an Antonio police said an officer was inspecting a home which he believed to be vacant doing a patrol-by when he witnessed people inside the home. Police said the officer attempted to enter the premises and someone fired a shot at the officer.

SAPD said the officer fired back, grazing a man inside, whom he believed to be a burglar.

Sergeant Jesse Salame, a spokesperson for SAPD, said the SAPD Officer-Involved Shooting Team processed the scene and questioned witnesses.

Sergeant Salame said it does not appear the subjects inside the house will face any charges, and In accordance with SAPD protocol, the officer involved in the shooting will be placed on temporary administrative duty.

If the last few months are any indication, the only "war on cops" being waged is the one they're staging against themselves.

In the law few months we've seen officer after officer caught staging being the victims of crimes only to find out they themselves were the perpetrator.

Just earlier this month Sgt. David Houser triggered a manhunt after claiming he was shot at by an "Hispanic male" in a silver SUV, the officer later admitted he shot himself.

Then there was the hero officer Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz who was "gunned down in the line of duty" as part of a "war on cops," the search for his killer also triggered a manhunt, it later turned out he staged his own suicide as he was about to be caught for embezzling from a youth program.

Next there was Sgt. William Dwyer who claimed he was "ambushed by a white man in a maroon pick up truck" who shot up his cruiser. After another extensive manhunt, it turned out the officer shot up his own cruiser and the mysterious "white man" didn't exist.

All these stories fanned the hysterical flames there's a "War on Cops," yet all turned out to be total frauds.

Now we have this story out of Commerce City, Colorado where officer Kevin Lord (pictured) who said he was shot during a traffic stop by a "white man" in his "40's or 50's" is being charged with a felony for making the whole story up.

The district attorney says there was no "white man" -- what a shocker -- the officer "engineered a hoax" and appears to have been shot in his bullet proof vest with his own gun.

Gee willikers, I just can't believe it!

When are the state propagandists who pushed this bullsh*t "war on cops" narrative going to come out and apologize and admit they were wrong?

Julian Betton, the Myrtle Beach man left paralyzed after drug agents shot him during a raid at his apartment in April, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the officers who wounded him, the agent who led the raid and the three officials who manage the narcotics unit.

Betton, 31, asserts in court papers that video captured by his home’s surveillance cameras shows heavily armed agents in bulletproof vests and street clothes storming into his apartment April 16 without knocking on his door or announcing their presence.

Betton maintains the video directly contradicts the account of the officers, who told state investigators they knocked on Betton’s door and announced themselves before entering.

Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, who oversees the drug unit and is named in the complaint, said the video does not show a complete depiction of what happened because it does not have audio, reiterating that the officers said they knocked and announced before entering. He said he would make the prosecutor handling the criminal case aware of the video.

A copy of the video obtained by The Sun News shows the officers directing one of Betton’s neighbors to get on the ground outside the apartment. One officer then opens a screen door before another rams Betton’s front door. The video does not show an officer knocking. The video has no audio, so it’s unclear what, if anything, was said.

When the officers entered Betton’s home, he was walking out of the bathroom, according to the lawsuit. He saw strange figures in his apartment. One officer wore a mask covering part of his face. Some were wearing backwards baseball caps. Betton said in court papers that he had a gun in his waistband, but he denies ever pulling it on anyone. Officers said he did. Three officers shot him nine times.

Afterwards, witnesses said they saw the agents laughing and high-fiving, according to the lawsuit.

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With the unannounced raid, Betton’s lawsuit states, the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Betton maintains he was legally entitled to defend himself, though he insists he never tried to.

...

The lawsuit is not the first time the officers’ accounts have been disputed. Initially, authorities said Betton shot at the police, forcing them to return fire. They later admitted that wasn’t true. Betton never shot at the officers.

On Monday — seven months after the raid — drug agents filed three charges of pointing and presenting a firearm against Betton. Each charge represents one of the officers who shot Betton.

...

Betton is paralyzed from the waist down. He wasn’t charged with any crime until June 29, when police filed three charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana. During the raid, agents seized 222 grams (about 8 ounces) of marijuana from Betton’s home, according to public records.

