</p><p><strong>&nbsp;Cleveland police will stop hitting people on the head with their guns </strong>and document any time they unholster them, according to a consent decree between the U.S. Justice Department and Cleveland police released today.</p><p>The Justice Department found in&nbsp;a 21-month investigation that began in 2013&nbsp;that <strong>Cleveland&nbsp;police routinely bash people on the head&nbsp;with their guns, sometimes accidentally firing them</strong>, according to a 58-page report released in December.</p><p>The consent decree released Tuesday between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Cleveland is the result of five months of negotiations, as well as dozens of meetings with community groups, church leaders and advocates. Once approved by a federal judge, the city is legally bound to enact the reforms included in the 105-page document, meant to protect citizens' constitutional rights.</p><p>&quot;[Cleveland Division of Police's] policy will expressly provide that using a firearm as an impact weapon is never an authorized tactic,&quot; the consent decree says. &quot;Officers will be trained that use of a firearm as an impact weapon could result in death to suspects, bystanders and themselves.&quot;</p><p>The agreement prohibits officers from displaying their firearms unless they believe lethal force is necessary. It also requires <strong>Cleveland police train officers to de-escalate situations, including by using verbal persuasion and warnings, instead of approaching suspects with guns drawn.</strong></p><p id="185">

</p><p>...</p><p>Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, who has been pushing for several years to reform the state&rsquo;s forfeiture laws, said more uniform reporting would provide a clearer picture of how police are using the law and who they&rsquo;re using it on.</p><p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve got folks out there that are medical marijuana patients&hellip; there&rsquo;s no way they should be getting raided and having police come in with masks and guns drawn and taking their assets,&rdquo; Irwin said.</p><p>&ldquo;But what I hear from the police is &lsquo;we need this tool to take down crack dealers outside the elementary school peddling to kids,&rsquo; so which is it?&rdquo;</p><p>Sgt. Amy Dehner, an 11 year veteran and legislative liaison with the Michigan State Police, testified Tuesday before the committee saying the practice is critical in the process to stop drug trafficking.</p><p>&ldquo;<span style="color:#FF0000"><strong>As long as that cash and those assets continue to flow, whether they can sell a car, a house, stolen TVs, if they can turn that into cash, they continue to allow that illegal business to flourish,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Our ability to intercede in that process is critical.</strong></span></p><p>Following the hearing, Dehner told FOX 17 she doesn&rsquo;t agree with the assessment that individuals who have had their assets seized through forfeiture laws are being treated &lsquo;guilty until proven innocent.&rsquo;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s largely the view of the media and trying cases in the papers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;To say someone is guilty before they go to court is not something the police engage in.&rdquo;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Dehner acknowledged defendants in asset forfeiture cases have to prove their innocence, rather than the burden being on the government or the state to prove the individual is guilty. When asked if that seemed to contradict the standard &lsquo;presumption of innocence&rsquo; generally followed in the justice system, she said the standards for civil asset forfeitures are different from other standards prosecutors and law enforcement follow.</p><p>The package of bills making its way through the legislature in Lansing would also raise the standards for evidence by requiring it be &lsquo;clear and convincing.&rsquo; Currently, police agencies only need a &lsquo;preponderance&rsquo; of evidence that can prove &lsquo;more probable than not&rsquo; that illegal activity is taking place.</p><p>

</p><p>A Quebec provincial&nbsp;police officer has been charged&nbsp;in connection with a collision that killed&nbsp;five-year-old Nicholas&nbsp;Thorne-Belance&nbsp;in Longueuil&nbsp;last year.&nbsp;</p><p>The officer, Patrick&nbsp;Ouellet, <strong>will face a charge of dangerous driving causing death.</strong></p><p>Stephanie&nbsp;Thorne, the boy's mother, had mixed&nbsp;emotions when she heard the news.</p><p>She called the charge laid against the officer a &quot;first step.&quot;</p><p>&quot;It's still&nbsp;going to be a very long process for the family,&quot; she said.</p><p>&quot;It's something really hard for us to live through.&quot;</p><p>...</p><p><strong>Thorne-Belance was killed&nbsp;when an unmarked police car&nbsp;travelling at 122 kilometres an hour in a 50-kilometre zone slammed into the side of his&nbsp;father's&nbsp;sedan.</strong></p><p>The sedan was carrying Mike Belance, his 10-year-old stepdaughter&nbsp;and Nicholas.</p><p>He died in hospital five days after the crash.</p><p>Initially, prosecutors declined to pursue charges.</p><p>But Quebec Justice Minister St&eacute;phanie Vall&eacute;e&nbsp;asked independent prosecutors to re-examine the case back in November.&nbsp;</p><p id="215">

