The family of a Sikh man killed by police nearly three weeks ago plans to file a lawsuit against the city of Lodi.

Lodi police said they were forced to shoot Parminder Singh Shergill when he charged at them with a knife just outside his home on Jan. 25. Since then, officials haven't released any new information.

"We don't believe it," Shergill's family attorney Mark Merin said. "If they have evidence, let them put it up. Let's see it."

Shergill was a Gulf War vet who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and depression. Merin said everyone in the neighborhood knew him as a kind and gentle man. He said eyewitnesses dispute the official account, claiming Shergill was unarmed and never charged at officers.

"I think their silence is admission they don't have support for this version they put out immediately after the killing," Merin said.

Police said they recovered a folding blade knife at the scene. They said the investigation could take up to a year to complete.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was convicted Thursday of rape and bribery, stemming from two traffic stops, including one in which he pulled a woman over, then raped her in the desert, prosecutors said.

Jose Rigaberto Sanchez, 29, pleaded no contest to rape under color of authority and soliciting a bribe and is expected to be sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison.

Sanchez pulled over a 24-year-old woman in Palmdale while on duty Sept. 22, 2010, and allegedly offered not to arrest her on an outstanding warrant in exchange for sex, prosecutors said. The seven-year veteran then allegedly drove away with the woman, before sodomizing her in the desert.

Two nights later, he solicited a bribe in the form of sexual activity from a 36-year-old woman he pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Sanchez was most recently assigned to patrol duties at the Palmdale Station and had previously worked in the county's jails.

The Sheriff's Department launched an investigation in 2010 after receiving a tip from an informant, a department spokesman said. Sanchez was relieved of duty with pay in September 2010 after the tip was received, and his pay was suspended after he was arrested in July.

A TEMPLE University photojournalism student and his girlfriend are suing two Philadelphia police officers who they say wrongly arrested them in 2012 while he was photographing a neighbor's arrest in Point Breeze.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Common Pleas Court by Ian Van Kuyk and Meghan Feighan, seeks compensatory and punitive damages for assault, battery, false arrest and imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. The defendants are Officers Samuel Allen and Santos Higgins.

Van Kuyk, 26, made national headlines after his March 2012 arrest on charges of obstructing justice, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct - an arrest that he said resulted from his refusal to stop snapping photos of Allen and Higgins making a traffic stop outside his home on 17th Street near Dickinson. Feighan, 24, also was charged with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct.

In November 2012, Municipal Judge Felice Stack found Van Kuyk and Feighan not guilty of all charges.

The arrest raised doubts about whether cops were following Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey's 2011 memo advising that civilians are allowed to record or photograph officers in public spaces. The memo followed a September 2011 Daily News story about wrongful arrests of civilians using cellphones to record arrests.

The jury concluded that the officers' conduct was not criminal, although the Harris County District Attorney said their decision was not an endorsement of the officers' actions. Waller pleaded guilty for theft in the incident and was sentenced to 15 days in jail.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. (CBS) -- Curtis Reeves, the Florida man accused of fatally shooting another movie-goer in a dispute over the victim texting in the theater, sent a text of his own before the movie started, according to recently released court documents.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the documents show that Reeves, 71, who is charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bail, received a text from his son, Michael, telling his father that he was running late for the 1:20 p.m. showing of "Lone Survivor" on Jan. 13. Reeves reportedly texted back that he and his wife were in their seats.

On Friday, the district attorney's office in Humboldt County, Nevada, agreed to return the $50,000 that had been seized from Tan Nguyen during a traffic stop on September 23, 2013. Nguyen had never been charged with a crime, much less convicted of anything—Humboldt County sheriff’s deputy Lee Dove pulled him over for allegedly going three miles over the speed limit, then searched his car without permission (though the cops claim consent was given) and found what Nguyen said was gambling winnings. The 37-year-old California resident’s luck clearly ran out when he was stopped by Dove, however, and according to his lawsuit, Nguyen was given a choice—give up his money or try to get home without his vehicle.

The former head of the Maine State Police has been arrested and charged with unlawful sexual contact.

Investigators with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office determined that Andrew Demers, 73, of New Gloucester, had sexual contact with a juvenile under the age of 12 for several months.

Investigators said they conducted several interviews with witnesses and the suspected victim before arresting Demers.

He has been released from the Cumberland County Jail on $5,000 bail and cannot have contact with anyone under age 16.

An officer claimed he was ambushed and stabbed, but police said it was all a lie.

McDonough police say they arrested a Clayton County police officer after his story did not add up.

A McDonough police major told Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne he's withholding comment on the motive for now, but the Clayton County officer has been released on bond on charges of false report of a crime, a misdemeanor, and false statements and writings, a felony.

“Things just weren't looking right. It looked like the burglary had been staged,” said Maj. Kyle Helverson of the McDonough Police Department.

“Who stabbed him?” Winne asked Helverson.

“Himself,” Helverson said.

Clayton County Police Chief Greg Porter said Clayton County Police Officer Christopher Russo has probably taken dozens of police reports in his career there, but he won't be taking any for the time being.