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David Michael Romanoski, 48, of Morgantown was shot and killed earlier this month by police after they broke into his house in search of two robbery suspects.

Romanoski was not the suspect and was innocent.

Ten deputies arrived at the home, where Isaac Barker and Justin Knisell were believed to be living and instead found Romanoski. When deputies, some of whom were in plain clothes, entered the room where Romanoski was, one of them fired 7 rounds into him. He was then transported to the hospital where he died.

Immediately after killing this innocent man, police quickly attempted to justify the shooting by claiming to have found a handgun – as if owning a handgun is deserving of a death sentence.

The Monongalia County Sheriff’s department was given body cameras earlier in the year, which could’ve shown the confrontation which led to the murder of Romanoski. However, the deputies chose to stop using them.

A San Antonio man taking photos of his wife’s soon-to-be medical practice was attacked by a plainclothes cop who roared up in a pickup and hopped out, ordering him to get down, striking him in the face with what appeared to be a handheld radio before he could even comply.

Two uniformed SWAT team members quickly joined in, striking Roger Carlos in the head about 50 times with fists and elbows before handcuffing him. satisfied that they had their man.

Except the real man were looking was someone else whom they had chased for miles down a freeway at 80 mph before he pulled into a parking lot, ditched his car and ran.

When the dimwit cops pulled off the freeway and spotted Roger taking photos outside his building in broad daylight, they pounced on him, figuring a fleeing fugitive felon would stop and take photos of a random building during his getaway.

It was only when a fourth cop pulled up and informed the three cops that they had already arrested their man down the street; a 27-year-old named Josue Rodriguez who was charged with illegal gun and drug possession, accused of driving around with a sawed-off shotgun and 20 grams of methamphetamine.

So police went into immediate coverup mode, declaring that not only did Carlos fit Rodriguez’s description, which is questionable by the photos below, he resisted arrest – even if it was a blatantly unlawful arrest.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have sued Virginia police and other government officials after a request to carry out a “welfare check” on a 58-year-old man resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck, a wrongful arrest, and a 72-hour mental health hold.

According to the complaint, police acknowledged that they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining Virginia resident Benjamin Burruss, who was preparing to depart on a camping/hunting trip to Montana, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.

Nevertheless, a heavily armed police tactical team confronted Burruss, surrounded his truck, deployed a “stinger” device behind the rear tires, launched a flash grenade, smashed the side window in order to drag him from the truck, handcuffed and searched him, and transported him to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and mental health hold.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, against the County of Albemarle and five Albemarle County Police officers charges government officials with violating the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as well as state law.

“This is just one more example of how a relatively benign situation (a routine welfare check) gets escalated into something far more violent and dangerous through the use of militarized police, armed to the teeth and trained to react combatively,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “The unnecessary use of force by police officers in response to a situation that should have—and could have—been handled non-confrontationally did not, in this instance, result in a loss of life, but that is small consolation to those who have learned to tread cautiously in their interactions with police.”

According to the complaint, on Nov. 21, 2013, Albemarle County police officers were contacted by Benjamin Burruss’s employer and asked to conduct a “welfare check” on Burruss, who was reportedly “stressed” over work and marital difficulties. Police confronted Burruss, who was wearing camouflage pants and a bright orange hunting cap, as he was leaving the Comfort Inn and preparing to leave for a hunting trip to Montana.


Read more at Confused Cops SWAT Raid Innocent Man, Deploy Flashbangs, Assault and Kidnap Him for No Reason | The Free Thought Project

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have sued Virginia police and other government officials after a request to carry out a “welfare check” on a 58-year-old man resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck, a wrongful arrest, and a 72-hour mental health hold.

According to the complaint, police acknowledged that they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining Virginia resident Benjamin Burruss, who was preparing to depart on a camping/hunting trip to Montana, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.

