A Florida family seeks justice after their son Jason Westcott, was killed by members of a SWAT team, during a “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 worth of marijuana.

An ‘internal investigation’ absolved officers of any wrongdoing though police only found .02 grams of marijuana in Westcott’s home.

“They have IA, they have internal investigations but when you police yourself, you have that veil of concern by the outsider,” said attorney T.J. Grimaldi.

On Tuesday, attorney T.J. Grimaldi, representing the family of Westcott, informed the city that family would be filing a lawsuit, after finding numerous “glaring inconsistencies” in police statements in the aftermath of the killing.

“We have developed and seen what we view to be significant inconsistencies with the way that the police department portrayed this case from the get-go all the way to its conclusion,” he said. “We have put the city and the police department on notice that we are going to be filing a lawsuit,” Grimaldi said.

Westcott became the target of an intense drug trafficking investigation after a confidential informant led investigators to believe that Westcott was a dealer, as opposed to the casual cannabis smoker he was in reality. The informant has since gone public and admitted that he was lying to police in the case.

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Officer Walton of the Chicago Police 24th District, Beat 2431 seen here arresting a black teenager for rapping NWA lyrics while riding his bike down the street, then trying to lure another black man into a fight by goading him, making fun of his job, threatening him, and flagrantly abusing his authority. Another guy filmed this as well so there is more than one witness. About ten to twenty seconds after this the cops drove off with the boy.

Below are links to contact the District and look up the Officer in question, Officer Walton. He gave his badge number but only after my video cut out unfortunately, the other officer shown didn't identify himself. Hopefully someone more enterprising with computers and information gathering than myself can identify these corrupt, amoral, racist pigs and take them to task. I did submit an official complaint online against Officer Walton, but knowing how helpful police agencies are I'm sure that will end up in the trash.

Residents of Huntsville, Alabama who declined to intervene to help a police officer subdue a suspect could face criminal prosecution under a state statute requiring them to assist an officer in trouble. Had the situation been reversed, however, police officers would face neither criminal nor civil prosecution for declining to aid a citizen under assault by a suspect.

A man named Devonte Conerly who was suspected in a hit and run incident, allegedly tried to disarm the police officer who stopped him. Several officers responded to a call for assistance and eventually subdued and handcuffed Conerly. They then rebuked several bystanders who had declined to intervene.

“I wouldn’t ask anybody in the public [sic] sector to get involved in a shootout or anything like that,” commented police union official Bill Davis. However, he continued, “if it’s just an altercation where someone is wrestling with the officer and it looks like they’re getting the best of the officer, yes you need to help.”

In fact, under the Alabama state legal code (Section 13A-10-5), “A person commits the crime of refusing to aid a peace officer if, upon command by a peace officer identified to him as such, he fails or refuses to aid” the officer in effecting a “lawful arrest” or preventing “the commission by another person of any offense.” This dereliction of a supposed duty is described as a Class C misdemeanor.

This verbal conscription by law enforcement, while sheer lunacy, is written into law in 44 of the 50 states in the U.S.

Bystanders are not liable to prosecution if the failure to render aid “was reasonable under the circumstances,” but the burden of demonstrating that this is the case is placed upon the accused.

Of course, in the event that a citizen obeys a police officer’s command to intervene, and is unable to help subdue the suspect, he could conceivably find himself charged with obstruction, which is a Class A misdemeanor. This means that a police officer can charge an onlooker who declines to participate in an arrest, or – conceivably – one who makes an unsuccessful bid to help.

In either case, residents of Alabama have a legal duty to come to the aid of an embattled police officer – but police in that state, as elsewhere, have no reciprocal duty to intervene on behalf of a citizen.