</p><p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)"><strong>Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan</strong> has capitulated to the war on drugs in a&nbsp;</span>pack of vetoes<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">&nbsp;today. The governor <strong>has vetoed</strong> two bills that would restore voting rights to felons who have been released from prison, a bill turning public smoking of marijuana into a civil offense and decriminalizing possession of marijuana paraphernalia, and <strong>a bill that would significantly reform civil asset forfeiture reform to reduce police abuse.</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)"><strong>...</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">Finally, Maryland's proposed civil asset forfeiture reform&nbsp;</span>bill<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">&nbsp;would have established a minimum amount of money ($300) to trigger police seizure, required police to establish evidence that the property owner knew said property was connected to a crime, required police to provide better information to property owners about the seizures, and most importantly, forbid law enforcement agencies from transferring seized property to federal authorities. This has been the mechanism by which state and local law enforcement agencies have been bypassing state-level restrictions on asset forfeiture by passing seizures through the Department of Justice's &quot;equitable sharing&quot; program, which has much looser rules of evidence and often allows law enforcement agencies to keep a greater percentage of what they've seized than their own states.</span></p><p></p><p id="176">

</p><p id="eow-description">While investigating local law enforcement officers use of seat belts, I was detained, photographed, and told the public sidewalk was private property.</p><p id="144">

</p><p><strong>Five ways to resolve a conflict before it gets out of hand</strong></p><p>To make a difficult situation as simple as possible, here are five things to remember if you ever find yourself in a similar predicament:</p><p><strong>1.&nbsp;Don&rsquo;t waste your breath</strong></p><p>Police officers are trained to be aggressive, assertive, controlling, and correct in all situations. Going head-to-head is not a winning strategy and going toe-to-toe is not going to end well, either for the patient or for you.</p><p>Don&rsquo;t waste your breath telling them how much they don&rsquo;t know or why they are wrong. Instead, calmly remind them of the liability they are inviting and accepting by not allowing you to do your job. Make letting you do your job their idea.</p><p><strong>2.&nbsp;Get the patient on the gurney</strong></p><p>If you sense that a problem may arise, move the patient to the gurney as quickly as possible. Even police officers know that taking someone off of an ambulance gurney and placing them in a police car creates a bad visual.</p><p><strong>3.&nbsp;Call your supervisor</strong></p><p>This is a big one. Not only will that help relieve you of much, if not all, of the liability, it is one of the occasions for which supervisors exist.</p><p><strong>4.&nbsp;Call a doctor</strong></p><p>Contact your base hospital and have the officer speak with the nurse or doctor. While law enforcement officers are trained and practiced in taking control in their natural habitat, the street, they can be far less comfortable when an outsider steps in &mdash; particularly when that outsider is a recognized medical professional.</p><p>Furthermore, both the base hospital and you can remind them that the conversation is being recorded and that the officer&rsquo;s disregard for a known or suspected medical condition is now a matter of record.</p><p><strong>5.&nbsp;Stay calm</strong></p><p>Do not let your frustration or fear spin you out of control. Your interaction should remain cool, calm, and professional. If the officer escalates or attempts to escalate, don&rsquo;t fall for it. You are a professional patient care advocate and nothing shakes you.</p><p id="241">

</p><p><span style="color:rgb(20, 52, 84)">David Givot, Esq., graduated from the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care (formerly DFH) in June 1989 and spent most of the next decade working as a Paramedic responding to 911 in Glendale, CA, with the (then BLS only) fire department. By the end of 1998, he was traveling around the country working with distressed EMS agencies teaching improved field provider performance through better communication and leadership practices. David then moved into the position of director of operations for the largest ambulance provider in the Maryland. Now, back in Los Angeles, he has earned his law degree and is a practicing Defense Attorney still looking to the future of EMS. In addition to defending EMS Providers, both on the job and off, he has created&nbsp;</span>TheLegalGuardian.com<span style="color:rgb(20, 52, 84)">&nbsp;as a vital step toward improving the state of EMS through information and education designed to protect EMS professionals - and agencies - nationwide. David can be contacted via e-mail at&nbsp;</span>david.givot@ems1.com<span style="color:rgb(20, 52, 84)">.</span></p><p id="2612">

