The ACLU of Connecticut is suing state police for fabricating retaliatory criminal charges against a protester after troopers were recorded discussing how to trump up charges against him. In what seems like an unlikely stroke of cosmic karma, the recording came about after a camera belonging to the protester, Michael Picard, was illegally seized by a trooper who didn’t know that it was recording and carried it back to his patrol car, where it then captured the troopers’ plotting.

“Let’s give him something,” one trooper declared. Another suggested, “we can hit him with creating a public disturbance.” “Gotta cover our ***,” remarked a third.

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In Connecticut, police officers have clear requirements under the law to intervene and stop or prevent constitutional violations when they see them. But at no time did any of the three officers pipe up and say, “why don’t we just give him his camera back and let him go.”

In the end they decide on two criminal infractions: “reckless use of a highway by a pedestrian,” and “creating a public disturbance.” They have a chilling discussion on how to support the public disturbance charge, and the top-level supervisor explains to the other two, “what we say is that multiple motorists stopped to complain about a guy waving a gun around, but none of them wanted to stop and make a statement.” In other words, what sounds like a fairy tale.

The tickets they gave him started a criminal prosecution in the Connecticut superior court. Eventually the state dismissed first one then the other count, though it took a whole year for him to disentangle himself from the criminal justice system.

Meanwhile, Michael filed a complaint with the state police. They claimed they couldn’t do their internal investigation without interviewing Michael. They kept calling Michael directly—and they did that even though there were criminal charges pending and Michael had a criminal defense lawyer. His lawyer kept calling them and saying “don’t you ever call my client again, you have to talk to me.” But they continued to try and get Michael to come in and be interviewed without his lawyer, claiming that they couldn’t do the investigation unless Michael gave a statement. It was unbelievable—this is an interaction that was recorded from start to finish on high-quality digital video. A year later there has been zero movement on the internal affairs investigation as far as anyone knows, which just shows that police and prosecutors in Connecticut should not be in charge of policing themselves.
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"The reaction of the police after the man was down — it was well over a minute before there was any attempt to render medical aid," Owens said. "He laid in the street. The police seemed not to react to that. I'm a layperson, but that troubles me."

Community leaders said they were also bothered by a police helicopter operator's description of Crutcher as "bad dude" who "could be on something," as the chopper hovered above the stranded SUV. "What would make an officer who was in a helicopter be able to make that determination?" Owens said. "He's tall, heavy and he's black."

A Baltimore County police officer appears to have shot and killed himself in his Bel Air home, according to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office.

Roads were closed and class was delayed three hours at Patterson Mill Middle and High schools Monday morning because deputies were trying to make contact and negotiate with James Ward, who was arrested and suspended without pay after a barricade that ended in gunshots in April.

In that incident, deputies first responded for a domestic dispute involving a suicidal subject who was drinking heavily. Schools were dismissed early while Bright Oaks community residents were forced to take shelter. Ward ended up being shot non-fatally by deputies after a standoff that lasted a few hours. The Sheriff’s Office said Ward fired first.

New York cops were beating a man in the street when they realized they were being watched, so they first went after a woman who was standing on a sidewalk just outside her property, pouncing on her inside the property after one officer accused her of standing on his sidewalk.

Then, after spending almost a minute arresting that woman, Rochester police realized a man was video recording them, so they went after him too.

Clarence Thompson’s phone continues to record for more than two minutes after the cop snatches it from his hands and places it on a car.

“How do you turn this off?” the cop asks before it goes off.

Thompson uploaded the video to Facebook on Thursday

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A 13-year-old girl was brought to the hospital Thursday afternoon after suffering a bullet wound from a police officer’s gun. According to police, they were attempting to bring the ‘combative’ child under control when the ‘officer’s gun discharged.’

According to police, they were called to the school to investigate allegations of a crime. As they were talking to the young girl, she allegedly became “uncooperative and then combative,” according to the release.

While officers struggled to control the elementary student, one of their firearms somehow discharged while still in the holster and also somehow hit the girl, according to the release.

After being shot, the girl was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for a graze wound and released.

Milwaukee Police Department spokesperson, Sgt. Timothy Gauerke explained to the media Thursday afternoon that the officers’ Smith and Wesson M&P .40 pistols do not have external safeties.

The officer whose firearm discharged is a 40-year-old man who has been on the department for 16 years, Gauerke said.

The officer will not be placed on administrative duty because, conveniently, the incident is not considered an officer-involved shooting, but rather an unintentional discharge, according to Gauerke.

While it is true that S&W M&P pistols do not have safeties, pulling the trigger while in the holster is all but impossible.

As the Free Thought Project has reported in detail, police holsters are designed in such a way that only that officer can get the gun out and fire it.