Nevertheless, a heavily armed police tactical team confronted Burruss, surrounded his truck, deployed a “stinger” device behind the rear tires, launched a flash grenade, smashed the side window in order to drag him from the truck, handcuffed and searched him, and transported him to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and mental health hold.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, against the County of Albemarle and five Albemarle County Police officers charges government officials with violating the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as well as state law.

“This is just one more example of how a relatively benign situation (a routine welfare check) gets escalated into something far more violent and dangerous through the use of militarized police, armed to the teeth and trained to react combatively,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “The unnecessary use of force by police officers in response to a situation that should have—and could have—been handled non-confrontationally did not, in this instance, result in a loss of life, but that is small consolation to those who have learned to tread cautiously in their interactions with police.”

According to the complaint, on Nov. 21, 2013, Albemarle County police officers were contacted by Benjamin Burruss’s employer and asked to conduct a “welfare check” on Burruss, who was reportedly “stressed” over work and marital difficulties. Police confronted Burruss, who was wearing camouflage pants and a bright orange hunting cap, as he was leaving the Comfort Inn and preparing to leave for a hunting trip to Montana.


Read more at Confused Cops SWAT Raid Innocent Man, Deploy Flashbangs, Assault and Kidnap Him for No Reason | The Free Thought Project

A suburban Houston school district police officer who pulled over a female motorist and then asked to lick her feet has been sentenced to one year in jail.

Patrick Quinn, a 27-year-old former Cypress-Fairbanks school district police officer, pleaded guilty to official oppression. He was sentenced on Wednesday in Houston.

According to court documents, Quinn stopped the woman in August 2014 and found marijuana paraphernalia but told her he had a foot fetish and would release her if she let him lick her feet or give him her underwear. Investigators say he then changed his mind and let her go.

“The reality is many victims of this kind of conduct don’t come forward, but because of the courage of the victims who spoke up, Mr. Quinn will never again be able to use a badge to prey on the people he should have been protecting,” said Assistant District Attorney Allison Buess told KPRC.

Criminal charges have been dropped against a suburban New York college student arrested while taking a taking a video of two friends being arrested.

Attorney Kenneth Mollins says resisting arrest, obstruction and a drug possession charge were dropped Friday in a Long Island courtroom.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office confirmed charges were dropped “in the interest of justice.”

Thomas Demint was arrested in May 2014.

Charges were filed after he recorded officers slamming a woman to the ground when she allegedly attempted to interfere in her sons’ arrest.

Mollins says he intends to sue for false arrest.

Civil liberties experts say Demint’s arrest is part of a growing trend of citizen videographers getting arrested after trying to record police behavior.

A deputy with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office was arrested Thursday after investigators discovered he was smuggling drugs into one of the sheriff's correctional facilities.

Deputy Tyler Bonnet was arrested and charged with malfeasance in office, distribution of schedule I narcotics and taking of contraband to and from a penal institution, according to an arrest affidavit.

Bonnet has been placed on administrative leave without pay pending the completion of the investigation. He was booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center on a $25,000 bond.

A 55-year-old retired deputy police chief from Upstate New York fatally shot his former girlfriend early Saturday before turning the gun on himself, police said.

New York State Police responded to a 911 call around 8:30 a.m. for shots fired in the town of Goshen in Orange County. They found Marie Giannone, 55, of Goshen dead from being shot multiple times in the driver's seat of her car.

Her former boyfriend, Patrick Sorrentino, of Marlboro killed Giannone before turning the gun on himself, police said. The retired deputy police chief with the City of Newburgh Police Department died of single self-inflicted gunshot wound. His body was found nearby.

The two had dated for about 18 months and broke up in August, police said. Authorities said in a news release that Sorrentino had become withdrawn and angry after the couple split up.

Newburgh police chief Daniel Cameron called the incident a "senseless act."

Cameron said Sorrentino began working for City of Newburgh Police on April 3, 1983, the Kingston Freeman reported. He was placed on leave in March 2002 due to a physical injury, and remained on injury leave until he was officially retired in March 2007.

The former police chief of the northern New Mexico town of Springer has pleaded guilty to helping a then-deputy steal $7,500 from men the deputy believed were drug couriers – but who turned out to be undercover state and federal agents investigating the Colfax County deputy’s cooperation with drug transports in return for cash.

