The embattled chief of the Graysville, Tenn., Police Department has been fired again.

Graysville City Recorder Tracey Pankey confirmed that Erik Redden, who was indicted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in 2014 but kept his job, was terminated Monday morning.

"He's no longer an employee of the city of Graysville," Pankey said.

Pankey would not disclose the grounds for Redden's termination, but said that it had nothing to do with the previous charges against him.

Redden has a checkered history in the city's top police post. He became police chief in the summer of 2012 after his predecessor, Thomas Mahoney, took a job with the Soddy-Daisy Police Department. In June 2014, he was indicted by the TBI on seven counts of official misconduct and three counts of theft stemming from nearly $4,000 in cash that went missing after a July 2013 drug bust. He was laid off a month later by the Graysville Mayor and Board of Commissioners only to be reinstated by the same body a few weeks later.

Redden still faces the charges brought against him in that case by 12th District Attorney General Mike Taylor, who said the case was set for plea or assignment sometime in the next few weeks.

Now testimony is available from a nurse at Swedish Medical Center who says Whitlatch came in with a DUI suspect and demanded a blood draw on the spot.

"(Whitlatch) says, 'No, you draw it right now or I'm going to arrest you,'" according to Belinda Phillips, a charge nurse.

Phillips told Whitlatch the hospital was incredibly busy at that moment and she asked the doctor to clear the blood draw procedure, only to be met with insults.

"He said, 'You know, we have sick people here.' And this Officer Whitlatch said 'That happens at Harborview. This is Swedish and it's not like that here,'" Phillips said.

Speaking at a crime meeting in West Seattle, Chief Kathleen O'Toole didn't address the nurse's complaint directly, which ultimately resulted in a training referral. However, O'Toole did say more problems with Whitlatch have come to light due to the attention paid to the golf club arrest.

"Since these issues became public, a number of other complaints were filed with OPA," O'Toole said.

Five new complaints against Whitlatch are now under review by the Office of Professional Accountability, in addition to 15 past complaints that are already closed.

Whitlatch was also investigated for a series of racially-charged comments she posted on Facebook, but no policy violation was found. The department has since revised its rules about social media use.

For now, Whitlatch remains on paid leave while investigators review the golf club arrest and the five new complaints filed so far.

"I'm hoping that these investigations can be completed soon," O'Toole said.

Computers operating on the New York Police Department’s computer network at its 1 Police Plaza headquarters have been used to alter Wikipedia pages containing details of alleged police brutality, a review by Capital has revealed.

“The matter is under internal review,” an NYPD spokeswoman, Det. Cheryl Crispin, wrote in an email to Capital after examples of the changes were presented to the NYPD.

The edits and changes were linked to the NYPD through a series of Internet Protocol addresses, or IP addresses, which can be publicly tracked by various websites. (Here, for example, is one website that shows a number of IP addresses registered to the NYPD.) IP addresses can locate where a computer is when it connects to the Internet.

Computer users identified by Capital as working on the NYPD headquarters' network have edited and attempted to delete Wikipedia entries for several well-known victims of police altercations, including entries for Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo. Capital identified 85 NYPD addresses that have edited Wikipedia, although it is unclear how many users were involved, as computers on the NYPD network can operate on the department’s range of IP addresses.

NYPD IP addresses have also been used to edit entries on stop-and-frisk, NYPD scandals, and prominent figures in the city’s political and police leadership.

There are more than 15,000 IP addresses registered to the NYPD, which employs 50,000 people, including uniformed officers and civilians. Notable Wikipedia activity was linked to about a dozen of those NYPD IP addresses.

It was 11 a.m. on the Saturday after Christmas, and Tyrie Sheppard and Sade Fallin were catching some sleep while their 10-day-old son and 1 1/2-year-old daughter did the same.

Mr. Sheppard awoke to loud banging and repeated ringing of their doorbell and found two employees from Rent-A-Center there to repossess a mattress and refrigerator for which the couple said they were less than a week late on the payments.