</p><p>A Pembroke police officer must surrender his law enforcement certification after pleading guilty to assaulting a female, according to court records.</p><p>William Reese Oxendine was <strong>convicted in October on two counts of assaulting a female and two counts of sexual battery.</strong> Oxendine pleaded guilty on May 7 and the sexual battery charges were dropped. The two counts of assault were consolidated.</p><p>According to court records, Oxendine will have to pay a $250 fine as well as $372.50 in court costs. He faced 60 days in jail, but that sentence was suspended and he will instead be placed under 12 months of supervised probation. Additionally, he will have to surrender his law enforcement officer certification to the Law Enforcement Training &amp; Standards Commission. He has been ordered to not engage with the victim of the assault.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The SBI began investigating &ldquo;allegations of sexual misconduct&rdquo; by Oxendine on March 7, 2014, at the request of the Robeson County District Attorney&rsquo;s Office, a spokesperson said. He was suspended for three days without pay as the Pembroke Police Department conducted an internal investigation.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Oxendine was then arrested on Sept. 8 and suspended again. Oxendine worked for the department for about three years.</p><p>

</p><p>A judge ruled against Chicago police and ordered them to&nbsp;release a photo&nbsp;that shows two rifle-toting officers kneeling over a black suspect wearing deer antlers.</p><p>The Polaroid picture, believed to be taken between 1999 and 2003, was turned over to the city by federal prosecutors after Jerome Finnigan, one of the officers in the photo, was&nbsp;sentenced&nbsp;to 12 years in prison for organizing robberies and home invasions with other cops.</p><p>The other officer in the photo, Timothy McDermott, was fired last year by a 5-4 vote by the police board,&nbsp;<a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/7/71/587596/judge-wont-seal-photo-cpd-cops-posing-african-american-man-antlers" target="_blank">reported the&nbsp;<em>Chicago Sun-Times</em></a>.</p><p>The dissenters said McDermott should only be suspended, but the majority said treating the unidentified black suspect as &ldquo;a hunted animal is a disgrace and shocks the conscience.&rdquo;</p><p>Attorneys for the police department and McDermott, who is appealing his firing, asked Judge Thomas Allen to keep the photo from being released to protect the suspect&rsquo;s privacy.</p><p>The judge denied the request in March, and the&nbsp;<em>Sun-Times</em>&nbsp;recently obtained the photo in a court file.</p><p>Finnigan told prosecutors that he and McDermott had arrested the man because he had &ldquo;20 bags of weed,&rdquo; but neither officer filed an arrest report for the case and they apparently let him go because he did not have a serious criminal background.</p><p>The person who took the photo, which Finnigan said was a &ldquo;spur of the moment&rdquo; stunt,&rdquo; has not been identified.</p><p>The police superintendent said the photograph was &ldquo;disgusting&rdquo; and &ldquo;despicable,&rdquo; and he said both officers deserved to be fired.</p><p id="241">