Ex-Springer chief Leon Herrera, in his plea agreement Thursday, acknowledged that he pretended to be a federal Drug Enforcement Administration officer to help deputy Vidal Sandoval persuade the faux drug couriers to hand over money from their car.

“At that time, I knew that my false statements and misrepresentations… served the purpose of assisting Sandoval in stealing the money in the vehicle,” Herrera states in his plea document filed in Albuquerque federal court. Herrera pleaded guilty to impersonating a federal officer and was released. He faces up to three years in prison.

Sandoval, who ran for Colfax County sheriff last year, was arrested in March and charged with attempt to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and theft of government money. He has entered a not guilty plea.

Federal agents and the New Mexico State Police began investigating Sandoval after a bizarre sequence of events. On June 25, 2014, a New Mexico State Police officer made a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40 near Grants. Two men in the car told police they had been carrying marijuana they claimed had been purchased legally in Colorado when they’d been pulled over by another officer about 4½ hours earlier, on Interstate 25 near Raton.

That first officer, the men said, confiscated their marijuana and seized more than $10,000 from them without giving them a receipt or issuing a citation. But he did give the drug carriers “$600 back in order to pay for their travel expenses on their way back to Arizona,” says an FBI statement filed in court.

The Grants traffic stop started an eight-month investigation that culminated in the arrest of Sandoval, about 46 years old, a veteran deputy who ran for Colfax County sheriff last year. He’s accused of demanding a cut of the drug trade that uses I-25 north from Mexico to move the product in exchange for safe passage or a police escort to Colorado.

During the investigation, undercover agents pretending to be drug couriers were pulled over by Sandoval three times, federal documents say, and he offered to provided safe passage through Colfax County in return for money.

In the first of these encounters, in which Herrera played a role, two undercover agent drove around Cimarron where Sandoval was known to patrol. The agents’ vehicle, court documents say, contained a hidden rear compartment “under carpeting and outfitted with several air fresheners, which are commonly used to mask the smell of narcotics, and a digital scale of the type often used to weigh narcotics.”

The agents had $8,000 cash when Sandoval stopped the agents for speeding. Sandoval searched the car and found the hidden compartment. One of the agents was placed in the back seat of Sandoval’s patrol car while Sandoval made a phone call. During the call, Sandoval asked whomever he was talking to to pretend that he was a DEA agent.

Sandoval handed the phone to the undercover agent who, via the phone’s caller ID function, identified the person on the call as Herrera, the former Springer police chief. The undercover officer was told by the “DEA agent” that cash found by Sandoval would be seized.

Sandoval told the agents pretending to be drug couriers that “he wanted to be part of the criminal narcotics activity” and that he would let them “pass through the area undisturbed with money and/or drugs in the future if they provided him with a portion of the profits,” an affidavit by the investigators says. Sandoval returned $500 to the undercover officers and kept $7,500, and the agents left.

Herrera now admits that he was the “DEA agent” called by Sandoval. Herrera also says that Sandoval told Herrera that he intended to keep the money for personal use and offered Herrera $1,000. “I know now that the motorists were actually undercover law enforcement investigators and that Sandoval stole approximately $7,500 cash from them that actually belonged to the federal government,” Herrera states.

As of May, Herrera also faces an embezzlement charge in state court. He’s accused of taking three Glock pistols and leather jackets from the Springer Police Department and has pleaded not guilty.

Springer Mayor Fernando Garcia said the embezzlement case was investigated by the State Police at his request. He said Herrera left the Springer police in the summer of 2014, after several years with the department. Garcia also said that while Herrera was called chief, he was officially an interim chief before Garcia “bumped him back to sergeant.”

“I just hope justice is served and people here can rest with peace that we’ve done the honorable things by this community,” said the mayor.

A Connecticut state police trooper who stole cash and jewelry from a dying motorcycle accident victim and then resigned has lost his state pension.