Mr. Sheppard, 24, refused to let them in, telling the men that his fiancee had already made arrangements with the company. He closed the door and went back to the bedroom. Less than five minutes later, four Wilkinsburg police officers broke down both doors to the couple’s apartment and stormed into the bedroom, with weapons drawn.

“I heard them screaming, ‘Put your hands up before we shoot you,’ ” said Mr. Sheppard, who was holding his daughter.

The officers arrested Mr. Sheppard, accusing him of threatening the Rent-A-Center employees with a gun.

Even though an hourlong search of the apartment revealed no weapon, Mr. Sheppard was charged with two counts of simple assault, two counts of reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and obstruction. He was held at the Allegheny County Jail for five days.

On Thursday, the couple filed a civil rights lawsuit against Wilkinsburg, police Officers Stephen Minton and Sgt. John Snyder, and Rent-A-Center. The complaint includes claims of illegal search and seizure and malicious prosecution.

“These are not isolated instances. They are examples of improperly trained police officers,” attorney Timothy O’Brien said. “These are bedrock principles — that you can’t enter a private person’s dwelling without a warrant.”

Both Ms. Fallin and Mr. Sheppard described the incident as terrifying — particularly because the officers entered their bedroom with a shotgun drawn.

Denver police have fired one of its own for excessive force after the officer violently stripped a detained woman of her belt and shoes.

The startling jail footage of Officer James Medina holding down a combative and screaming woman, who refused to remove her belt and shoes, resulted in his termination last week.

He should have asked a female cop to help him instead of wrestling her on the holding cell bench while repeatedly ordering the victim to “not bite” him, according to disclipinary records obtained by the Denver Post.

The struggle left both Medina, a 15-year veteran of the department, and Seryina Trujillo breathless as he removed articles of clothing that can be used to attempt suicide while in custody.

Trujillo appears to go unconscious, falling limp to the cell floor before stirring several seconds later, video shows.

Medina says he pinned her neck with his knee, but Trujillo never passed out, the Denver Post wrote.

The department’s ruling states Medina put the woman at “great and unnecessary risk of serious bodily injury or death.”

More than two years after a fatal police shooting in Palm Springs, newly unsealed law enforcement documents reveal that the aggressive behavior of one officer left his partner with "no choice" but to pull the trigger, ultimately sealing the fate of a High Desert Marine.

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The newly released documents show that the confrontation with DeVillena became dangerously escalated when Nordman attempted to stop the Marine's car by jumping through the passenger-side window. According to the new documents, Heron did not see his partner jump through the window, so he assumed Nordman had been pulled into the car against his will and was under the mistaken impression that Nordman was being attacked. As a result, Heron opened fire.

"The way he was in the car, I thought for sure that they were going to kill him," Heron said, according to a police interview transcript. "You know, I had no choice."

The discovery that Nordman's jump into the car prompted the shooting comes from a Desert Sun analysis of more than 1,000 pages of law enforcement documents, obtained exclusively by the newspaper through the cooperation of the D.A.'s office. After reviewing these documents, the newspaper asked three national law enforcement experts for their opinions on the officers' actions.

A judge Monday dismissed all charges against a San Diego rapper and another man who were accused under a conspiracy law that allows for the prosecution of gang members if they benefit from or promote crimes committed by fellow members.

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Prosecutors alleged Duncan rapped about gang violence, which benefited a gang.

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Duncan is accused of promoting crimes through his lyrics and benefiting from his gang’s increased “street cred” from the shootings, prosecutors allege. They claimed his homegrown music helped inspire the violence, even though there is no evidence connecting him to the actual shootings.
The prosecution said they have collected wire taps through cellphone records that show several of the defendants were near the locations of some of those shootings and were talking about seeing another gang members in the area.

Defense attorneys argued there needs to be more than association to charge these men and the case violates free speech rights.

The footage, released by the family of 38-year-old Jason Harrison and their attorney Geoff Henley and published by the Morning News, shows officers responding to the home of Harrison’s mother the morning of June 14, 2014.