</p><p>This police video isn't action-packed. It's not a dramatic institutional killing captured by a bystander, as in the&nbsp;Eric Garner&nbsp;or&nbsp;Walter Scott&nbsp;cases.</p><p>But if you want to understand where the pent-up anger toward police in inner-city neighborhoods comes from, scenes like this &ndash; showing the lead-up to the arrest of an 18-year-old from East New York named Jaleel Fields &ndash; are a big part of the equation.</p><p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">This video shows &quot;the everyday harassment kids who grow up like Jaleel go through,&quot; says Martha Grieco, Fields' attorney. &quot;The cops treat them like garbage from the jump and then lie about it with zero consequences.&quot;</span><br /><br /><font color="#000000">...</font></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The following account comes from the elevator video and allegations in a civil lawsuit Fields filed in federal court in Brooklyn against the city and the two officers (which resulted in a $50,000 settlement), along with interviews with Fields and Martha Grieco about the case.&nbsp;</p><p>In the lawsuit, Fields accused the city and the two officers of violating his civil rights by falsely arresting and maliciously prosecuting him and using excessive force. A spokesman for the New York City Law Department, which represented the officers in the civil suit, declined to comment on the specifics of the case, saying only, &quot;After reviewing all the evidence, we determined that a settlement was in the best interest of the city.&quot;&nbsp;</p><p>The absurdity began when Fields, who lives not far from where 28-year-old&nbsp;Akai Gurley&nbsp;was killed in an East New York project stairwell by a police bullet last November, decided on February 22nd, 2013, to go to the grocery store.</p><p>But when he got downstairs, he ran into a female friend who stopped him. She suggested he go back inside, because there were a bunch of police officers in the building and it was better to steer clear of whatever was going on.</p><p>&quot;She said, &lsquo;You shouldn't go this way, because there's a whole bunch of cops,&quot; says Fields, now 20. &quot;So she grabbed my arm. You know how like people get married and walking down the aisle? She grabbed my arm like that, and I started walking back with her.&quot; &nbsp;</p><p>You can see the two of them, she in a pink jacket, he in a fuzzy ski hat, early in this video. At&nbsp;<strong>0:04</strong>, they arrive next to the project elevator arm-in-arm.</p><p>After waiting a few moments for the elevator doors to open, they split up, and &ndash; believe it or not, this is an important detail, so please take note &ndash; you can clearly see Fields stand in between the two elevator doors at&nbsp;<strong>0:18-0:23</strong>&nbsp;in order to let people out.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>After that, Fields and the girl get on the elevator. They're followed by several other residents, including a pair of Fields' friends, one in a white hood, another in a gray hat.</p><p>Finally the whole group is joined by two officers, one skinny, one heavyset.</p><p>...</p><p>In this case, though, Fields saw right away the officers were not doing the usual patrol. &quot;They didn't press no floor,&quot; says Fields. &quot;Usually a cop will press 16.&quot;</p><p>In any case, what happens after everyone's inside the elevator boils down to a few seconds of frenzied stupidity.</p><p>At&nbsp;<strong>0:50</strong>&nbsp;or so, the skinny cop starts arguing with Fields' friend in the white hood. This is even before the elevator doors close. Among other things, he seems to push Field's friend (<strong>0:59</strong>) with his right hand. Shortly after that, the boy with the gray hat leans over toward him, and he pushes the boy's head away. (<strong>1:09</strong>).</p><p>Fields at about that same time starts laughing at the whole scene, which apparently attracts the attention of the other officer (<strong>1:14</strong>). Fields says something to the boy in the gray hat &ndash; essentially he tells him he doesn't have to talk to the police, according to Grieco.&nbsp;</p><p>The heavier cop and Fields appear to argue, and when Fields himself tries to leave the elevator (<strong>1:21</strong>), the cop pushes the skinny young man back inside.</p><p>&quot;He was like, &lsquo;Oh, you think you could bump a cop and get away with it?'&quot; Fields says. &quot;I looked at him like, what? I ain't touch no cop.&quot;&nbsp;</p><p>More words are exchanged. After a few moments, the cops push Fields outside (<strong>1:37 or so</strong>) where, off-camera, he was ultimately arrested.</p><p>What were the charges, you might ask? Police would later claim Fields committed two offenses in the scenes shown in the video.</p><p>First: disorderly conduct. Police claimed he obstructed&nbsp;<strong>&quot;</strong>pedestrian traffic&quot; by blocking the elevator doors, which is interesting because the only thing this audio-free New York City Housing Authority video shows absolutely for sure is that Jaleel Fields went out of his way to let people off the elevator.</p><p>The second offense? According to Grieco, the police cited Jaleel for telling one of his friends that he didn't have to talk to the police. They called this &quot;obstructing governmental administration.&quot;</p><p>...</p><p>On the basis of these two &quot;offenses,&quot; police arrested Fields. They further claimed he struggled and elbowed one of them outside the elevator, which led to additional charges of attempted assault in the third degree and resisting arrest.</p><p>According to the lawsuit, one officer punched Fields in the face during the arrest, and he still has a small scar from the incident.</p><p>According to Grieco, after the video was shown to the DA, all Jaleel's charges were dismissed. His initial court-appointed attorney had an investigator who somehow got the New York City Housing Authority to turn over the tape early in the process.</p><p>&quot;Normally, the NYCHA doesn't give out its videos,&quot; says Grieco, who called getting the tape &quot;very lucky.&quot;</p><p>In other words, absent a stroke of fortune that most poor arrestees don't get, Fields would actually have gone to court and might very well have been convicted for blocking an elevator door and perhaps even attempting to assault a police officer.</p><p>Incidents like this don't make CNN. But this is the kind of pointless day-to-day harassment that's behind a lot of the anger Middle America usually only gets to see on TV in places like Ferguson or Baltimore.</p><p>Modern policing strategies create these situations by forcing police to fan out in large numbers not just into neighborhoods, but in some cases into the very buildings where people live. There, they conduct searches, question people, and use stop-and-frisk tactics, even if it's not called that anymore. The dynamic is inherently hostile and quickly creates high-octane animosity on both sides.</p><p>Do the same thing in upscale neighborhoods and you could easily create just as many silly misdemeanor arrests and just as much hostility. Imagine if police went down to Wall Street and tried to arrest every self-obsessed suit who blocked a subway entrance while blabbering into a cell phone. The city jail would be full in about ten minutes.</p><p>Imagine further that police went on regular rides up and down the elevators of the luxury residential towers on the Upper West and Upper East sides, in Tribeca, and so on. Imagine that they pushed around the prep-school teens in those buildings and slapped any that talked back with &quot;OGA&quot; charges. You'd see white people marching in numbers that would make Black Friday look like a library sale.</p><p>Obviously there's real crime in places like East New York, and police are there, in big numbers, for a reason.&nbsp;</p><p>But there's a difference between fighting crime and just creating offenses and criminal records to clog up the courts.</p><p id="196">

