams’ computer, according to those familiar with the investigation.

Two sources who have seen the recordings say the videos depict Williams’ young daughter dressed in what appear to be articles of a police uniform and dancing to an anthem of the Ku Klux Klan. The refrain of the song repeats the words, “Stand up and be counted, show the world that you’re a man. Stand up and be counted, go with the Ku Klux Klan.”

On the videos, a man alleged to be Williams can be heard asking the girl questions. Derogatory racial language can be heard, sources said. Sources said there were several similar videos on the computer.

Williams said Monday he could not comment on the allegations.

“My wife and I are in the middle of a difficult and painful divorce,” he said. “Neither of us can or should disclose or comment on deeply personal matters involving our children, who are my first concern. These matters involve a sealed court proceeding.”

Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster said he could not talk about the investigation because it involves personnel issues. He said he did not know how long the investigation might take.

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When Teresa Hooks looked outside the craft room window of her Georgia home one night last week, she saw hooded figures wearing camouflage standing outside.

The East Dublin woman woke up her husband, David Hooks, who grabbed his shotgun, believing burglars who had recently targeted the couple had come back again, reported WMAZ-TV.

The sheriff’s deputies burst through the back door about 11 p.m. on Sept. 24 and, seeing David Hooks holding the weapon, fired 16 shots – killing the 59-year-old grandfather.

Authorities said Hooks met deputies at the door and pointed his weapon aggressively at officers as they announced themselves.

But Teresa Hooks said the officers did not knock and never identified themselves as law enforcement, and her attorney said David Hooks was killed behind a wall in the home — not at the door.

Deputies were executing a search warrant as part of a drug investigation based on a tip from one of the burglars accused of stealing a vehicle from Hooks.

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A lawsuit filed Friday claims a man spent more than a year in custody on someone else's charges.

Last summer, Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne broke this story of what happened to Kenneth Williams.

One of Williams' lawyers said somebody else's information got attached to Williams' name in Fulton County jail records.

Now Williams' name appears as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Sheriff Ted Jackson, who it described as the official jailer of Fulton County and several others, many of them identified by the description “booking officer and/or “documents specialist.”

“It's frightening when you know you aren't the person,” Williams said.

Williams’ attorneys, John Merchant and Ashleigh Merchant, said an innocent man went to jail.

“We know that an innocent person went to jail on charges for crimes he didn't commit, and he was also forced to be institutionalized against his will,” said John Merchant.

“It's been kind of a nightmare to me,” Williams said.

The suit suggests Williams spent 370 days in custody on another man's charges.

“[The] plaintiff's information and charges were commingled with those of another person, which resulted in plaintiff being arrested, incarcerated and forcibly injected with psychotropic medications for roughly a year."

“Being force-medicated by the state is horrible,” said Ashleigh Merchant.

The suit suggests that as a result of the incorrect records, a judge had “ordered that Williams be involuntarily medicated in order to stand trial” on the other man's drug charges.

John Merchant said Williams, who was at times homeless, was only at the jail on low-level misdemeanors when the Merchants believe his information and the other man's got mixed up.

While Williams was at the jail or Georgia Regional Hospital, the man to whom the drug charges really belonged was picked up and released twice by police.

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A Georgia man was awoken Wednesday morning to find a police helicopter hovering overhead and sheriff’s deputies at the door to search his property for drugs.

“They were strapped to the gills,” said Dwayne Perry, describing the heavily armed officers.

Agents from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression flying overhead spotted what they believed to be marijuana growing in the yard of Perry’s home in Cartersville, reported WSB-TV.

But the plants were, in fact, okra.

“We’ve not been able to identify it as of yet, but it did have quite a number of characteristics that were similar to a cannabis plant,” Capt. Kermit Stokes, of the Georgia State Patrol, told the TV station.

Perry said the mistake shouldn’t have been made, because okra has five leaves — not seven, as cannabis does.

“Here I am, at home and retired and, you know, I do the right thing,” Perry said. “Then they come to my house strapped with weapons for no reason. It ain’t right.”

Law enforcement officers apologized to Perry after examining the plants, saying they were only trying to do their jobs, but the homeowner said the mistake could potentially have gotten him killed or injured.

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Ellen Bogan expects police to protect and serve — not proselytize.

But she says Indiana State Police Trooper Brian Hamilton pitched Christianity to her when he pulled her over for an alleged traffic violation in August on U.S. 27 in Union County.

With the lights on his marked police car still flashing, the trooper handed Bogan a warning ticket. Then, Bogan said, Hamilton posed some personal questions.

Did she have a home church?

Did she accept Jesus Christ as her savior?

"It's completely out of line and it just — it took me back," Bogan, 60, told The Indianapolis Star.

Bogan and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a lawsuit in federal court against Hamilton. The lawsuit alleges he violated Bogan's First and Fourth Amendment rights when he probed into her religious background and handed her a church pamphlet that asks the reader "to acknowledge that she is a sinner."

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Just to be pedantic, that would be a convicted FELON

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