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For an exigent entry into a dwelling, probable cause is required. Here, police intended to search every apartment in two buildings looking for a shooter, and there was no probable cause as to any particular unit. They searched 21 apartments before the shooter was found. Plain view doesn’t work for the state here because the entries were invalid, so the view wasn’t “plain.” Peters v. State, 2015 Md. App. LEXIS 108 (August 26, 2015):

At about 9:15 p.m., a SWAT team arrived and began an apartment-by-apartment search, first of building 5931 and then of building 5933. Each building had twelve apartments, designated A through L. The SWAT team took the same approach at every apartment. A SWAT team member holding a handgun and a ballistic shield, known as a “bunker,” knocked on the door, announcing police presence. If there was a response, the team member directed the occupant(s) to exit. If there was no response to repeated knocking, the SWAT team used a battering ram to force open the door. In both situations, the SWAT team members swept the apartment, looking for any occupants (or additional occupants), and if any were found ordered them out. Another SWAT team member, called the “hands man,” obtained the occupants’ names and information. After being interviewed by the “hands man,” occupants were escorted to buses that had been brought in, where they were questioned and directed to wait until the entire search operation had been completed.

After the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was kicked out of Bolivia, the country was able todrastically reduce the amount of coca (cocaine) produced within its borders. According to data released by the United Nations, cocaine production in the country declined by 11% in the past year, marking the fourth year in a row of steady decrease.

It was just seven years ago that the DEA left Bolivia — and only three years after that, progress was finally made. The strategy employed by the Bolivian government may be a surprise to many prohibitionists because it did not involve any strong-arm police state tactics. Instead, they worked to find alternative crops for farmers to grow that would actually make them more money.

“Bolivia has adopted a policy based on dialogue, where coca cultivation is allowed in traditional areas alongside alternative development [in others],” Antonino de Leo, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s representative in Bolivia, told VICE News.

“It’s not only about making money off a crop. In the old fashioned alternative development approach, we substitute one illicit crop for a licit crop. It’s about a more comprehensive approach that includes access to essential services like schools, hospitals, and roads in areas that traditionally have been hard to reach,” Leo added.

There are unfortunately still harsh laws against drug trafficking in Bolivia, but these have been active since the height of the drug war and have had no effect on the recent decline in production. Bolivian president, Evo Morales — a former coca farmer himself — has been less heavy handed since the DEA left the country, a move that allowed the government to develop alternatives for the struggling farmers instead.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has assembled a team of investigators who’s only job is to illegally hack, investigate, defame and arrest those who speak dissenting opinions of elected Palm Beach County politicians. He has been described as “the most corrupt politician in the country.”

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Kenneth Mark Lewis, hired to harass and incarcerate foes of the Sheriff exercising their 1st amendment rights

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office finds itself at the center of a massive controversy after one of its top investigators was “catfished” by a group made up of a former deputy and Russian friends, one calling herself “Jessica.” The widespread commission of felonies admitted to by Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Detective Kenneth “Mark” Lewis include illegal hacking, planting of digital evidence, rampant racism, targeting of those who speak against the Sheriff, Chief Deputy, State Attorney, judges and other powerful people in Palm Beach County, insider trading, and the horrifying jail conditions they create for these dissidents once they incarcerate them for any reason they can find or fabricate.

“If we can’t get them because they are protected by freedom of speech, we will tear their f–king lives apart until we find something to arrest them on!” – Palm Beach county Sheriff’s Office Detective Kenneth Mark Lewis

This tale of international anti-corruption cooperation and intrigue would seem like an fictional espionage story if it weren’t for the text messages and audio recordings captured by the Russians and posted on a Russian website, as well as subsequent admissions from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

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Speaking on the topic of blacks, Detective Lewis tells Jessica the City of Riviera Beach is run by dumb blacks and is filled with blacks wearing gold teeth and pants draped past their rear ends. Lewis continues that when he sees a black male with gold teeth driving a new car, he knows that person is committing some kind of crime and pulls him over. The most offensive comment comes when Detective Lewis tells Jessica the entertainment value of pulling over black people, stating, “And besides, it’s just fun!”