“He's currently on administrative leave without pay pending the outcome of the internal affairs investigation,” Porter said.

Helverson said Russo filed a false report with the McDonough Police Department.

“He claimed that he walked in on a burglary in progress,” Helverson said.

Helverson said McDonough police responded to an apartment complex after Russo called 911.

He said Russo eventually gave a detailed account, laid out in a police report, about somebody ambushing him off duty, beating him, pepper spraying him and then cutting him with a knife.

Helverson said Russo said the two suspects sounded like black males though he didn’t get a good look.

But after McDonough police spent hours investigating the crime scene, things didn't add up.

“Pictures were taken and neatly place on the ground. There was an odor of OC spray ... pepper spray in the apartment, which is unusual for burglars to carry,” Helverson said. “(He) ultimately confessed to a GBI agent that assisted in this investigation that he did make up the story.”

In addition to the internal investigation into the arrest, Porter said Russo was involved in two on-duty shootings in 2013. Both were investigated by the GBI, which is routine under department policy.

“We're going to make sure that this officer gets a due process,” Porter said.

Winne tried by phone and in person to contact Russo Monday, but so far Winne has be unsuccessful.

GBI spokeswoman Sherry Lang said the investigations of the two shootings in which Russo was involved in 2013 have been turned over to the District Attorney's Office, which is routine.

Russo was placed in leave without pay during the investigation.

Porter told Winne that Russo had also been previously named as Officer of the Year.

Early Monday morning, Louisiana State Police detectives are investigating the death of 22-year-old Victor White III of New Iberia after he was found deceased of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Troopers began the investigation at the request of Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal.

The initial investigation indicates that Sunday night at about 11:22 p.m., deputies with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office were responding to the report of a fight in the 300 block of Lewis Street. Upon responding to the area, deputies located White and discovered he was in possession of illegal narcotics.

White was taken into custody, handcuffed behind his back, and transported to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office for processing. Once at the sheriff's office, White became uncooperative and refused to exit the deputy's patrol vehicle.

As the deputy requested assistance from other deputies, White produced a handgun and fired one round striking himself in the back. White was transported to a local hospital by ambulance where he was pronounced dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Detectives are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the case.

In December 2011, Collinsville, Ill., police officer Michael Reichert pulled over Terrance Huff’s red PT Cruiser on Interstate 70, just outside of St. Louis. That portion of the interstate is commonly known to local defense lawyers as a “forfeiture corridor,” or a place where police agencies target motorists they suspect are smuggling (or perhaps just carrying) drugs in the hope of seizing cash, cars and other property for their departments.

After an alert from Reichert’s drug dog and an exhaustive search of Huff’s car, Reichert found no measurable quantity of drugs (he claimed to have found marijuana “shake”), and sent Huff on his way.

Unfortunately for Reichert, Huff is a documentary filmmaker. He’s also nobody’s pushover. After fighting some resistance from the Collinsville Police Department, Huff obtained dash-camera footage that raised some questions about the stop, the dog alert, Reichert’s questioning of Huff, and Reichert’s history of disciplinary problems as a police officer. It also raised some broader questions about how all of these tactics are used across the country. (I explored some of those questions here.) The incident later inspired a plot line in a 2012 episode of the CBS drama “The Good Wife.”

Huff then filed a lawsuit, which has since turned up all sorts of interesting information, including the fact that Reichert sometimes wiped marijuana on cars parked at local businesses as a form of training for his dog — without consent from the cars’ owners.
The biggest barrier to lawsuits against police officers is the doctrine of qualified immunity. It isn’t enough to show that a cop violated your rights. To even get in front of a jury, you must also show that the rights the officer violated were “well established” at the time of the incident. The tactics Reichert used in Huff’s case are fairly common, so Huff surviving qualified immunity was far from a sure thing. But this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected Reichert’s qualified immunity claim and will allow Huff’s suit to go forward.

The decision is a thorough rebuke of Reichert and an unmitigated victory for Huff — the court ruled in his favor on every claim. Huff will now need to persuade a jury to rule against Reichert.

Eric Smith's girlfriend called 911 after her boyfriend passed out on the floor of their East Rochester, NY apartment, and became unresponsive.

Getting an early start on St. Patrick's Day festivities, Smith, a Warped music band tour manager who had not drank alcohol for some time, became sick after drinking for several hours.

Within minutes of his girlfriend's call to 911, four female EMS technicians arrived.

As they were tending to Eric Smith, several East Rochester Police officers, and Monroe County, NY Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene, and entered Eric Smith's apartment.

According to Smith's girlfriend, by that time, Eric Smith was coherent and told the EMS technicians that he did not want to go to the hospital.

Then, as I've pointed out for years, at that point, the East Rochester Police officers and Monroe County Sheriff's deputies did something law enforcement officers seem to be very good at.



Photo by Davy V.
Creating, then escalating a completely unnecessary situation.

Several of the E.R. cops and MCSO deputies grabbed Eric Smith and told him that he had to go to the hospital.

Smith refused.

...

The family of a homeless man repeatedly shot by police has reached a $725,000 settlement with the city of Saginaw.