</p><p>&nbsp;A 82-year-old Texas man alleged this week that officers in military gear stormed his home, broke his hip and then left him without calling for medical assistance.</p><p>Herman Crisp&nbsp;told KTBC&nbsp;that Georgetown deputies wearing SWAT uniforms gave no warning before throwing a flash-bang device outside his home last September as he was sitting in a chair and smoking a cigarette.</p><p>He said that the explosion knocked him out of his chair, and then officers slammed him on the ground and handcuffed him. The force of hitting the ground broke his hip, according to Crisp, who was 81 years old at the time.</p><p>Eventually officers did help inside the home before leaving, but they did not call paramedics, he said. The next day, his family said that they found him lying on the floor in his own feces.</p><p>&ldquo;After they left, I tried to get up because I had to go to the bathroom,&rdquo; he explained to KTBC. &ldquo;And I couldn&rsquo;t go. So, I just crawled over and laid on the floor right down through here. My sister had to call paramedics.&rdquo;</p><p>Attorney Boadus Spivey, who is representing Crisp, accused the Georgetown Sheriff&rsquo;s Office of a &ldquo;conspiracy of silence.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;Things like this don&rsquo;t happen in a vacuum,&rdquo; he pointed out. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing that we&rsquo;ve been able to get that identifies the officers, that identifies the action that occurred. We have our client&rsquo;s information but I had to hire a private investigator just to get enough faxed to determine whether I should file a lawsuit or not. And I&rsquo;m convinced that the facts are adequate to file this lawsuit and we&rsquo;ll find out now that we have some way to get accurate information.&rdquo;</p><p>Crisp said that Georgetown deputies had a warrant to search his home as part of an investigation into his nephew, but it was not clear what they were searching for. The lawsuit filed against Williamson County and the City of Georgetown seeks damages in excess of $1 million for Crisp&rsquo;s medical care and mental anguish. The lawsuit alleges that officers used excessive force and caused bodily injury.</p><p>Even after two surgeries and physical therapy, Crisp said that he has to use a cane to walk.</p><p>Williamson County and the City of Georgetown both&nbsp;told KXAN&nbsp;that they could not comment because they had not seen a copy of the lawsuit.</p><p>Watch the video below from KTBC, broadcast May 25, 2015.</p><p id="239">

</p><p>During interview cop defending corruption makes the typical a few &quot;bad apples&quot; argument. But when asked why don't all the &quot;good&quot; cops speak up? No answer.</p><p id="93">

</p><p>...The entire saying is, &quot;A few bad apples spoils the bunch.&quot; Meaning if you are doing nothing to get rid of the bad apples then you have become spoiled yourself. Anyone who says, &quot;It's just a few bad apples&quot; is attempting to shift blame and means to say, &quot;It's not my fault, don't blame me.&quot;</p><p>I also find this statement and the attitude that supports it to be a spotlight on exactly how unprofessional cops are. In any other profession (not job, but actual profession such as doctor, lawyer, engineer) if a company had a bad apple they would fire him or at the very least put him under intense scrutiny. They certainly wouldn't defend the actions of a bad apple. In some cases they would suffer legal punishment for their mistakes. For example, doctors must carry malpractice insurance should they misdiagnose or mess up in surgery. Engineers are liable for designs they put their stamp on, and can be jailed for cutting corners on construction. When something goes wrong in one of these professions it is often followed and scrutinized in studies, papers, interviews, etc. The members of these profession shine every available light on a possible shortcoming in their industry, because they want to root out any possible problem and fix it.</p><p>Cops have the exact opposite attitude. They hide any mistakes they make. They cover up for their colleagues. They do not seek to improve on past mistakes. They do not welcome outside scrutiny.</p><p id="448">