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In another article detailing retaliation against political rivals, renown law-enforcement author Jim Donahue, who decided to run for Sheriff after he found a $15 million discrepancy in the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office budget, was arrested on stage in front of supporters from charges manipulated and fabricated by Detective Lewis. These charges were issued after Sheriff Bradshaw and Chief Deputy Gauger authorized him to fly around the country at the taxpayers’ expense to collect information on Donahue.

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Perhaps the most damning recordings concern the investigation of long-time foe Mark Dougan, who created PBSOtalk.com, a whistleblower website that allows deputies to post anonymously. In this four-year investigation against Dougan costing taxpayers about $1.5 million, Lewis admits to everything from hiring civilian hackers to break in to his computers, email, Facebook and Google Analytics account, to telling Jessica he is a part of the Russian criminal underworld who sells identities and child pornography. Detective Lewis says during his massive investigation that has taken him all over the country, they finally found a reason to arrest him: not checking a box on his pilot’s license medical form.

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In this horrifying recording that details hacking and planting of digital evidence, Jessica details to Det. Lewis how she is worried her father is being taken advantage of by her evil step mother, who she believes is after his $400 million fortune. Det. Lewis tells her he will get his “hacker” Anthony Rodriguez to help investigate. Rodriguez, a civilian employee of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, says they will learn all they can about this woman and to see if anything underhanded is taking place. During the course of the conversation, they tell her they can hack into her Facebook and email account to see the messages she has been sending to others. Jessica makes the point that if they come across illegal activity from hacking, it won’t be admissible in court. PBSO employee Rodriguez agrees and tells her if that happens, they can simply copy the information from a message and plant it on her public Facebook wall, like she accidentally posted it in error. He goes on to tell her once it is a public post, they will have the legal authority to act. Det. Lewis and Rodriguez stress the fact several times that since Rodriguez is a civilian employee, and mot law enforcement, he doesn’t need a warrant to break in to her accounts. he claims that will just do it “under the table.”

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Federal prosecutors are battling in court to keep $167,000 in cash seized in a 2013 traffic stop, despite the motorist never being charged in the incident and the Obama administration clamped down this spring on such asset seizures and forfeitures.

The case -- which highlights the ongoing concerns about the government unjustly seizing money and property -- began when a Nevada state trooper pulled over the motorist on a cross-country trip to California.

The trooper stopped Hawaii resident Straughn Gorman’s motor-home in January 2013 for allegedly going too slow along Interstate 80.

According to court documents, Gorman was allowed to proceed without a citation despite the trooper suspecting he was hiding cash.

The trooper said he couldn’t inspect the vehicle because he would have needed a canine unit and for the dog to detect drugs, which would have created enough probable cause to get a search warrant.

However, no canine unit was available so the trooper released Gorman but not before requesting the county sheriff’s office stop him again -- about 50 minutes later and this time with a drug-sniffing dog.

No drugs were found during the second stop, in which Gorman was pulled over for two alleged traffic violation. But his vehicle, computer, cellphone and the cash, stashed throughout the vehicle, were seized.

In June, a federal judge in Nevada ordered Gorman’s cash be returned.

In his ruling, District Judge Larry Hicks cited Gorman’s “prolonged detention” for the alleged traffic violations and criticized federal authorities for failing to disclose that the first officer requested the second stop.

“The second stop was not based on independent, reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify the prolonged investigation,” wrote Hicks, a Bush administration appointee. “The two stops were for minor traffic violations, and they both were extended beyond the legitimate purposes for such traffic stops.”

Hicks also said in his ruling the second stop never would have happened if the first officer had not relayed information about the first stop, which included a vehicle description, suspicion about concealed cash and that a “canine sniff” would likely be needed to get probable cause for a search.

The federal government earlier this month appealed Hicks' ruling in the 9th Circuit Court, in San Francisco, considered among the most liberal in the country.