Police fired more than 40 shots, striking Milton Hall 11 times and killing him in 2012. Police say they acted after the mentally ill man refused to drop a knife.

Saginaw attorney Bill Reising says a $725,000 deal to end the civil rights lawsuit was reached Friday.

Hall family attorney Cynthia Heenan says police had options before they decided to fire at the 49-year-old Hall. She describes it as a “firing squad.”

The case moved quickly. The settlement comes less than six months after a lawsuit was filed in Bay City federal court.

Salt Lake Police say they’re seeing a rash of vehicle thefts downtown.
They say criminals are looking for small items to steal and pawn, but often end up finding the car keys and make off with the vehicle.

That’s what happened to a Salt Lake City man, but thanks to technology and an athletic dad the victim was able to get his stuff back.

The victim, who didn’t want to be identified, said he planned to run into his work just a minute and left his door unlocked with the keys inside, when he got back the car was gone.

“I left my phone in the car and in about five minutes, I was able to pull up the iCloud and locate a GPS coordinate for where my phone was at that time,” he said.
The victim called his dad, who is a former cop and retired district attorney for Salt Lake County, Neal Gunnarson.

“We had his computer out and there it was on the screen, a little red dot showing exactly where his cell phone was. We called the police, they recommended that we find him. So we went out and jumped in the car and took off like 007,” Gunnarson said.

The father and son tracked the cell phone as it moved between West Temple and 4th South to 21st South and Main, that’s where they saw a man with their gym bag.

“Dad jumped out of the car, grabbed the guy by the shoulder, said I want to see this bag, took it off his shoulder. The guy just said it’s my stuff. I said, well let’s see,” said the victim. “[We] opened it up and it was all my stuff.”

At that point the suspect took off running with the 71-year-old Gunnarson in hot pursuit.
“I was aware that I was doing something that was not probably the smartest thing in the world,” Gunnarson said.

The suspect eventually had nowhere to go. Gunnarson and his son held him down and waited for police to arrive.

In a matter of minutes, the suspect confessed and told the police they could find the car parked at a nearby grocery store.

Police said that arrest solved three open car theft cases.

An elderly Pennsylvania man was tasered by police not once, not twice, but six times in a Wal-Mart parking lot after being mistaken for his brother, according to a suit filed in federal court.

According to the suit, Robert Gross, 76, had driven his brother, Carl Gross Sr., to see Carl’s granddaughter Aug. 21, 2012 at an Allentown hair cutting salon.

Carl walked into the Cost Cutters on the 1000 block of Millcreek Road. When Carl did not return after 10 minutes, Robert Gross decided to walk to the nearby phone store to see what it might cost to replace his cell phone. Shortly after getting out of his pickup truck he encountered two Berks Lehigh police officers, the suit states.

The officers began shouting and screaming. When they reached Robert they threw him to the ground on his chest. When Gross asked what was going on, the police replied “you know.”

Gross, of Schnecksville, didn’t “know,” according to the suit. When he asked again, the police allegedly tasered him a half-dozen times before cuffing him and pulling him to his feet. As they stuffed him into the back of their police cruiser, he spotted another set of officers arresting his brother, Carl...

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.

What happens when an armed killer invades your home? In Ft Worth... This is what happens.

One dog is dead and a second injured after their owners say a Mobile police officer entered their yard and opened fire while searching for trespassing suspects.

Mark and Lynn Yeager had to bury one of their dogs, Alfred, of 12 years after witnessing the shooting in their yard on Clearmont Street in Mobile.

“I understand that they’re trying to do their job. My dog was trying to do his job and there has to be a happy medium,” said Mark Yeager. “I don’t think they used good common sense.”

Police say officials had detained two individuals near Murphy High school who eventually ran off. Officers says they were chasing the suspects and eventually entered the Yeager’s yard, alerting the two pets who they say were aggressive toward the officer.

“I saw the policeman backing up with his gun pointed – heard two shots,” said Yeager. “I went ballistic. I mean I couldn’t believe it. He lay there about 15 minutes and I sat there and petted him and talked to him till he died.”

Mobile police are reviewing the case.

Internal Affairs also responded and is investigating.

One dog is dead and a second injured after their owners say a Mobile police officer entered their yard and opened fire while searching for trespassing suspects.

Mark and Lynn Yeager had to bury one of their dogs, Alfred, of 12 years after witnessing the shooting in their yard on Clearmont Street in Mobile.

“I understand that they’re trying to do their job. My dog was trying to do his job and there has to be a happy medium,” said Mark Yeager. “I don’t think they used good common sense.”

Police say officials had detained two individuals near Murphy High school who eventually ran off. Officers says they were chasing the suspects and eventually entered the Yeager’s yard, alerting the two pets who they say were aggressive toward the officer.

“I saw the policeman backing up with his gun pointed – heard two shots,” said Yeager. “I went ballistic. I mean I couldn’t believe it. He lay there about 15 minutes and I sat there and petted him and talked to him till he died.”

Mobile police are reviewing the case.

Internal Affairs also responded and is investigating.