State Attorney General George Jepsen announced Thursday a Hartford Superior Court judge recently approved the revocation of Aaron Huntsman's pension. Huntsman had been eligible to begin receiving $1,530 a month in 2024.

A 2008 law allows the state to revoke the pensions of state or municipal officials convicted of crimes related to their jobs.

Huntsman stole $3,700 and a gold crucifix from John Scalesse as he lay dying after crashing his motorcycle on the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield in 2012. He was sentenced to a year in prison.

Huntsman is from Fairfield. He has apologized and said he isn't the same man he was at the time of the accident.

Prosecutors in the Los Angeles suburb responsible for a huge share of the nation’s wiretaps almost certainly violated federal law when they authorized widespread eavesdropping that police used to make more than 300 arrests and seize millions of dollars in cash and drugs throughout the USA.

The violations could undermine the legality of as many as 738 wiretaps approved in Riverside County, Calif., since the middle of 2013, an investigation by USA TODAY and The Desert Sun, based on interviews and court records, has found. Prosecutors reported that those taps, often conducted by federal drug investigators, intercepted phone calls and text messages by more than 52,000 people.

Federal law bars the government from seeking court approval for a wiretap unless a top prosecutor has personally authorized the request. Congress added that restriction in the 1960s, when the FBI had secretly monitored civil rights leaders, to ensure that such intrusive surveillance would not be conducted lightly.

In Riverside County — a Los Angeles suburb whose court and prosecutors approved almost one of every five U.S. wiretaps last year — the district attorney turned the job of reviewing the applications over to lower-level lawyers, interviews and court records show. That practice almost certainly violated the federal wiretapping law and could jeopardize prosecutors’ ability to use the surveillance in court.

“A district attorney is playing with gunpowder if he ignores the potential implications of letting somebody else handle the entire process. That’s potentially catastrophic,” said Clifford Fishman, a Catholic University of America law professor who studies wiretapping.

That also creates a legal problem for Riverside’s massive wiretapping operation, which had come under scrutiny from Justice Department lawyers. Last week, USA TODAY and The Desert Sun reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had secretly helped turn the county into the nation’s wiretap capital, even though federal prosecutors repeatedly warned that the surveillance orders violated a separate part of the wiretapping law and would not withstand a legal challenge.

Federal drug agents used information from Riverside wiretaps to make arrests as far away as Kentucky and Virginia, sometimes concealing the surveillance from judges and defense lawyers.

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A Texas driver says he wound up in handcuffs after he told a police officer during a routine traffic stop that he was legally carrying a concealed weapon.

Alonzo Gonzalez told KPRC-TV this week that he was pulled over by a police officer in Rosenberg, Tex. for failing to signal a turn. He said he ended up getting arrested for traffic violations after the officer asked if he had his handgun with him and he replied, “I sure do.”

“Just because I have a handgun on me which, you know, I have a license to carry, it shouldn't be a big deal, but that's what made it the turning point,” Gonzalez told the station.

KPRC reported the police dash cam video captured the August 2014 traffic stop. The video was just turned over to Gonzalez.

The station reported that after the officer's initial conversation with Gonzalez, he called for backup.

On the video the officer can be seen returning to Gonzalez's truck with the backup who has his gun drawn.

“Mr. Gonzalez, get your hands up on the wheel, both of them,” the officer then says on the video. “Appreciate it. Here’s what I want you do. I want you to step out of the truck for me. When you do so I want you to keep your hands on the back of your head, Okay?"

Seconds later, Gonzalez is seen getting out of the truck. He is handcuffed and told that he is being arrested "for traffic violations.”

"If I didn't have my firearm on me, I would have had a citation and they would have let me go," Gonzalez said.

Rosenberg Police Lt. William Henry told the station Thursday that the department does not target people with handgun licenses.

“We don’t target gun owners in general,” he said. “Any responsible gun owner…we’re not out targeting people like that. As far as what the officer perceived, the officer perceived a threat.”

The station reported that an internal investigation concluded the officer who pulled Gonzalez over followed all proper procedures.

It also reported that the officer had resigned and was no longer on the force.