Federal attorneys did not submit a reason for the appeal in their one-paragraph request, according to The Daily Signal, which first reported the request.

The court is expected to also decide whether Gorman should be reimbursed $153,000 in legal fees, which federal lawyers don’t want to pay.

The first court proceeding is scheduled for November 19.

Gunfire echoed through halls of St. Joseph Medical Center in downtown Houston Thursday when an off-duty HPD officer shot a man described as a “combative patient.”

The patient survived but he was seriously injured.

The 26 year-old was being treated on the hospital’s eighth floor when he became violent, police said. Medical personnel called for help from two off-duty Houston police officers working moonlight security jobs at the hospital.

There was a struggle when the officers tried to restrain the patient, so one of them used his Taser on the man.

“He deployed the Taser but it apparently had no effect on the patient,” said Kese Smith, a Houston Police Department spokesman. “He continued to struggle and injured the officers. That’s when his partner discharged his duty weapon, striking the suspect.”

The patient is in the intensive care unit, Smith said.

Both of the officers were treated in the hospital’s emergency room. One of them suffered a concussion and both of them had lacerations in their faces, Smith said.

“The officers were hurt,” Smith said, about two hours after the shooting. “They’re being treated in the ER right now for lacerations to the head and, as I said, one of them appears to be concussed. So it was a pretty severe struggle.”

The officers’ names weren’t immediately released. Both of them are longtime HPD veterans well-known to the hospital staff, Smith said.

Houston police and the Harris County district attorney’s office are both routinely investigating the shooting.

The Albuquerque police detective who was shot by his own lieutenant in what the department called a botched drug bust filed a scathing 77-page lawsuit Wednesday.

Lieutenant Greg Brachle shot Jacob Grant nine times in January while Grant was working an undercover drug operation outside a McDonald's on Central near Tramway.

Now, Grant is going after the city, police department and Brachle himself.

The lawsuit includes the moments he says Brachle kept shooting as Grant says he was crawling away and as he asked the shooting to stop.

The shooting was, at the very least, an embarrassment for APD. But the lawsuit shows it was much more – explaining how Det. Grant suffered "catastrophic injuries as a result of the shooting and almost tragically died."

He lost "approximately 80 percent of his blood," according to the lawsuit.

The case lays much of the blame on Lieutenant Greg Brachle.

It says Brachle and Grant had a two-year working relationship and that Grant was visible the day of the operation and at the time of the shooting, saying he was not wearing anything to cover his body or face.

Yet at a distance of less than 5 feet, he opened fire on Detective Grant.

The case says Brachle shot twice, then "repositioned himself." Grant pleaded with Brachle to "please stop shooting," according to the lawsuit.

Brachle then shot seven more times, emptying his weapon.

Grant's lawsuit says Brachle, a firearms instructor, violated basic firearms safety rules that day – using lethal force in a very public place and shooting before truly knowing the target.

The case is pointed, saying, "Lieutenant Brachle's actions and omissions, coupled with his excessive zeal, undue aggression, reckless, intentional or deliberate conduct, shocks the conscience and amounts to an abuse of power."

The case also claims Brachle had a history of erratic, problematic, or otherwise unpredictable or questionable behavior and had been disciplined before.

APD says Brachle is still on desk duty and Grant is still on leave.

Jessica Hernandez, the Albuquerque City Attorney, responded to the lawsuit Friday in a statement to KOB:

"We know this is a very difficult situation for Detective Jacob Grant and his family. It is a tragic situation that has deeply affected those involved, their families, our community, and the Department. We take Detective Grant's attorney's claims very seriously. However, at this point, we have a duty to fully defend against the allegations made by Detective Grant's attorney and believe the judicial process will prove the facts to be otherwise. The claims are under careful review by the City Attorney's Office."

A decorated Marine who didn’t back down during his military career is taking the same stance in a fight with authorities over his forced, and unjustified, stay in a mental hospital.