Milwaukee police employ the use of multiple-point retention holsters utilizing both the hood guard and a friction holster.

The “hood,” or the strap that holds the weapon in the hard plastic holster must be pushed down from a particular angle and then pushed forward, prior to exposing the back of the weapon.

During a struggle, it is entirely possible that the hood could have been pushed down, leaving the rear of the slide exposed.

However, the hood guard adds another entirely new level of pistol retention as it is specially designed to prevent an assailant from pushing down the hood.

The Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office has released dash cam video showing a Richland County deputy interfering with her son’s Sept. 6 arrest.

Lisa Grazioli, a Richland school resource officer, was charged with hindering officers after she arrived on the scene of a Kershaw County incident involving her son, Victor Manuel Ortiz Jr. Her son was charged by Kershaw deputies with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and operating a vehicle without registration and license.

In the video, Ortiz can be heard refusing to get out of his vehicle in this exchange with a Kershaw deputy:

Deputy: Go ahead and turn your vehicle off for me.

Ortiz: For what?

Deputy: For what? Because I asked you to, that’s for what. Next question is, how about you step out of the vehicle for me?

Ortiz: For what?

Deputy: Because I asked you to, sir.

After several minutes, footage shows Grazioli arriving in a Richland County patrol vehicle with her blue lights on. She can be heard having this exchange with the Kershaw deputy:

Grazioli: Why does he have to step out of the vehicle?

Deputy: Because I’ve asked him to step out of the vehicle.

Grazioli: OK, but if he refuses, then I mean it’s just for headlights not being on.

Deputy: No. He crossed the line. There is a possibility he may be DUI. OK? I don’t think that your sheriff would be very happy with you being involved with one of our situations.

Ortiz was not charged with DUI after the arrest.

A heated exchange occurred a bit later in the video, as another Kershaw deputy tried to get Grazioli to go back to her vehicle.

Deputy: Ma’am are you with Richland County?

Grazioli: Yes sir, I am.

Deputy: You need to go back to your vehicle. This is Kershaw County. This is my county.

Grazioli: I understand that but this is my son.

Deputy: I don’t care. This is my county.

Ortiz: Get out of her face, bruh.

Soon after that, Kershaw deputies physically removed Ortiz from his car and arrested him, the video shows.

Grazioli was disciplined by the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, but officials declined to disclose what form that discipline took. She recently resumed normal duties, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Curtis Wilson said.

ustin Police Officer Osvaldo Villarreal didn’t give 31-year-old Benny Herrera more than a second before shooting him dead, an appeals court asserted in refusing to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit Friday — but the undoubtedly disturbing dash cam video remains under court seal.

“Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him,” the Los Angeles Times quoted the court’s statement. “Just as Herrera’s hand came out of his pocket, Villarreal fired two shots in rapid succession … The command and the shots were almost simultaneous.”

Because he acted so swiftly, a three-judge panel for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco found Villarreal could not have reasonably feared for his life — a finding which directly contradicts a 2013 determination by the Orange County district attorney’s office claiming Herrera had ignored the officer’s demands to raise his hands.

Villarreal encountered Herrera as he responded to a 911 call made by the man’s ex-girlfriend on December 17, 2011. Hilda Ramirez told the dispatcher Herrera, who had never been violent before, stole her cellphone and hit her in the head, but added he did not have a weapon.

Villarreal and Officer Brian Miali were told Herrera might have a traffic warrant and that he was on parole for drug charges — two obviously nonviolent offenses — but when they approached the man in the street, Villarreal nearly immediately opened fire.

In deposition, the officer testified he believed Herrera had a weapon in his sweatshirt pocket — despite having received the information the man was unarmed. Both officers, according to Courthouse News Service, admitted they never saw anything in Herrera’s hands. A cellphone was later found in the man’s pocket.

“It has long been clear that ‘[a] police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead,” Circuit Judge William Fletcher wrote for the panel, as cited by CNS.

“[T]he traffic warrant and drug possession conviction were relatively minor crimes, neither of which entailed violence or gun possession,” Fletcher continued, “and the dispatcher’s information included a statement that Herrera was not known to be armed.

“Villarreal commanded Herrera to take his hand out of his pocket immediately upon driving up beside him. Villarreal then shot Herrera just as he was taking his hand out of his pocket. Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him.”

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ALLEN PARK, Mich. (WXYZ) - A Detroit father says he was humiliated and horrified when a local police officer performed a body cavity search on him.

7 Investigator Heather Catallo has obtained the exclusive video of what happened inside that Allen Park Police jail cell

“You can’t do that,” says Kevin Campbell on video captured inside the police lock-up on June 7, 2016.

“Yes, I can. Yes, I can,” says Allen Park Police Officer Daniel Mack