</p><p id="eow-description">This video was shot by my wife as her and my brother and his girl was watching my neighbors car getting repoed when she decided not to give it up, the repo man called the cops, which is fine because its nothing more than a breech of peace and the officer if he was professional would have told the repo man to leave it and try again another day! but no big bad sheriff needs everyones IDs so he can run them for warrants and checks, all this after numerous time you can hear my wife and brother on the phone with me, and asking the officer if they are suspected of a crime or if they are being detained he tried to ignore that many times and finally he says WHY WOULD YOU BE, YOU CALLED ME! at this point they should have been free to go because they wasn't being detained, but nope! The officer threatens arrest for Obstruction how can they be obstructing when they are trying to leave! he said he was investigating, they have the right to remain silent! but no! he handcuffs them all and takes the IDs and runs them for warrants he even says in the video NO-ONE IS LEAVING UNTIL I RUN YOU ALL FOR WARRANTS! SUPRISE none of them have ever even had a traffic citation. so if this hasn't been enough he tells them the ONLY way he doesn't take them to jail is if they fill out a statement, now I don't have the video for this part because he shuts the cell phone video off as soon as he cuffs them, im doing an open records request for his lapel video but in my video you can see him playing with it so I don't know if he turned it off or what, constitutional rights don't matter in WAGONER OKLAHOMA I GUESS</p><p id="228">

Prosecutors have decided not to file charges against the Springfield police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man in February, saying the shooting was justified.

Greene County prosecutor Dan Patterson said Friday he would not charge officer Andrew Bath in the Feb. 17 shooting of Michael Ireland because the shooting "was a legally justified use of deadly force in self-defense." The officer says he thought the suspect was reaching for a weapon.

In a Friday letter to Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams, Patterson gave an in-depth narrative of that night and the subsequent investigation. However, despite the probe, much of the key interaction between the officer and the suspect just before the shooting is based on the officer's statements. There is no video footage of that interaction and there were no other witnesses.

Patterson says in the letter that Bath twice used a Taser on Ireland before the shooting. According to the letter, Bath says that Ireland was not complying with his commands and was reaching toward his waistband before Bath shot Ireland through a gate.

Justin Way was in his bed with a knife, threatening suicide. His girlfriend called a non-emergency number to try to get him into a hospital. Minutes later, he was shot and killed in his bedroom by cops with assault rifles.
On May 11, Justin Way was drinking and threatening to kill himself. His father, George Way, said his son was a recovering alcoholic and had been alcohol-free for five weeks.

“He just lost his job, and he had a setback,” he said.

Way’s live-in girlfriend, Kaitlyn Christine Lyons, said she’d caught Justin drinking a bottle of vodka, which she took away from him to pour out. She said he was drunk, lying in their bed with a large knife, saying he would hurt himself with it. She called a non-emergency number in an attempt to get her boyfriend to a local St. Augustine, Florida, hospital for help—and told them she did not feel threatened.

“My brother has been Baker Acted three times because he was threatening to hurt himself so I figured that would happen with Justin,” said Lyons. Florida’s Baker Act allows the involuntary institutionalization of an individual, and it can be initiated by law-enforcement officials.

“The only person Justin threatened was himself and I honestly don’t think he wanted to die.”

Minutes later, two St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies, 26-year-old Jonas Carballosa and 32-year-old Kyle Braig, arrived at the home, armed with assault rifles, and told Kaitlyn to wait outside.

“I thought they were going into war,” she remembered thinking when she first saw the large guns. Within moments, Justin was shot dead.

George Way said the initial report he received from Det. Mike Smith detailed an incident wherein his officers said they were attacked by Justin with a knife. Way said Smith told him Justin had threatened Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn denies this.

Denise Way, Justin’s mom, said that the detective relayed to her that “they told Justin to drop the knife and he didn’t—so they shot him because that’s what we do.”

...