Brandon Raub was seized by a swarm of Secret Service, FBI and local police and involuntarily locked up in a mental institution for a week after “posting controversial song lyrics and political views critical of the government on his Facebook page,” according to officials with the Rutherford Institute, who have pursued a lawsuit on his behalf.

They have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after lower courts said it was “far-fetched” that there would be concerns over the government suppression of Raub’s speech.

Further, the case is asking the justices to establish standards to limit mental-health professionals when they want to lock someone up on the basis of that person’s free speech.

“This case has thus far been the unfortunate victim of a growing trend toward granting government officials – be they police officers or health-care workers – ‘qualified immunity’ in lawsuits over alleged constitutional violations,” said John W. Whitehead.

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He uses his Facebook page to post song lyrics and his political opinions.

On Aug. 16, 2012, “Chesterfield police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s home, asked to speak with him about his Facebook posts, and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, handcuffed Raub and transported him to police headquarters, then to a medical facility, where he was held against his will for psychological evaluation and treatment,” Rutherford reported.

When his situation got the attention of Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett, he ordered Raub’s immediate release, stating that the government’s case was “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.”

But he’d already been locked up a week.

Rutherford attorneys filed their lawsuit against the government officials in May 2013, challenging their actions as procedurally improper and legally unjustified.

WND reported earlier when court documents revealed state and federal prosecutors – at the time Raub was snatched by police – found there were no grounds for criminal charges against him.

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Recently, a man named Joseph Hutcheson parked his car in front of the main lobby of the Dallas County Jail, and stumbled asking for help from deputies.

He had just left a hospital, even though doctors had advised him not to, and it seems that whatever he was being kept there for was indeed still an issue. Realizing that he should not have left, Hutcheson, 48, pulled over to the first building he could find where he apparently thought help could be administered. Instead of helping him, however, a newly-released video shows Dallas County Sheriff’s deputies tackling him to the ground.

It was only minutes after deputies piled on the injured, disoriented and incoherent Hutcheson, that he was dead at the scene.

Minutes later, Hutcheson was dead.

Local WFAA reports that in the video it is clear Hutcheson is “not well.”

The video documents him “limping around” right before a deputy grabs him and slams him to the ground.

Still Hutcheson is calm, perhaps still a bit sedated from medication. His hands remain by his sides.

“My brother needed help,” James Hutcheson, said in an interview with WFAA. “You treat some people like they have a medical emergency, not everybody like a criminal. I can tell you that he wasn’t going to hurt anybody.”

Hutcheson staggered into the lobby, and as he came to a bench, people scattered out of his way. Then when he is taken down by one deputy, two others join in, pile on him, and smash him face-down into the ground. One of the deputies is shown with his knee leaning into Hutcheson’s neck.

WFAA reports that a full five minutes pass before anyone administered CPR or any first aid.

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A Hamilton County Sheriff's sergeant went too far when he tased a 60-year-old woman.

That's according to the findings of an internal affairs investigation.

Nancy Mason, 60, pleaded guilty to stealing from a store at the mall in March. She was arrested and was in the process of being booked in the Hamilton County Jail when she was tased. She fell to the ground and broke her arm in three different places.

Channel 3 obtained the video from the tasing incident, the internal affairs report and audio recordings with everyone involved.

Mason was surrounded by seven officers and refused to take off her earrings which are not allowed in jail. She had already been pat down but she says she was frustrated and didn't want to be there. After repeatedly asking her to remove her earrings, Sergeant Rodney Terrell resorted to use of force and deployed his taser.

"I told her what was gonna uh that she was gonna be tased if she didn't comply with, with being able to be searched and I tased her," Terrell said in a May interview with Internal Affairs.

Mason screamed as she fell to the floor. After the taser's five second deployment was up, Mason uttered "you broke my arm." Terrell can be heard responding, "I didn't break your arm, you broke it."