Harrison’s mother had called for help to take him to a local hospital as he was in a mental crisis, suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the newspaper reported.

In the video, Harrison’s mother opens the door to the awaiting officers and he appears behind her twiddling a screwdriver. The officers immediately demand he drop the tool and within seconds fire several shots, killing Harrison.

Harrison’s family in October filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and the two officers, who appear in the video to be white, arguing that he did not pose a threat, according to the complaint.

A Multnomah County judge Thursday found a 16-year-old boy not guilty of all criminal charges filed against him after a violent tussle with Portland police last year on a North Portland sidewalk.

Circuit Judge Diana Stuart ruled that Thai Gurule, a Roosevelt High School sophomore, didn't resist arrest. He also didn't strangle and assault police officers, she said.

In a strongly worded decision, which took more than 15 minutes to read aloud, the judge said the officers put Gurule at significant risk of injury in "a melee of fists and punches and bodies falling upon him."

The judge said that although police at first might have intended to be gentle with Gurule as they took him into custody, their actions turned into "a senseless and aggressive" show of excessive force.

The case hit a nerve with many in the community -- three Portland police officers tackling, punching, kneeing, using a Taser and pulling the hair of an African American teen in full view of outraged spectators. Two bystanders recorded the encounter with their cellphone cameras.

The judge said she didn't find parts of the testimony of one of the officers, Betsy Hornstein, to be accurate.

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Police that night had been looking for a group of seven to nine African American men, including one shirtless one, who had been walking the streets, reportedly damaging property and yelling profanities. Within minutes of receiving the group's last known location, police several blocks away focused their attention on a group of three young men: Gurule, his 20-year-old brother and their friend.

Police stopped them even though all three were wearing shirts and Gurule and his brother had large Afros, Houze said. The "distinctive" hairstyle wasn't listed as part of the description of the suspects, he said.

Officers testified that Gurule began to walk away and that when he was ordered to stop, he didn't, so officers Hornstein and David Hughes grabbed Gurule's arms.

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A Bronx mom of two who called 911 to ask police to come talk to her young son about why stealing is bad was wrongfully arrested and told by an NYPD officer “you black b----es don’t know how to take care of your kids,” a new lawsuit charges.

Tyeesha Mobley, 29, is suing the city, the NYPD and the Administration for Children’s Services, claiming she was handcuffed, roughed up and had her two children taken away from her for four months — all because of an innocuous request to have officers teach her 9-year-old about right and wrong.

That may seem like hyperbole, but it is a literal fact. In Ferguson -- a city with a population of 21,000 -- 16,000 people have outstanding arrest warrants, meaning that they are currently actively wanted by the police. In other words, if you were to take four people at random, the Ferguson police would consider three of them fugitives.

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It turns out that nearly everyone in the city is wanted for something. Even internal police department communications found the number of arrest warrants to be "staggering". By December of 2014, "over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court." The report makes clear that this refers to individual people, rather than cases (i.e. people with many cases are not being counted multiple times). However, if we do look at the number of cases, the portrait is even starker. In 2013, 32,975 offenses had associated warrants, so that there were 1.5 offenses for every city resident.

That means that the city of Ferguson quite literally has more crimes than people.

To give some context as to how truly extreme this is, a comparison may be useful. In 2014, the Boston Municipal Court System, for a city of 645,000 people, issued about 2,300 criminal warrants. The Ferguson Municipal Court issued 9,000, for a population 1/30th the size of Boston's.

This complete penetration of policing into everyday life establishes a world of unceasing terror and violence. When everyone is a criminal by default, police are handed an extraordinary amount of discretionary power. "Discretion" may sound like an innocuous or even positive policy, but its effect is to make every single person's freedom dependent on the mercy of individual officers. There are no more laws, there are only police. The "rule of law," by which people are supposed to be treated equally according to a consistent set of principles, becomes the "rule of personal whim."

The city has released a video showing a former Chicopee police officer placing a hand on a woman's throat and pulling her to the floor as she was being booked on assault charges at police headquarters in February 2013.

Maylene Maldonado, who had been drinking and smoking PCP before she was charged with assaulting a police officer, has filed a $1 million federal lawsuit against Daniel Major, the Chicopee police sergeant shown in the video grabbing her by the throat.

"He's no longer with the department," Mary Moge, chief of staff for Mayor Richard Kos, said of Major. Moge said she was unsure if Major was fired or if he resigned. Tom Rooke, his attorney, did not immediately return a phone message Monday.

For the second time this week, CBS4 has obtained Denver police video that led to an officer being disciplined for excessive force.

Officer Chad Sinnema was suspended for four days this week, which was a lesser penalty than was recommended by Denver’s Independent Monitor.

The most recent video was obtained from a Denver police department body camera that was rolling Aug. 22, 2014, when officers apprehended a suspect in a domestic violence incident in downtown Denver.

According to a departmental order of disciplinary action from Jan. 30, 2015, Officer Chad Sinnema and other officers caught the man, who was almost immediately combative. They say he kicked two officers, struggled and disobeyed officers orders.

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The disciplinary letter states that “Officer Sinnema violated the departmental rules and regulations when he restrained the arrestee by placing his knee on the suspect’s neck. Officer Sinnema had other force options available that did not require the level of force he used. Officer Sinnema used ‘inappropriate force in making an arrest or dealing with a prisoner.’ ”

Officer Sinnema was suspended for four days this week — from March 8 through March 11. However, in a report released this week, Denver’s Independent Monitor, Nicholas Mitchell, indicated he thought the incident was more grave and deserved more serious punishment.

“Restraining a suspect in a prone position with pressure on the back of the neck risks significant injury , including positional asphyxia,” wrote the monitor. The OIM (Office of Independent Monitor) believed that (Sinnema) had engaged in a serious violation of policy that required significant discipline.

The OIM disagreed with the decision to impose the lowest possible penalty for inappropriate force allowed by the disciplinary matrix.”

A New Jersey police officer has won her job back after being fired from preventing her fellow cops from brutally beating an emotionally-disturbed young man.

Despite the incident being caught on dashcam, Officer Regina Tasca was fired for stopping a case of police brutality in April of 2011.

After she had been fired, Tasca expressed her feelings to a local news station. “Being fired means I did something wrong. I know I didn’t. I protected that kid. I did what I’m supposed to do,” she said.

Tasca, who was the only female in the department at the time, filed several complaints with her superiors about the harassment she faced. But those complaints fell on deaf ears.

During her hearing to get her job back, the attacking officer, from neighboring Ridgefield Park Police, Sgt. Joseph Rella, admitted to covering up punching the victim. He also admitted to lying about his training in dealing with emotionally disturbed people, and violating protocol with his tackle and punch.

Rella never faced any discipline for his brutal actions that day.

Tasca’s boss, Captain Jim Sepp, also admitted to lying in his report to get her fired. He failed to interview witnesses, twisted quotes from Tasca and destroyed his notes used to make his report.

Sepp never faced any discipline for lying to get a good cop fired.

Sadly, the only person to be punished in this entire conspiracy was the only who deserved not to be.

Instances of “good cops” being punished by their departments seem to be on the rise. This year alone, we’ve already reported on several.

Think back to 8th grade: do you remember ever talking out loud or being “disruptive”?

Imagine if the punishment was an armed police officer approaching you and shooting you with a Taser gun, frying your nervous system with electrical voltage, for being “disruptive.”

That’s what happened at Powhatan Junior High School on Friday, according to reports.

An officer at the school shot an 8th grade student with a Taser gun for “being disruptive.”

The Powhatan Sheriff’s Department claims that it started when the student was “disruptive” in the cafeteria.

The student was then taken to the assistant principal’s office, where, they claim, the “disruptive” behavior continued.

An armed police officer stepped in and decided to try to place the student in handcuffs, but the student reacted by trying to flee, according to reports.