"I hope no one ever goes through what I went through," she said in an exclusive interview with Channel 3.

Mason was then taken to the hospital where she was given x-rays and a cast before being taken back to jail for her mug shot.

That was back in March. Now five months later, she's getting ready for surgery on her right arm that doctors call "deformed."

"To this day if I see a policeman, do you know what it does to me? I just stiffen up. And don't even get near me! Because then I'm afraid of you," she said.

Several of the officials interviewed, including Terrell, said they felt use of force was necessary. Others say it violated policy.

" Yeah honestly, the whole taser discharge was not according to training," said Det. Roger Brown.

The Internal Affairs investigation concluded three things:

1. Mrs. Mason was not complying with the orders given to her to remove all of her jewelry which is necessary as prescribed in the intake post order.

2. Mrs. Mason was not a physical threat; she was just not compliant with the verbal commands.

3. In looking at the totality of the circumstances and what a reasonable officer would deem necessary to gain compliance with the least amount of force necessary, the deployment of the less-lethal Taser device was inappropriate in this event. Terrell received a written reprimand from the sheriff.

The family of a 24-year-old woman shot and killed by a police officer in Spartanburg County last year will receive $700,000.

The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reports the estate of Rebecca Oliver settled its wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Duncan and officer Terry Lane.

Oliver was shot March 4, 2014, after she entered the officer's unoccupied patrol officer.

According to the lawsuit, she was unarmed and posed no danger to the officer when he fired at least four shots into the car, killing her.

The estate's attorney, Ryan Langley, argued standard policies and procedures weren't followed, and the patrol car wasn't properly secured.

Authorities have said that Lane feared for his life when Oliver took over his patrol car, and prosecutors determined he committed no crime.

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit accusing New York prison officials of locking an inmate for weeks in tiny cells that reeked of urine and feces, including one cell where they disabled his toilet and forced him to inhale his own excrement.

Reversing a lower court ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said Aaron Willey could pursue civil claims against officials at the Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison, in Alden, New York, near Buffalo.

Willey was housed there from April 2004, when he was 18, to October 2006, court papers show.

The decision comes amid greater scrutiny of the treatment of inmates, including at the Rikers Island jail in New York City.

A spokesman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office defended the Wende officials, declined to comment.

Willey said prison officials subjected him to physical and psychological harassment because he refused to provide false information about another inmate suspected of drug smuggling.

He said he was forced to spend more than six weeks behind a Plexiglas shield in the cell with the broken toilet, and two weeks in another unsanitary cell where he was kept naked. Willey said such treatment was a factor in his attempt at suicide.

The officials disputed many of the claims. A federal judge in Rochester, New York ruled for them, saying the exact length of Willey's exposures was unclear, and that he did not claim he was made ill or that waste overflowed from the toilet.

Writing for the appeals court, though, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann said no minimum duration or "level of grotesquerie" is required before unsanitary confinement conditions can violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

He also said that the exposure's "qualitative offense to a prisoner's dignity should be given due consideration."

The appeals court also revived several of Willey's other claims, and returned the case to the lower court.

Timothy Hoover, a lawyer for Willey, said the decision shows "the key role that federal courts have in overseeing prisoner litigation claims related to confinement conditions, due process rights and treatment by corrections authorities."

The case is Willey v Kirkpatrick et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 13-699.

Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau said of the video: "It's among many pieces of evidence that we are collecting to determine what happened."

Authorities say Flores resisted arrest and nonlethal force -- stun guns and shields -- were used to try to subdue him, but those didn't work, Pamerleau said.

"Certainly what's in the video is a cause for concern," Pamerleau said. "But it's important to let the investigation go through its course so we can ensure a thorough and complete review of all that occurred."

She said both deputies fired shots after a "lengthy confrontation."

The other video has not been released by police. Bexar County District Attorney Nicholas LaHood told CNN the video is "a better view to make an assessment on what happened. It is a closer view and a better angle."